The Syndetic Paradigm: The Untrodden Path Beyond Freud and Jung (S U N Y Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology)

The Syndetic Paradigm The Untrodden Path Beyond Freud and Jung

Robert Aziz

State University of New York

THE SYNDETIC PARADIGM

SUNY SERIES IN TRANSPERSONAL AND HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

RICHARD D. MANN, EDITOR

THE SYNDETIC PARADIGM T H E U N T RO D D E N PAT H B E YO N D F R E U D

AND

ROBERT AZIZ

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

JUNG

The cover photograph titled “Dune” by Bruce Heinemann appears under license from Getty Images. Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2007 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 194 Washington Avenue, Suite 305, Albany, NY 12210–2384 Production by Dana Foote Marketing by Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Aziz, Robert, 1954– The syndetic paradigm : the untrodden path beyond Freud and Jung / Robert Aziz. p. cm. — (SUNY series in transpersonal and humanistic psychology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN–13: 978–0–7914–6981–1 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN–13: 978–0–7914–6982–8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Freud, Sigmund, 1856–1939. 2. Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav), 1875–1961. 3. Psychoanalysis. I. Title. II. Series. BF173.F85A95 2007 150.19′52—dc22 2006007842 10

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For my wife, Marguerite, and our sons, Nicholas and Jonathan

CONTENTS Acknowledgments

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Introduction

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I

Self-Organizing Nature

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II

Nature’s Intrinsic Morality

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III

Sexual Alchemy

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IV

The Empty Mandala

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Notes

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Bibliography

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Index

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As with my first book, this work has been the product of many years of research and reflection. Unlike my first book, however, I can say that this work would not have come into being but for the sincere developmental strivings of my analysands. By way of their journeys from unconsciousness to consciousness, from the meaningless to the meaningful, passing through personal, transpersonal and, most importantly, cultural reality planes, the vision of this work was given life. My analysands, in this regard, are its cocreators. It is with deep gratitude, therefore, that I acknowledge the gift of their effort and their belief, in the most conscious sense of that word, much as I am no less inclined to acknowledge the effort and belief of those who have yet to carry this work further still into life.

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INTRODUCTION For those individuals, especially Jungian adherents, who experienced in my first book, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity,1 a championing of the Jungian position, coming to terms with the direction of this book will be no easy task, if it is at all possible to do. I am led to say this not only because of what I have come to understand about paradigmatic entrenchment, but because of the shock I myself experienced when my own inquiry into the theoretical work of Jung took the unanticipated turn that it did. I myself certainly did not put twenty years of exhaustive thought and research into a theoretical model whose collapse I anticipated. I certainly did not foresee I would be forced to abandon a theoretical model on which I had so carefully worked. So I do ask my readers to bear in mind as they move through this book that that which most probably will be their experiences of frustration, shock, and suffering are no less mine. Thomas Kuhn’s monumental work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions tells us that the history of science contradicts conventional assumptions that scientific progress is cumulative. Scientific progress, Kuhn relates, more accurately takes the form of “a succession of tradition-bound periods punctuated by non-cumulative breaks.”2 Science, to put it differently, is an enterprise in which cumulative progressions push research and thinking to the farthest reaches of a given scientific model before, and for reasons not always clear, a noncumulative break occurs—what Kuhn calls a paradigmatic shift. Research is then propelled into a new dimension altogether thus causing, among other things, the old research model to be integrated to the new one. Now the assumption of strictly cumulative progress in science is based on an even more fundamental, false premise, that being that science is entirely objective and as such produces absolute facts and absolute theories. If science were objective to the extent that it yielded absolute facts and absolute theories, science most certainly would progress in a strictly 1

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Introduction

cumulative, step-by-step manner. But science does not progress in that fashion, as Kuhn explains, because science has its own belief systems, which, it should be emphasized, are clung to within scientific communities with the fervor shown by adherents of all secular and religious belief systems. Accordingly, far from being objective and untethered, scientific research and the conclusions derived from it are invariably restricted by the assumptions of a given scientific community’s belief system. “Normal science,” Kuhn writes about the limitations of such scientific belief systems, “the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like. Much of the success of the enterprise derives from the community’s willingness to defend that assumption, if necessary at considerable cost.” Membership in a scientific community, Kuhn thus concludes with specific reference to the problem of scientific objectivity, entails the pursuit of research in the form of “a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education.”3 Paradigmatic shift, it should be taken from the above, will thus come at no small price to one initiating such change. At the least it will entail having to leave behind and go forward alone without those with whom one was once conjoined in shared beliefs and understandings. This was certainly Freud’s experience when he broke with the more conventional medical community of his time, and it was no less Jung’s experience when he parted ways with Freud and his followers. Of course for the rebellious such professional estrangement, albeit seemingly self-inflicted, is never enough punishment; rather there must also be insult and shame. And that must take the form not only of vicious, often entirely unsupported personal accusations from those remaining behind, but also no less energetic attempts from that same quarter to discredit the new paradigmatic model in its entirety. There can be no doubt, for instance, that Edward Glover’s Freud or Jung categorically sought to discredit to the psychoanalytical world Jung’s psychology in its entirety. And there can be no less doubt that Freudians unquestioningly embraced Glover’s blatantly tendentious appraisal “as providing the final word on Jung,”4 as James William Anderson notes. Most Freudians, we should just say, looked no further than Glover to understand and evaluate Jung’s discoveries and theories. Of course, in all fairness to Freudians, from the other side of the now well-drawn battle line, the Jungian appraisal of Freud’s contribution was no less inequitable. Indeed when it came to the Jungian inquiry into Freudian theory the search for understanding was pursued neither with energy nor sincerity. And

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when, moreover, Jungian attention specifically turned to Glover’s critique, it would be accurate to say that Jung and Jungians unreflectively dismissed that work as quickly as Freudians unreflectively embraced it. When it came to Freud or Jung, Jung and Jungians, in the absence of serious reflection, categorically dismissed theoretical criticisms that were more than worthy of their attention, some of which, I might add, will be taken up in this work. Jung, for his part, even went so far as to absolve himself of the burden of theoretical accountability to Glover by resorting to an old psychoanalytical trick—the impugning of character through utterly unsubstantiated accusations. Directing attention from the content of the theoretical critique of Freud or Jung to the author’s purported latent motives, Jung, in a letter to Maria Folino Weld, thus wrote: “Glover’s book—apart from its more venomous qualities is quite amusing. . . . A critique like his is always suspect as a compensation for an unconscious inclination in the other direction. He is certainly not stupid enough not to see the point I make, but I touch upon a weak spot in him, namely where he represses his better insight and his latent criticism of his Freudian superstition.”5 It was not Freud’s choice per se, we really do need to understand, to put himself at odds with the Viennese medical community. Similarly, it was not Jung’s choice to put himself at odds with Freud and his followers. Each man, first and foremost, arrived at that place of irreconcilable differences with the group to which he had once belonged as a committed member, not entirely of his own accord, nor, as I would also note, out of anger or resentment, but rather by way of an obligation—an obligation to honor the creative spirit by which he was gripped. This brings us back to an earlier point that we now need to convert into a specific question: If paradigmatic shifts constitute noncumulative breaks, how exactly do they come about? The answer to this question, Kuhn suggests, approaches not only the mystery of scientific invention, but it no less once again leads us to the problem of the workings of the scientific process itself. “Does a field make progress,” Kuhn reflects with this very problem in mind, “because it is a science, or is it a science because it makes progress?”6 From where does the momentum for paradigmatic shift come? “More often,” Kuhn writes, no such structure is consciously seen in advance. Instead, the new paradigm, or a sufficient hint to permit later articulation, emerges all at once, sometimes in the middle of the night, in the mind of a man deeply immersed in crisis. What the nature of that final stage is—how an individual invents (or finds he has invented) a new way of giving order to data now all assembled—must here remain inscrutable and

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Introduction may be permanently so. Let us here note only one thing about it. Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change.7

If paradigmatic shifts were indeed outcomes of cumulative research, newcomers to a given scientific field would be the most unlikely of candidates to initiate such breakthroughs. But because paradigmatic shifts are noncumulative and because, moreover, their appearance has more to do with the creative spirit by which an individual is gripped than they have to do with the depth of that individual’s understanding of the cumulative knowledge of a given field, it follows that paradigmatic shifts would most often be initiated by newcomers. Now given these factors it also follows, I would further add, that when a paradigmatic shift is in its earliest stages in the mind of an individual, the greatest point of tension between that individual and the scientific community of which he or she is a member will not be of a theoretical nature—since theoretical matters are not the primary instigators of paradigmatic shift anyway—but rather, will take the form of an internal/external struggle to secure psychic space for the newly emerging paradigmatic understanding. The collision course on which the great creative spirits of Jung and Freud found themselves at the time of the parting of ways is an excellent case in point. When Freud and Jung met for the first time in Vienna in March 1907 the two men talked nonstop for thirteen hours.8 Freud, Jung would later write in his autobiography, “was a great man, and what is more, a man in the grip of his daimon.”9 Jung, as we know, was no less similarly possessed. As long, accordingly, as the spirits of these two men were able to resonate with the intensity that characterized their relationship in the early years, all was well in the world of psychoanalysis. By 1912, however, it had become clear to both Freud and Jung that that which had once so powerfully conjoined them in creative process would never again be recovered. By 1912, Freud and Jung had thus reached a point of no return—a point of no return that had far more to do with Jung’s still unrecognized need for creative space than it had to do with the existence of significant theoretical differences. Simply put: while Freud’s experience of paradigmatic breakthrough had happened, Jung’s had not, yet unbeknownst to both men it was about to. Creative space was thus desperately needed in order for that breakthrough to be able to come to consciousness in Jung and theoretically unfold. “The whole thing came upon me,” Jung wrote some thirty-seven years later, “like a landslide that cannot be stopped. The ur-

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gency that lay behind it became clear to me only later: it was the explosion of all those psychic contents which could find no room, no breathing-space, in the constricting atmosphere of Freudian psychology and its narrow outlook.”10 By 1913 Jung found himself caught in the type of powerful, all-consuming transformative crisis—the deep personal crisis to which Kuhn refers above—that had taken hold of Freud between the years of 1894 and 1900.11 Beginning in 1913, and in the six years that followed, Jung remained in the grip of that which Henri F. Ellenberger in his comprehensive work The Discovery of the Unconscious describes as a creative illness. Just as Freud himself underwent the hardship and personal suffering of creative illness in bringing forth psychoanalysis, Jung, Ellenberger maintains, found himself in 1913 seized by a comparably chaotic psychic ordeal out of which he would extricate an entirely new paradigmatic understanding of the psyche and its workings. As with Freud’s creative illness, Jung’s own creative illness, I would further note in keeping with Kuhn’s observation, spontaneously came upon him when he was yet a relative newcomer to his respective scientific field. “It is our hypothesis,” Ellenberger concludes about the centrality of creative illness to the paradigmatic breakthroughs of Freud and Jung, “that Freud’s and Jung’s systems originated mostly from their respective creative illness.”12 It was not Freud’s choice to put himself at odds with the Viennese medical community of his time anymore than it was his choice to undergo a creative illness of the proportions that he did. Similarly, it was not Jung’s choice per se to put himself at odds with Freud and his followers. Each man, first and foremost, arrived at that place of irreconcilable differences with the group to which he once belonged as a committed member, not of his own accord, nor out of anger or resentment, but rather, I will now go somewhat further to say, out of an obligation to honor the facts that had unexpectedly come to him by way of the study and application, both personally and clinically, of his newly emerging paradigmatic understanding. Every scientific model, as Kuhn has emphasized, like all secular and religious worldviews, has a belief system, and it is only when the belief system of a particular scientific, secular, or religious worldview shifts, that its adherents’ access to facts will shift also. The facts in which a paradigm allows one to believe, one will see; the facts in which a paradigm does not allow one to believe, one will not see or will see only partially. This is why cumulative information that would potentially extend an existing paradigm’s assumptions, never becomes a catalyst for paradigmatic change. Such information will either be invisible to the paradigm or denied by

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it. This has been the history of science, and depth psychology is no exception. For example those psychic facts which the Freudian Paradigm in keeping with its mechanistic-causal assumptions could regard only as archaic vestiges,13 that is to say, inherited, largely nonfunctional, psychic remnants carried forward from the distant past, would be acknowledged under the Jungian Paradigm’s teleological assumptions as archetypes, that is to say, as innate, dynamic transpersonal components of the self-regulatory psyche. Of course the facts to which paradigmatic assumptions give one access do not remain just facts for long, but rather are promptly converted into theories as they quite rightly should be. The subsequent theories, which themselves will conform to and as such be subject to the strengths and weaknesses of paradigmatic assumptions, become in turn the strategic points around which the invariable battles of the competing schools are fought. Now as with all such ideologically based clashes, the ensuing battles over paradigmatic-based theory are pursued with ruthlessness and abandon. So much so that it is the case that should a victory over a competing theory be achieved seldom will there exist the presence of mind and consciousness on the part of the victor to seek and recover from the carnage not only that for which the theory originally came into being, but that which still very much lives, much as it always has done, separate from the now dismissed or annihilated theory. The greatest misfortune of these theoretical battles is that when a theory has been dismissed or altogether annihilated people proceed as if the underlying facts themselves have died right along with it. As we know, Jung and Freud, Jungians and Freudians have waged countless theoretical battles of this nature, and through genuine or imagined victory many precious facts have wrongly been left for dead on those battlefields. When Freud, for example, clinically observed a linkage between neurosis and religious practice, his own paradigmatic assumptions compelled him to theorize about that fact that religious experience itself was nothing other than a manifestation of neurosis. Jung, on the other hand, following paradigmatic assumptions of his own that held religious experience to be a component of the human process in its own right, categorically rejected Freud’s theoretical conclusion. Whereas Freud’s paradigmatic assumptions pulled the subsequent theorizing about this important clinical fact in one direction, Jung’s paradigmatic assumptions pulled it in another. Whereas Freud, more directly put, was ultimately inclined to view this fact about religious experience in far too pessimistic or negative of a light; Jung himself was inclined to minimize its significance. The upshot of all of this being that Jung, in rejecting Freud’s theory about the ultimate neurotic

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basis of religion, failed to acknowledge and address clinically the type of neurotic behaviors that commonly present in association with religious practices. Jung, to return to our original point, rejected the Freudian fact with the Freudian theory. There clearly are good theories and there clearly are very bad ones, some have limited life spans while others endure over time, yet regardless of how complete or incomplete, how developed or undeveloped a theory happens to be, we must never lose sight of that out of which that theory has emerged, that is to say, we must never lose sight of its factual basis. This, of course, would be the ultimate shortcoming of a work such as Glover’s Freud or Jung. Glover may very well have done at times an excellent job in his critique of Jungian theory, but Glover’s bias against Jung and all things Jungian, would preclude him altogether from understanding, or even showing the slightest sensitivity to the type of facts upon which Jung’s theories were based and ultimately sought to honor. Now the degree to which paradigmatic belief systems condition both the accumulation of facts and their theoretical articulation is especially evident in the psychology of the unconscious when attention turns to dream analysis. The facts of a dream, it should be understood, are layered. Accordingly, the assumptions held by a given paradigm will determine not only how the facts of a dream will be interpreted, but also which layers of facts will be accessed. Because Freudians and Jungians, more specifically, hold different paradigmatic assumptions, they will not only interpret the facts they accumulate differently, but they will access different factual layers of the same dream. The competing theories on dream interpretation produced by these two schools are, then, not so much indicative, as their followers would have us believe, of one school more so than the other dealing with the real facts, but rather that each school is simply able to see different facts, or the same facts differently. I can use the following dream to illustrate this point. An analysand dreamed of being in a home that she herself had once owned, yet in the dream was now owned by her sister. Her sister, her sister’s daughter, and the daughter’s baby were present. “We were all chatting,” the analysand continued, while my sister and niece were sorting clothes. One room was empty except for some baby clothes—about 18 months to 2 years—that had belonged to my children. I’d given them to my niece for her daughter a few months ago, and now was feeling the baby wouldn’t be using them; she had grown too much. I began sorting through them and collecting them to take home with me.

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Introduction As I was collecting them to take back home again, I saw a hurt look on my niece’s face. I then commented. “But I thought you wouldn’t be needing them because the baby has grown so much.” “No, Aunt S., they fit her perfectly,” she replied. I was cringing with embarrassment and hung them back on the railing. I felt terrible. I loved handling the clothing, remembering my children when they were little. It was hard to keep the tears away.

From the Freudian perspective, the fact that probably would most readily present itself to an analyst would be the analysand’s apparent jealousy of her sister. The sister, the dream tells us, is not only in possession of the analysand’s former home but, moreover, is in possession of a grandchild, which the analysand herself does not have—a grandchild, one would quickly surmise, which the analysand desires as a means of recovering the maternal role lost to her through the maturation of her own children. Now of course the critical point of revelation in the dream, as regards the Freudian access to its facts, occurs when the discrepancy between wish and reality is unveiled. It occurs when the analysand realizes her wish that the baby’s clothes should no longer fit, which is to say, her wish that the clothes be returned to her sooner than later and preferably with the children who once fit into them, is completely out of line with the reality that they still do fit, and “perfectly” at that. Suddenly the analysand finds herself “cringing with embarrassment” as she realizes her jealousy has been exposed to all. Turning to the Jungian treatment of this dream, it should be explained, by way of preparing the ground for our discussion, that Jung, in contrast to Freud, held that the compensatory dream symbolism of the unconscious not only supports the processing of experiences past and present, but works no less, in keeping with its teleological propensities, to support the future developmental needs of the personality. The different layer of facts to which the Jungian perspective would here give us access, therefore, pertains specifically to the way in which the dream’s symbolism is working to meet the analysand’s future developmental needs. Now before we resign ourselves to the notion that jealousy is simply a power factor in its own right whose destructive activity can at best be minimized through acts of will, we also need to consider, I would suggest, that under certain circumstances jealousy presents as a cover of sorts for that with which one is unable to come to terms. Jealousy, in this respect, would be but a means of avoiding the real problem at hand. Jealousy would

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be but a destructive by-product of one’s inability to face up to that with which one must come to terms. When one is gripped by jealousy, therefore, one would be well advised to look carefully around one’s life to see if there is anything of consequence with which one is not dealing. Now a further point needing to be made here is that the type of psychic arrest of which jealousy is a by-product would not arise in connection with something that would be unattainable. It would not, in other words, arise out of one’s failure to realize that which one is incapable of becoming, such as would be true of the analysand’s inability to become a mother/grandmother at the time of her dream. Rather, such arrest and jealousy would stem only from one’s failure to meet a challenge whose fulfillment potentially is within one’s grasp. And that challenge, as further discussion of the dream and life circumstances of the analysand revealed, had to do with coming to terms with her life, not as it had existed in the past, but rather as it existed now and would soon exist in the not too distant future. When we looked around to see if there was anything that was being avoided, any task that especially struck her as daunting, what immediately came to my analysand’s mind was her great apprehension about certain marital issues that up to that point had for the most part been circumvented, but were about to be thrust upon her and her husband with his impending retirement. Returning to the dream, then, we can now understand the extent to which the layers of meaning that present in association with the central symbol of the dream—the baby clothes—evidences, among other things, the remarkable intricacies of dream symbolism. The more obvious interpretation of the exchange that occurs around this central symbol is, as already noted, that the analysand, driven by jealousy of her sister, attempts to escape from reality into the wish that she herself would sooner than later be a mother/grandmother. There is, however, a less accessible meaning to be taken from the dream—an additional factual layer of the dream’s compensatory meaning which, if correctly understood, would not only stop the problem of jealousy as represented in the dream in its tracks, but serve, moreover, to direct the analysand to a yet unacknowledged personal challenge of the greatest importance to her future happiness. Specifically, through further associations provided by the analysand, it was determined that during the time one of her daughters wore the actual clothing depicted in the dream—when the daughter was eighteen months to two years old—the analysand’s marriage underwent its most difficult period ever with respect to relationship and intimacy issues. With its usual astuteness, therefore, the unconscious had set things up so that that which was being wishfully reached for by the analysand as

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a means of escape—the baby clothes—would ultimately be the same symbolic means by which the analysand would be led back to face the real challenge upon which the future development and happiness of her marriage would depend, the level of intimacy in her marriage. It was, therefore, I will say in conclusion, only through following Jungian assumptions about the psyche and its teleological properties that we were granted access to a layer of facts to which those operating out of strictly Freudian assumptions would be denied. It was only in this manner that we were able to benefit from the direction offered to the analytical process by the unconscious. This dream, I will further add, marked a turning point for this analysand. From here she moved forward. And in so doing laid claim to a space in which both she and her husband had never before resided. The facts, I will again emphasize, in which a scientific paradigm allows one to believe, one will see; the facts in which a scientific paradigm does not allow one to believe, one will not see or see only partially. Far from providing an entirely objective picture of reality based on absolute facts, scientific research merely offers us an approximate view of reality derived from, and subject to the limitations of, the assumptions of a given paradigmatic belief system. Information, accordingly, that conforms to the assumptions of a given paradigm will be unconditionally embraced, whereas information that does not conform to those same assumptions either will not be seen, or will be ignored or will be held in contempt. “Normal science,” Kuhn tells, “. . . often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments.”14 What fits in, in other words, will be welcomed, whereas that which does not fit in will simply be shown the door. And it is indeed due to such paradigmatic exclusivity and groupthink, as Kuhn reflects, that we seldom see within scientific communities “disagreement over fundamentals.”15 For many years I wondered why Jung and Jungians had not drawn out the theoretical implications of synchronicity for Jungian psychology as a whole. How could Jung and Jungians, I questioned, purport to work analytically with instances of these phenomena, yet so completely ignore their broader implications? The answer, I can now understand, is that the assumptions of the belief system within which they were working prevented them from doing so. Their fundamental paradigmatic assumptions kept them from grasping the import of what was before them, much as Freudian paradigmatic assumptions had precluded within that community any receptivity whatsoever to comparably significant Jungian findings. The fundamental paradigmatic assumption of Freudian psychology is that of a psyche in conflict with itself. The conscious and unconscious,

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in this respect, compete for dominance. The solution to this predicament resides exclusively with the differentiation and strengthening of the ego. And, of course, the contribution of Freud and his followers to this end is exemplary. The fundamental paradigmatic assumption of the Jungian Paradigm, by contrast, is the notion of the self-regulatory psyche, that is to say, the psyche’s capability to spontaneously self-organize. Inextricably tied to this self-regulatory model is Jung’s clinical discovery of the existence of transpersonal factors in the unconscious—transpersonal factors which, being innate and uniformly present in all people, exist independently of the ego. Through these transpersonal factors, which Jung came to term archetypes, the psyche makes available to consciousness, in the form of its compensatory dream symbols, transpersonal solutions to the transpersonal problems with which life confronts the ego on an ongoing basis. Now in that it was immediately apparent to Jung that these archetypal symbols emerging spontaneously from within the psyche paralleled the symbols found in the mythologies and religious systems of the world, the problem of the search for spiritual meaning came to be regarded within the Jungian Paradigm as a critical component of the developmental process itself. Indeed, very much in contrast to Freudian theory—which in viewing the life process largely in terms of ego dynamics regarded the spiritual as nothing more than a neurotically driven wish for comfort—Jungian theory deemed the problem of spiritual meaning the sine qua non of the human process. The influence of archetypal theory, however, didn’t stop there, for it reached beyond the consulting room to validate religious symbolism and ritual in a manner that no psychological theory to date had done. And this was more than welcome support to those who had felt their religious beliefs to be so fiercely attacked by Freudian theory. Through the importation of transpersonal or archetypal meanings to the rituals and symbols of existing religions, the experience of the sacred thus became for many greatly heightened. What over time had simply become commonplace and ordinary underwent renewal—remythologization—and now under the auspices of archetypal validation found its way back into the realm of the extraordinary. The two outstanding Jungian contributions to psychodynamic theory were, then, the identification of the self-regulatory psyche, and very closely related to this the establishment of the compensatory value of the transpersonal meanings found within it. Now although there can be no question of the importance of these breakthroughs, exactly where Jung and Jungians were to end up in their work with them was, however, an altogether different matter. Firstly, given the all-encompassing nature of

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the self-regulatory model of the psyche, Jung and Jungians, somewhat understandably, yet wrongly and to their great theoretical detriment, came to regard the psyche as a world unto itself. A disconnection from the outer world thus emerged in a manner it never did, nor would have done, under the auspices of Freudian theory. Worse still, the extreme subjectivism to which such a strictly inner-world orientation gave rise ultimately produced within the Jungian theoretical model a solipsistic-type split with Reality itself. Secondly, as a direct consequence of the disproportionate attention given archetypal dynamics, much of the critical work laid down by Freud on the ego and its differentiation was lost to Jungian theory and clinical practice. Thirdly, and as a further effect of this same imbalance, Jungian theory, somewhat ironically, became as reductive in its clinical employment of the archetypal as it had held Freudian theory to be with sexuality. As will be explained later in this work, such Jungian archetypal reductionism was carried so far that it eventually placed Jungian psychology at odds with its core paradigmatic assumption, that is to say, the selfregulating psyche. Fourthly, and finally, although it can be said that clinical theory was benefited by the inclusion within the analytical process of the search for spiritual meaning, the imprudent enthusiasm on the part of Jung and Jungians to pursue the archetypal dimensions of the spiritual inadvertently served to give cover and license to those neurotic manifestations of religious experience and practice that Freudian theory was unequivocal in identifying and condemning. In the form, therefore, of its radical inner-world orientation, in the form of its abandonment of self-regulatory dynamics and, not least of all, in the form of its extreme archetypalism, the Jungian Paradigm, in its treatment of both symbol and life, became, it will be compellingly established by the end of this work, inextricably enmeshed in what I would term a Romantic trap. Finding our way into this problem we need look no further than the prologue to Jung’s autobiography. “My life,” Jung begins, is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious. Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation, and the personality too desires to evolve out of its unconscious conditions and to experience itself as a whole. . . . I have now undertaken, in my eighty-third year, to tell my personal myth. . . . Whether or not the stories are “true” is not the problem. The only question is what I tell is my fable, my truth. . . . In the end the only events worth telling are those when the imperishable world irrupted into this transitory one. That is why I speak

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chiefly of inner experiences. . . . All other memories of travels, people and my surroundings have paled beside these interior happenings. . . . Everything else has lost importance by comparison. . . . Outward circumstances are no substitute for inner experience.16 The disproportionate fondness within Romanticism for subjectivity and inner-world experience is more than evidenced in Jung’s above statement. The events, the travels, and even the relationships of his life, we are told, were of significance to him only to the degree to which they aroused inner experiences. Would a friend or lover, we should ask, experience in such thinking one of the more comforting expressions of affection? I certainly would think not. But there can be no doubt that such thinking is characteristically Romantic. “Not only passionate love,” Bertrand Russell writes with reference to such Romantic sentiments, “but every friendly relation to others, is only possible, to this way of feeling, in so far as the others can be regarded as a projection of one’s own Self.”17 Not at all confined to Jung’s autobiography this type of Romantic thinking about relationship and intimacy actually pervades the entire Jungian corpus. For example, in the work of one of Jung’s most highly regarded disciples, Edward F. Edinger, essentially the same idea is presented in the context of his discussion of bereavement. In his widely acclaimed book Ego and Archetype, Edinger writes with reference to the bereavement process: “Mourning is caused by the loss of an object or person who was carrying an important projected value. In order to withdraw projections and assimilate their content into one’s own personality it is necessary to experience the loss of the projection as a prelude to rediscovering the content or value within. Therefore, mourners are fortunate because they are involved in a growth process. They will be comforted when the lost projected value has been recovered within the psyche.”18 I will here limit myself to saying about this characteristic Jungian account of mourning that I am sure that most people would hope that they would be remembered in death as more than simply a lost projected value out of the minds of those who survive them. Now the impact of such disproportionate inner-world processing on both the theory and practice of Jungian psychology is not to be underestimated. The position of the Jungian Paradigm is, to be sure, a most radical one, and through it both analyst and analysand are well placed on the road to a full solipsistic split. Whether we are talking about solipsism as an orientation in which the self can know only its own experiences or, further still, that nothing exists but the self, there are moments in Jung’s work when his acceptance of not just one of these statements, but both of them,

14

Introduction

would be hard to refute. That an insurmountable divide separates the inner world of the psyche and the outer world is a theme by which the entire theoretical model of the Jungian Paradigm is gripped. Not lost on others, the fact of the presence of this divide in Jungian theory and practice has of course been the basis of the much voiced, and largely justified I would add, accusations against Jung of psychologism. No less characteristic of Jungian Romantic proclivities would be the Jungian tendency to slice Reality along purely aesthetic, which is to say, archetypal lines. Here personal differentiation is sacrificed to the pursuit of that, which to the aesthetically inclined Jungian mind, would be the far more glorious transpersonal, archetypal. Commenting on the role of the aesthetic in Romanticism and writing with specific reference to some of its dark manifestations—dark manifestations to which, as we will see, Jungian psychology itself succumbed in the form of Jung’s discussion of the problem of evil—Russell states: “The Romantic movement, in art, in literature, and in politics, is bound up with this subjective way of judging men, not as members of a community, but as aesthetically delightful objects of contemplation. Tigers are more beautiful than sheep, but we prefer them behind bars. The typical romantic removes the bars and enjoys the magnificent leaps with which the tiger annihilates the sheep. He exhorts men to imagine themselves tigers, and when he succeeds the results are not wholly pleasant.”19 Jungian transpersonal aesthetics is more than evidenced in its case histories. Jung’s own case histories, for instance, typically read more like mythological studies than they do psychological ones. More often than not information of a personal or psychological nature is but a convenient point of departure for lengthy excursions into the archetypal dimensions of the literatures of history, religion, and mythology. Among Jungians today things have gotten no better. This is especially true when it comes to those writing in the genre of what Andrew Samuels describes as the “Jungian pursuit of the best seller.”20 Here Jungian authors are unfortunately rewarded and thus encouraged by a public that is entirely unaware of the critical distinction between the differentiation of personality and simply pouring oneself into an archetypal role of one’s choosing. A well-received book by the Jungian analyst Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves21 provides us with an example of this problem. In her book, as with probably the majority of Jungian books today, the reliance on archetypal theme to convey psychological ideas and truths is both excessive and dangerous. Such archetypal aesthetics, which

Introduction

15

enables one’s readership to hang just about anything that they would choose to on what is said, may be highly seductive stuff, but seldom will it be deeply transformative. In Pinkola-Estes book, for example, she writes about the healing power of tears. “Tears are a river,” she tells us, “that take you somewhere. Weeping creates a river around the boat that carries your soul-life. Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace new, someplace better. . . . For women, tears are the beginning of initiation into the Scar Clan, that timeless tribe of women of all colors, all nations, all languages, who down through the ages have lived through a great something, and yet who stood proud.”22 Tears may be at times transformative, but they can also carry one in the opposite direction. Tears do not necessarily carry one to someplace better. For instance, when tears come to an individual by way of an experience of self-pity, emotional energy that needs to be allowed to gather and pressurize to move an individual forward will be unproductively leaked. Tears of this type will not only serve to keep such an individual emotionally stuck, but they may actually trigger regression and self-destructive tendencies. Concerning the practice of analysis, accordingly, it is of no small consequence for the analyst to be able to discern exactly what type of tears an analysand is presenting, lest support for authentic emotional and psychological growth be compromised. Yes, people would much prefer to imagine themselves members of the Scar Clan than to see their tears as psychological/emotional leaks. The Romantic path of transpersonal aesthetics is always far more pleasing than submitting oneself to the harsh realities of genuine personality differentiation. Yet, the seductive appeal of such a Romantic leap notwithstanding, it should be understood that escape into the archetypal aesthetic would further neither the analytical process nor the soul journey. In fact, it would be inhibitive of both, if it didn’t compromise them altogether. For in the absence of grounding by way of one’s personal psychology, in the absence of the much-needed parameters of ego differentiation, it simply would be one’s psychological and spiritual fate to remain suspended, turning aimlessly on the merry-goround of Romantic archetypal theme. Where is the Reality line in the Jungian Paradigm? Certainly a critical question, yet not one easily answered given that Jung’s writings are rife with contradiction. Still, it nonetheless is a question with which we must wrestle, for it is in the answer to this question that the efficacy of the analytical journey upon which Jung and Jungians have directed numerous individuals to embark in search of soul ultimately depends.

16

Introduction

Where is the Reality line in the Jungian Paradigm? The Jungian Paradigm, I myself have come to conclude, has no fundamental theoretical relationship to an objective Reality line. And this is not simply to say the Jungian Paradigm, given its radical, inner-world orientation, is not related to life beyond the psyche, the outer world. It is to say more than this. It is to say that the Jungian Paradigm, given its Romantic propensity, lacks relationship to an objective Reality line as much in its experience of the inner world as it does in its experience of the outer world. In the Jungian Paradigm, Reality, as it unfolds both inwardly and outwardly through self-organizing nature, has succumbed to Romantic entrapment. When I wrote C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, I very much believed I was fulfilling Jung’s theoretical vision. Jung had, after all, introduced the concept of synchronicity and my assumption was that any work I would do on that subject would simply fit into his existing model. I now more accurately understand that what I was then doing—and indeed what I had been doing from the beginning of my serious work on synchronicity in my mid-twenties—was following my vision of Jung’s work. Synchronicity, I knew, was the single theory with the farthest-reaching implications for Jungian psychology. I also knew that it was perhaps the least understood of Jung’s theories. In Samuels’s extensive study of Jungian psychology, for example, only about half a page is dedicated to the discussion of this concept. Clearly any in-depth discussion of synchronicity had become close to impossible for Jungians given the theoretical shortcomings of Jung’s own handling of the problem.23 As a consequence, the very significant implications of the synchronicity theory for Jung’s psychology as a whole remained unrealized. It was as if Jung had simply taken a box, with only some of the pieces of the theoretical puzzle in it, and then wrote synchronicity across its top. The contribution of my first book was to open that box, remove the theoretical pieces that Jung had placed within it, add the missing theoretical pieces that the box did not contain, and then assemble the puzzle so as to reveal for the first time a complete and comprehensive picture of the synchronicity theory. Now because I believed this newly assembled theoretical whole to be a legitimate extension of existing Jungian theory, even up to this point I still held no doubt that I was fulfilling Jung’s theoretical vision. Indeed my understanding of what I was doing changed only when I finally took the unprecedented step of bringing that newly assembled theoretical whole to bear on clinical work. With the movement into the study of synchronicity in its clinical applications a development began that even liberal theoretical revisions to the existing Jungian model could not legitimately ac-

Introduction

17

commodate. For the first time, irreconcilable differences with the Jungian Paradigm appeared. Most significantly, it not only became apparent to me that the existing Jungian Paradigm could not accommodate the synchronicity principle and its implications, but, moreover, that the Jungian Paradigm itself had fundamental theoretical flaws. And it was at this point that the unanticipated occurred. It was at this point that the Jungian theoretical model began to unravel and a true paradigmatic shift presented itself. What was required, I understood, was a structural shift that would integrate the old to the new, not the new to the old as I had attempted to do in the first book. I can now say further to the above that when in my first book it came to the discussion of the “existing” Jungian theoretical model I had to exercise tremendous selectivity. The ultimate consequence of this being that that book described at times not what the Jungian theoretical model was as such, but rather what that theoretical model could be. It described at times, in other words, the Jungian theoretical model’s potential form as opposed to its actual form. When, moreover, theoretical inconsistencies within the Jungian Paradigm were recognized to exist, decisions were taken to bridge those discrepancies in a manner that would sustain theoretical consistency, especially when it came to the direction and uniformity of the greater theoretical whole. Of course this was something for which Jung himself and Jungians should have assumed responsibility. But the truth is that neither Jung nor his followers have shown that type of theoretical accountability. How, I would ask, can a theoretical system be progressed if it cannot be objectively evaluated and criticized? How, I would further ask, can one even begin to evaluate a theoretical system that cannot be pinned down, but conveniently shape-shifts back and forth? Clearly, in the interest of theoretical and clinical progress in the area of depth psychology, such Jungian theoretical shape shifting must come to an end. My intention, therefore, plain and simple, is to make Jungian psychology theoretically accountable. To this end, the critique that is to follow may very well seem to approach, if not exceed, the harshness of Glover’s. Undeniably, my critique of Jung’s work will be rigorous and at times harsh. However, there can be no question that once we move below the surface shockwaves we will see how Glover’s critique and my critique of Jung that is to follow are truly worlds apart. Glover sought to annihilate Jungian psychology, theories, facts and all. My work, by contrast, if it is about annihilating anything, is about annihilating those Jungian theories that fail to protect Jung’s facts. Yes, the critique of Jung that is to follow is severe, but it must necessarily

18

Introduction

be so in order to identify and replace those theories that fail to protect that which Jung himself ultimately sought to pursue. Accordingly, in contrast to Glover’s work, this work is about far more than merely dismantling the theoretical construct that is Jungian psychology. Rather, it is about the presentation of a new psychodynamic paradigm by way of a critique of Jung’s theoretical model, and to a lesser degree Freud’s. To legitimately move beyond an existing theoretical system it is incumbent on one to justify that advance in terms of discernible theoretical shortcomings and alternatives. This was, of course, something that Jung himself altogether failed to do following his break with Freud. In his own theoretical writings Jung, for example, steered clear of the sexuality theories at the core of Freudian psychology. In fact, compared to the in-depth discussion of human sexuality that is to follow here, Jung hardly touched upon the question of sexuality at all. Undoubtedly, this failing to deal with Freud’s facts and theories about human sexuality greatly undermined the credibility and authority of Jung’s theoretical initiative. Rising above and flying over a theory which one has ambitions to supplant can be no substitute for engaging and moving through it systematically. Lamentably, the trend of the day is to dismiss the contributions of Freud and Jung on the basis of nothing other than the most superficial reasoning and unjust accusations. Humanity stands to suffer greatly if the current mood of collective thinking should prevail to the extent that the insights of Freud and Jung are entirely lost to us, as they very well might be. Theoretical shortcomings notwithstanding, we must find our way to those facts that have been pulled by these two men from the depths of the unconscious, and continue to hold those facts above the surface so as to study and work further with them. What an enormous loss it will be to both psychology and culture if we allow their profound insights into the psyche and human nature simply to slip away from us back beneath the surface of the dark waters of the unconscious. It is time, accordingly, for Jungians and Freudians to shift consciousness and know there are far more serious threats to that upon which they are working than the tension of their differences. Although the model that is to follow extends and even utilizes some of the existing theoretical initiatives of the Freudian and Jungian Paradigms, it nevertheless constitutes a theoretical whole that exceeds the sum of the parts of their respective contributions. As such we find in this work a basis for the coming together of these two schools, or perhaps more accurately and somewhat less optimistically put, we are given a framework within which some of the facts and problems that were of importance to both schools can be worked with and further developed.

Introduction

19

I have chosen to designate the psychodynamic model that is to follow the Syndetic Paradigm. In contrast to the term synchronicity whose etymology and Jungian usage24 relate to the idea of connectedness through time, the etymology of the term syndetic—Greek syndetikos from syndetos from syndein25—simply denotes a state of being bound together. The Syndetic Paradigm, in this regard, holds that all of life, that is to say, nature in its entirety is bound together in a highly complex whole through an ongoing process of spontaneous self-organization. In very great contrast, then, to the core assumptions of the Jungian Paradigm, with the Syndetic Paradigm, we take the critical theoretical step of moving from a closedsystem model of a self-regulatory psyche to an open-system model of a psyche in a self-organizing totality. The implications of such a step, as we will see, are enormous. In the study that is to follow certain Jungian facts and theories will be discarded, others will be carried forward without qualification, while still others will be reinterpreted to improve on their more limited validity. To assist us in this process, a six-stage framework will be used to guide our discussion. Here, the five core principles of the Jungian Paradigm, as well as one of the core principles of the Freudian Paradigm, will be compared to and contrasted with the six core principles of the Syndetic Paradigm. The principles are as follows: First Principle of the Jungian Paradigm The psyche, through the process of psychic compensation, is self-regulating. First Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm The self-regulation of the psyche is a manifestation of the compensatory interaction between, not simply the conscious and the unconscious, but rather consciousness and nature in its entirety. Second Principle of the Jungian Paradigm The psyche contains within its compensatory reservoir factors described by Jung as archetypes that compensate consciousness by providing transpersonal solutions to transpersonal problems. Second Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm In contrast to the present position of Jungian psychology that, in the main, continues to treat archetypal compensation as a strictly intrapsychic phenomenon, within the Syndetic Paradigm archetypal compensation is viewed as a phenomenon present in nature as a whole. Furthermore, although the transpersonal compensatory content that is transmitted through the archetype is valued within

20

Introduction

the Syndetic Paradigm, it is believed that its proper clinical application entails the avoidance of the archetypal reductionism that is characteristic of the Jungian position. Third Principle of the Jungian Paradigm The compensatory process takes place under the direction of a central archetype, the archetype of orientation and meaning, the self. Jung describes the self as both the spiritus rector and goal of the individuation process. Third Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm The process of individuation is not conceived of in terms of an interaction between the ego and a specific center or entity, rather it is conceived of as a compensatory interaction between the ego and the complex system of nature in its entirety in a process of unfoldment. Fourth Principle of the Jungian Paradigm The Jungian ethic arises out of the critical evaluation of the compensatory meanings issuing from the unconscious in the course of the individuation process. The significance of the phrase “critical evaluation” is not to be underestimated. Indeed, in that all compensatory responses take place under the direction of the self and, more importantly, the self is regarded by Jung to be of questionable moral character, it is incumbent on the ego, not the self, to determine and maintain moral standards. Fourth Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm An ethic emerges in the course of the individuation process through the conscious assimilation of what are understood to be the intrinsically moral compensatory activities of nature. Fifth Principle: The Freudian Paradigm on Human Sexuality The Freudian Paradigm holds that the sexual instinct stands not only in opposition to individual experiences of love and intimacy, but that it constitutes, moreover, an obstacle to the formation and progression of culture itself. According to Freud, therefore, the development of intimate relationship, as well as our progression as a culture, is entirely dependent on the sublimation of the sexual instinct. Fifth Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm In great contrast to the position of the Freudian Paradigm that failed to find its way beyond the pathologic forms of human sexuality, the Syndetic Paradigm holds that the sexual instinct as such is intrinsically moral. The ultimate objec-

Introduction

21

tive of human sexuality, accordingly, is for us to deepen our experience of consciousness and life by aligning ourselves directly with the life-giving energies of the sexual instinct in its own right. Sixth Principle of the Jungian Paradigm A significant spiritual or religious experience is fundamental to the healing of the personality, especially for those in the second half of life, and in the absence of such an experience the personality remains divided and neurotic. Sixth Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm The Syndetic Paradigm holds that all of life, that is to say, nature in its entirety is bound together in a highly complex whole through an ongoing process of spontaneous self-organization. The Syndetic Paradigm asserts, moreover, that the true point of conscious entry into this self-organizing totality—the sacred circle of nature—is the developmental edge of the differentiating ego. In this respect, the particular becomes the means of one’s direct engagement with unfolding Reality. Accordingly, very much in contrast to the Jungian Paradigm in which the psychological and spiritual are given separate theoretical statuses, and even conceived of as incommensurables, especially through their relegation to the inner and outer worlds, respectively, the Syndetic Paradigm makes no such distinction between them. Indeed, the Syndetic Paradigm goes so far as to assert that to disjoin the psychological and spiritual in this manner ultimately has the opposite effect of the above-described intended objective of the sixth principle of the Jungian Paradigm, that is to say, it serves to split the personality and divide it against itself and Reality. It serves, in short, to promote psychoneurosis rather than subdue and end it. I will close my introductory reflections by saying that although I have no need to defend my indebtedness to the great works of Jung and Freud, we are nevertheless left with the cruel certainty that when a paradigmatic shift genuinely occurs those theoretical constructs in which all the facts of the former system have been held will necessarily and suddenly collapse. There can be, therefore, no gentle way forward when it comes to paradigmatic shift, there can only be a conscious one.

I

SELF-ORGANIZING NATURE

First Principle of the Jungian Paradigm The psyche, through the process of psychic compensation, is self-regulating. In contrast to the conflict model of the Freudian Paradigm in which the struggle between the conscious and unconscious is ongoing and as such experiences no respite but that which comes through the intervention of the ego, within the Jungian Paradigm, the psyche as a total system is regarded as being self-regulating. The psyche, according to the assumptions of the Jungian Paradigm, is held to be, in this manner, not only capable of maintaining its own equilibrium, but also of bringing about its own selfrealization. Such self-regulation is more typically referred to by Jungians as psychic compensation. The paradigmatic progression from the Freudian notion of a psyche in conflict with itself to the Jungian understanding of a self-regulating psyche constitutes, as already noted, a noncumulative break. Jung, we should, therefore, not be surprised to know, even prior to his association with Freud, was already in possession of what would prove to be some of the key pieces of the answer to his yet unformulated question—the question of the self-regulatory psyche. “As far back as 1907,” Jung writes in “General Aspects of Dream Psychology” in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, “I pointed out the compensatory relation between consciousness and the split-off complexes and also emphasized their purposive character.”1 Going back further still, we see that Jung’s 1902 dissertation delivered before the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Zurich touches no less on this question. Jung’s medical dissertation, which in its English translation is titled “On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena,” asserts that certain psychological phenomena associated with what at that time was termed somnambulism—trance states—far from being random manifestations, constitute actual “attempts of the future personality 23

24

Self-Organizing Nature

to break through.”2 The self-regulatory psyche, Jung is saying in other words, utilizes trance states as a means of bringing to consciousness those hidden, still unconscious aspects of personality of the greatest developmental importance. Now of course a more common, yet no less intricate manifestation of the psyche’s self-regulatory activity is the dream symbol. Within the Jungian Paradigm, the dream symbol, as has already been noted, is understood to consist of, among other things, both personal and transpersonal elements. The former being derived from what Jung terms the personal unconscious; the latter being derived from what Jung terms the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious is understood to have arisen out of those experiences which were once conscious and then either forgotten or repressed, or which, on the other hand, were never conscious but rather entered through subliminal channels.3 Concerning the latter, as hard as it may be at a glance to understand what is meant by such influences, we should understand that subliminal influences are everyday occurrences. Such phenomena will often present, for example, in the behavior of children where an unacknowledged tension is present in a child’s environment. Because children are generally more susceptible to the presence of such tensions than adults, as that tension passes into a child as it will invariably do with all present by way of a type of psychic osmosis, the direct and overt consequence to the child of the subliminal transmission will typically be problematic behavioral manifestations, such as out-of-control behavior. Problematic behavior thus erupts; disciplinary responses on the part of the adults thus follow, while the real significance of what is truly unfolding is lost on all present, children and adults alike. Now if, in continuing with this example, we were to think about such influences as being ongoing, everyday experiences for children, especially in their family environments, and if we were then to envision the cumulative effects, both positive and negative, of these types of psychic, environmental influences over the course of many years, we would approach what Jung has in mind in speaking of the presence of subliminal influences in the personal unconscious. To summarize, we should emphasize that the personal unconscious is, as its name suggests, unique to each individual and consists of all that has been acquired, consciously and/or unconsciously, in the course of a particular individual’s lifetime. This, as we will see in our examination of the second principle of the Jungian Paradigm, is very much in contrast to what Jung described as the collective unconscious which, most significantly, is the location of those innate, transpersonal factors he termed archetypes.

Self-Organizing Nature

25

Beyond its personal and transpersonal dimensions, then, the symbol is also understood by Jungians to manifest in its compensatory role the three dimensions of time, that is to say, past, present, and future. We can perhaps at least begin to understand the compensatory role of these time dimensions by considering the following. Beginning with the work of Freud and carried forward by Jung, an established observation in depth psychology is that highly emotionally charged unconscious themes become triggered in relationship to everyday experiences. Equally well established in depth psychology is the understanding that the more unaware one is of the activation of these unconscious themes the more problematic they tend to be. The technical term introduced by Jung to describe these highly autonomous psychic contents is the complex. Jung likens the eruption of a complex into the everyday life of the individual to the presence of “an animated foreign body in the sphere of consciousness.”4 “Complexes are psychic fragments,” Jung writes, “which have split off owing to traumatic influences or certain incompatible tendencies. . . . complexes interfere with the intentions of the will and disturb the conscious performance; they produce disturbances of memory and blockages in the flow of associations; they appear and disappear according to their own laws; they can temporarily obsess consciousness, or influence speech and action in an unconscious way.”5 When, for instance, two individuals are drawn together romantically it is often the case that this experience will activate unconscious themes or complexes that exist in the psyche of at least one of these individuals— unconscious themes constructed out of that individual’s past experiences of intimacy. If it is the case, furthermore, that such an unconscious theme should contain unpleasant associations with intimacy, an alarm will go off warning the individual to pull away. The message to consciousness will be that intimacy is dangerous. What then usually happens is that the individual will begin to rationalize why the relationship can’t work— “we are getting too close”—without ever realizing that the real problem is not a defect in the present relationship, but rather a defect in that individual’s experience of intimacy which is now being projected onto the relationship. It is at this point that the compensatory dynamics of the psyche will go to work to sort things out. Here the unconscious will not only seek through its compensatory symbolism to indicate that a complex has been activated, but it will show, moreover, with the long-term developmental needs of the individual in mind, how the problem presented by this particular unconscious theme is to be ultimately resolved. As regards, therefore, the time dimensions of compensatory symbolism, we would say that

26

Self-Organizing Nature

whereas the present dimension symbolically depicts the romantic relationship as it exists in its failing attempt to unfold, the past dimension would present those unconscious assumptions about intimacy that have been transported to the present encounter from one’s psychic past, while the future dimension would relate to the manner in which the unconscious utilizes its compensatory symbolism to move the individual forward in keeping with a specific developmental agenda. Psychic compensation, it should, therefore, be taken from the above, encompasses the total personality, complexes and all, and thus leaves no psychic stone unturned. Along this precise line, an individual with whom I had only recently begun dream analysis once described to me in the week-in-review portion of our session how on the previous weekend the team he was coaching was soundly defeated by their opponents. Not knowing this individual well at this point, and he not being all that familiar with the nature of the unconscious and its workings, I felt inclined, for both our sakes, to see exactly where he weighed in emotionally on this issue. So I asked him about his reaction to the defeat. My curiosity was even more strongly aroused by the manner in which he shrugged off the loss as having been of no consequence. I then asked if he had happened to remember a dream following the game. He had. The central image of the dream immediately following his team’s crushing defeat depicted a man performing oral sex on him after having been forced to do so by the analysand. The defeat was apparently not taken so lightly after all. The discrepancy we find here between the conscious and unconscious assessments of the defeat is characteristic of the type of split that in the absence of an analysis of the unconscious most individuals carry with them throughout their lives. Essentially, it is a split between an ideal to which one aspires and wrongly imagines oneself to live and that to which Jungian psychology refers as the shadow. The shadow is the unknown, often inferior side of the personality. We might also think of it as something of a reservoir in which the complexes reside. Now in this particular instance the ideal that the analysand sought to uphold and ultimately transmit to his players held that in sport what is most important is not whether one wins or loses, but rather how the game itself is played. His shadow, however, as his dream indicated, saw things much differently. For its part, it resented its defeat. It wanted to win and dominate, nothing less. Ideals do not always point us in the right direction, but even when they do, as I feel this one does, their shortcoming is that in themselves they have nothing to offer us when it comes down to the problem of how we

Self-Organizing Nature

27

are actually going to find the correct way to our intended goal. All too often in the pursuit of an ideal one has only personal will at one’s disposal, and that alone can never properly carry one forward. To truly develop and achieve genuine personality change, both conscious and unconscious factors must become part of the transformative process. Otherwise the resultant “change” will be no more than an illusion. Certainly will may succeed in keeping the destructive power drives of the shadow from erupting directly in connection with the presenting incident, as was true of this analysand’s experience when it came to the actual sporting event, but this is never the end of them. What usually happens with these power drives is that they later find their way into one’s life with no less force and destructive consequence through some unrelated incident, thus avoiding conscious detection and censor. Specifically, one may be sufficiently willful to keep oneself from exploding over the game as such, but unrestrained anger may erupt shortly afterward in connection with another problem. Perhaps as a consequence of the slightest of tensions with a family member or with someone at one’s place of work. Much as the most devastating blow in combat is the one that is never seen, here the shadow’s secretive blow will be the one that knocks consciousness out entirely. The art of defending oneself as well as those individuals in one’s life against such unseen blows of the shadow is certainly, at least in part, exactly what the compensatory tracking of psychic dynamics is about. It is about detecting what was before undetectable. It is about seeing connections between events that previously appeared to be entirely unrelated. In the absence of such insight, the individual assumes he possesses what he does not. In the absence of such insight, the individual assumes she lives something she does not. In complete contrast, then, to the path of will, the compensatory workings of the psyche makes genuine progress possible because it places before us the complete pictures of our psychological predicaments, conscious and unconscious. It shows us, not simply how things appear on the surface, but rather how things really exist in terms of the conscious and unconscious dynamics of the psyche in its entirety. Only when we have such critical information in hand—only as we begin to unfold, through the compensatory workings of the psyche, the comprehensive blueprints of our psychic lives—can we track with absolute clarity the manner in which our psychic energy comes and goes, and develop the type of informed resolve that characterizes genuine and comprehensive forward progress. But what comes of all this compensatory activity, I am often asked especially in lectures, when an individual has no conscious understanding

28

Self-Organizing Nature

of its symbolic meanings? Does an individual benefit in any way from such ongoing compensatory activity in the absence of depth psychological knowledge? The answer to the second question is yes one does to a limited degree. The dream experience, I would suggest, registers with one in much the same manner as the experience of going through a day will do. Whether or not one can, at its conclusion, recall and understand the events of the day one will not have been untouched by that which one has gone through. Dream symbols similarly influence the behaviors of individuals without the meaning of those symbols ever coming within the range of conscious understanding. For example, an analysand once dreamed that a snake was coming out of a table lamp he had had as a child. When I asked for his associations to this particular table lamp, the analysand explained how as a teenager he had used this lamp as his “microphone” when he was lip-syncing to his Beatles records. Doing this, he added, was incredibly energizing. Now as he was explaining all of this to me it was clear that something was suddenly coming together for him. He then told me that immediately following this dream, which was a week before our analytical session, he had actually begun to listen to music in his living room. This was something he had not done for a long time, perhaps even a few years. As regards the meaning of the compensatory symbolism of this dream, the snake, as a symbol of the movement of psychic energy, depicted the process of psychic renewal underway in the analysand—a process of renewal, I would add, that called for the activation and movement into life of the analysand’s much neglected feeling side. Music, which is so greatly feeling based, was introduced by the unconscious to launch this process. Especially noteworthy, however, is how in the absence of any conscious intention whatsoever to do so, and as a consequence of nothing other than his actual experience of the dream, the analysand was compelled to act in a manner that was entirely in accord with the compensatory direction of the unconscious. As the above case example indicates, compensatory dream symbols impact on consciousness and behavior, at least to some degree, even in the absence of conscious understanding of their meanings. Having said this, however, it nevertheless remains true that the depth of one’s experience of compensatory symbols will always be proportionate to the degree of consciousness that one is able to bring to bear on their analysis. The more one comprehends, in other words, the greater the potential compensatory benefit.

Self-Organizing Nature

29

Now the unconscious, as we have seen, is very thorough and systematic in its presentation of symbols. Accordingly, compensatory meanings are seldom presented in isolation, but rather appear in conjunction with parallel symbolisms. Indeed careful examination of dream symbolism indicated to Jung that the same compensatory meanings pattern themselves out within a single dream or even within a series of dreams, the latter either taking place during the same sleep period or over the course of several sleep periods. A key to interpreting dreams is, therefore, knowing how to identify such patterns so as to verify compensatory meanings contextually. We can take the following dream series as an example. An analysand dreamed that he visited a martial arts dojo accompanied by a low-functioning boy. Once inside, the boy discovered a vintage guitar, which he began handling. The men who were training at the time in the dojo, the analysand especially noted, were not bothered by the boy doing this. That the men did not stop the boy certainly struck the analysand, even though he wasn’t sure exactly why it had done so. I, for my part, was struck with the fact that the analysand had entered the dojo without apparent intention to compete or train. Perhaps, it seemed to me, the dream was depicting the analysand’s experience of arrest vis-à-vis his father complex. His father, after all, had been someone with whom the analysand had decided long ago he could not and thus would not compete. The much-esteemed vintage guitar would symbolize, then, his long-held, highly idealized, almost otherworldly feeling for his father. The low-functioning boy, on the other hand, would symbolize the analysand’s own rather unique method of self-defense, which, having had its beginnings in his noncompetitive relationship with his father gradually came to extend to his relationships with all others. I am referring to the presentation of himself as witless so that others might be caused to pity rather than challenge him. The analysand resisted this interpretation, and not surprisingly, for I was also not without my own doubts. The interpretation had, after all, been drawn from the more implicit compensatory structure of the dream rather than its explicit content. So, as one should do in such situations, conclusions were not reached and we moved on to the remaining dreams to see if they could shed further light on the problem. I will outline three dreams. The next dream, which was the following evening, directly picked up on, not only the martial arts theme, but also the analysand’s fear of competition. In this dream, the analysand and a friend, who was a skilled martial artist, were training together in the basement of the analysand’s home.

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In his reflections recorded along with the dream, the analysand specifically noted his feelings of intimidation. He described how the very presence of this more powerful and skilled individual had caused him to hold back and not fully engage the experience at hand. Far more overtly than in the first dream, therefore, in the parallel “dojo” experience of the second dream, the arresting influence of the father complex, especially with regard to competition, very much made its presence known. The third and fourth dreams that took place the following two evenings carried things even further. In the third dream, the analysand was in an old factory with his wife. At one point, she went into an elevator that went up. He did not follow. Later, as he once again approached that same elevator, its door opened to him automatically when he unknowingly stepped on a sensor on the floor. Yet again, he did not enter it. At this point the entire building went dark. Typically in dreams, upward movement, such as would occur on an elevator, symbolically depicts the processing of psychic experience into consciousness and life. The analysand’s refusal to go up on the elevator, either with his wife or on his own, would symbolize, then, the analysand’s choice, and I do emphasize that word in keeping with the dream, to be far less conscious than he is capable of being. The analysand’s refusal to go up on the elevator would constitute a choice whose symbolic parallel is to be found, if we were to refer back to the first dream, in the figure of the lowfunctioning boy. Yes, self-organizing nature would have the analysand claim in no uncertain terms that he had chosen the path of unconsciousness. Yes, self-organizing nature would have the analysand acknowledge that he had chosen to be low functioning. But there was one further point still with which self-organizing nature especially believed it time for the analysand to come to terms. That point being, that as much as one may choose to be low functioning, the one thing over which one will have neither choice nor control is exactly how low functioning one will ultimately become. This was the big cautionary flag of the third dream. When the analysand refused for the second time to go up on the elevator, the whole place, it should be recalled, went completely dark, which is to say consciousness was knocked out entirely. There is no neutral position in the journey of the soul. Accordingly, when the opportunity exists to go ahead and one chooses not to do so, to all intents and purposes, one is judged by self-organizing nature to be going backward. Such inaction and regression is, from another point of view of self-organizing nature, rather like stealing, for in resisting an opportunity to live more fully one is after all stealing life not only from oneself, but from those with whom one is closest. Not unrelated to this, therefore,

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in the fourth and final dream, which was undoubtedly the most disturbing of the series, the analysand’s daughter was under the threat of being kidnapped, which is to say, stolen. And we can only imagine that this most frightening of threats presented at this point in the dream series for no reason but to awaken in the analysand a much-needed emotional response to the problem into which he would now be most directly led. I am of course referring to the problem of his father complex. The dream continued as follows. Fearing that the kidnappers were closing in on him and his daughter, the analysand grabbed her and raced across the street to the residence of an older, “fatherly,” as the analysand put it, European gentleman. The European man was not, however, at home. The analysand then fled with his daughter to a parking lot, symbolic yet again of the analysand’s tendency to escape into inaction and unconsciousness—his tendency to put himself into park, as it were. The kidnappers, however, persisted. So the analysand and his daughter were forced to take flight yet again. But this time, as the ever-deepening compensatory pattern would have it, the place at which they arrived, the analysand’s final place of wished-for refuge turned out to be a sporting goods store. But this was not just a sporting goods store; it rather was the sporting goods store to which as a child he went with his father when they needed to purchase athletic equipment for him. In this fourth and final dream, therefore, we are led directly to that of which in all the other dreams we have but intimations. Here we are directly presented with the analysand’s problem of looking to the father— as he exists in a highly idealized form—to do the work that he himself must do. Here we see the analysand looking to the father to protect him from that with which he himself must wrestle and come to terms. Firstly, the analysand unsuccessfully sought shelter with the fatherly, European man. Secondly, the analysand sought refuge in the sporting goods store of his childhood. Clearly no other store or location would link the analysand so directly with his father. Clearly no other location was of such import to the dynamics of the analysand’s father complex. It was, after all, the athletic tension that existed between the analysand and his father that was at the very core of the complex. It was, after all, the analysand’s experience of inferiority vis-à-vis his father’s athletic talents that had once and for all led him to renounce, or perhaps more accurately still, never properly take up as his own, the challenges of life, much as was true of the low-functioning boy who could but cling to the vintage guitar as the competition of life so energetically unfolded around him.

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Essential, therefore, to the development of accurate dream interpretation is learning to read and verify compensatory meanings contextually. Compensatory themes seldom appear in isolation; rather they more often pattern themselves out. Sometimes we observe such patterning in single dreams, as was true of the fourth dream with the twice-repeated theme of taking refuge in the idealized father. Sometimes we see such patterning occurring in dreams extending over several sleep periods, much as was evidenced by the symbolic interconnectedness of the four dreams. And, finally, as we will now see, we can also discover such compensatory patterning in dreams that extend over years, even a lifetime. Through his study of self-regulatory dynamics, Jung observed that not only was the psyche capable of maintaining its own equilibrium in meeting the day-to-day needs of the individual, but that it was at the same time capable of facilitating what we could very well characterize as its own self-realization, what Jung termed its individuation. “At first it seems,” Jung writes with reference to the self-regulatory activities of the psyche, “that each compensation is a momentary . . . equalization of disturbed balance. But with deeper insight and experience, these apparently separate acts of compensation arrange themselves into a kind of plan. They seem to hang together and in the deepest sense to be subordinated to a common goal. . . . I have called this unconscious process spontaneously expressing itself in the symbolism of a long dream-series the individuation process.”6 The drive toward individuation, which Jung came to regard as an innate drive of the self-regulating psyche, was the same drive, he also believed, which from time immemorial has found expression in the religious traditions of the world in the form of a quest for self-knowledge and/or knowledge of God. Accordingly, not wishing to rule out either possibility, we find it to be the case that both prospects are intended by Jung’s theoretical designation of the self as the goal of the individuation process.7 The subtle but nonetheless serious problems attending Jung’s theoretical ambiguity on this matter will be examined later in this work. Now although the unconscious is relentless in its efforts to lead us along the path of individuation, with or without our conscious cooperation, our actual progress is still very much reliant on the degree of our conscious participation in this process. The individuation journey, we might picture by way of a metaphor, is rather like being presented with a highly specialized book that one is entrusted to read. If one were to read this book having no knowledge whatsoever of its subject one would no doubt learn at least something from it. If one were to complement one’s reading of the book with relevant formal theoretical and practical schooling one would

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be all the further ahead. One’s comprehension of the book’s contents, we can just say, would ultimately be proportionate to the consciousness one brings to bear on that work, nothing more nothing less. One’s comprehension of the compensatory workings of the unconscious is no different. But here is where the analogy must be extended, for what we additionally need to understand is that in that the book to which we refer is indeed the book of our soul journey, unlike all other books it is incumbent on us to read and reread this book, if necessary, until we fully comprehend its contents. When it comes to the book of our soul journey as revealed through self-organizing dynamics, therefore, the only question is not whether we are going to read and comprehend this great work, but rather how long it is going to take us to do so. In spite of all of our conscious inclinations to the contrary, the individuation process firmly holds us to a specific developmental agenda. When, for instance, an analysand withdraws from analysis prematurely after having failed to take up that which he or she has been challenged by the unconscious to address, it will often happen that if that same individual is to return to the analysis, perhaps some three years later, as productive as life may have been in the interim, if ground has not been gained on the critical analytical problem, the individual’s dreams will pick up exactly where they left off. The unconscious is that type of taskmaster. No pages, we should understand, will be skipped when it comes to the great book of our soul journey. Jung describes a man who once came to him not as a patient, he was quick to assure Jung, but as someone interested in analysis from a literary perspective. “He admitted,” Jung writes, “it must be very boring for me to have to do with a normal person, since I must certainly find ‘mad’ people much more interesting.” Jung then came to the subject of dreams, and asked this man if he had remembered his dream from the night prior to their consultation. The gentleman confirmed that he had and told Jung the following: “I was in a bare room. A sort of nurse received me, and wanted me to sit at a table on which stood a bottle of fermented milk, which I was supposed to drink. I wanted to go to Dr. Jung but the nurse told me that I was in a hospital and that Dr. Jung had no time to receive me.”8 The man’s associations to the dream, Jung goes on to explain, were critical. The fermented milk, the gentleman told Jung, was a “nauseating” practice of his wife’s done to promote her good health. Something, he further related, that he himself had had to take while in a sanatorium during a time in which, as he put it, his “nerves were not so good.” Here, Jung relates: “I interrupted him with the indiscreet question: had his neurosis en-

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tirely disappeared since then? He tried to worm out of it, but finally had to admit that he still had his neurosis, and that actually his wife had for a long time been urging him to consult me.”9 The idea that our psychic development is directed along specific lines is certainly no more improbable than the widely held assumption that a genetic blueprint determines not only much of who we are, but no less who we are to become. In both cases there exists the notion of a developmental pattern that is preset. There is, however, a significant difference between the two. With individuation, in contrast to the genetic model, developmental progress is subject to the degree of consciousness one brings to the work. Accordingly, if the consciousness factor is completely neglected the developmental process of individuation will grind to a halt; on the other hand, if the individuation process is engaged with the discriminating consciousness of a good analysis, developmental advances will indeed occur in the form of what Stanley Hall describes as a process of “quickened maturation.”10 Of course to some individuals all of this just doesn’t seem fair, or perhaps even natural. After all, as I am often asked when lecturing on the psychology of the unconscious: “If the dreams with which one is presented are one’s own dreams, why cannot one understand these dreams perfectly well oneself?” “Why is an analysis necessary?” Now although the asking of this question usually belies a problem in its own right, that is to say, the ego’s desire to control the show, I simply tend to respond with a question of my own. “Why,” I myself ask, “is it the case that few individuals would imagine themselves equipped to deal unassisted with all or even most of their medical needs even though the medical problem is entirely a matter of their own bodies?” The development of an advanced working understanding of the language and modus operandi of the unconscious is a highly specialized training requiring, among other things, years of theoretical study, experience analyzing the dreams of others while under supervision, and most importantly, the analysis of one’s own dreams under the direction of an analyst whose own consciousness is commensurate with the analysand’s potential. The latter is the training analysis of depth psychology—something, as Ellenberger notes, that was first advanced by Jung and also accepted by Freud as a core component in the training of all analysts.11 Now as much as both Freud and Jung could agree on the necessity of the training analysis, the training analysis certainly did not take the same form in both schools. This is not particularly surprising given their contrasting views of the psyche and its workings. In the Jungian system, the training analysis became not only that through which the future analyst

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would acquire knowledge of hidden personality traits that could interfere with the therapeutic process, but also, moving beyond Freudian conflictmodel assumptions, it no less became the means through which one would learn the art of engaging the sublime, transformative workings of the self-regulating psyche itself. By putting his or her hand to the work of the training analysis, the future Jungian analyst, perhaps most importantly, was meant to acquire an unshakable faith in the self-regulatory process—a faith in the psyche’s ability to support the work of analysis no matter how dark things would become. “You yourself are the instrument. If you are not right,” as thus Jung explains, “how can the patient be made right? If you are not convinced, how can you convince him? You yourself must be the real stuff.”12 For Jungians, in its highest form, the training analysis would be the means through which future analysts would descend into, suffer through, and ultimately be renewed by the transformative fire of creative illness. This was how their therapeutic art was to be transmitted, and entirely consistent with this it came very much to be held by Jungians that one’s grasp of their art would always be proportionate to the intensity of the transformative fire of the inner journey of one’s training analysis. “Jung,” as Ellenberger himself writes with reference to this same point, “promoted the training analysis, and Freudians accepted it for didactic value, but the Jungian school later came to consider it as being a kind of initiatory malady comparable to that of the shaman.”13 First Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm The self-regulation of the psyche is a manifestation of the compensatory interaction between, not simply the conscious and the unconscious, but rather consciousness and nature in its entirety. The theoretical progression from a conflict model of the psyche to a self-regulatory model is that which most significantly distinguishes the Jungian Paradigm from its Freudian predecessor. What distinguishes the Syndetic Paradigm from the Jungian Paradigm, on the other hand, is its operationalization of a self-regulatory model that extends beyond the intrapsychic to encompass nature in its entirety. Paradigm shifts, as explained, almost always take the form of noncumulative departures from their theoretical predecessors. This is because paradigms, far from being receptive to the transformative influences of new facts, tend to force such facts to conform to their own well-established assumptions. Paradigms dictate the interpretation of facts; facts seldom dictate the reinterpretation of paradigms. Paradigms devour facts which

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are anomalous, and with them their attendant implications. Accordingly, even though Jung was led to observe through his study of synchronistic phenomena numerous facts, which, as we can now understand, carried profound implications for his psychology and its paradigmatic assumptions, the impact of these facts on his theoretical model was at best minimal. More specifically, the profound theoretical implications of Jung’s synchronistic findings were simply lost to the limitations of the strictly intrapsychic paradigm in which his psychology functioned. We should, therefore, distinguish the respective theoretical positions of the Jungian Paradigm and Syndetic Paradigm on the question of selfregulation by way of the following summation. Whereas the existence of an ongoing, compensatory interaction between consciousness and nature in its entirety is fundamental to the Syndetic Paradigm and as such fully operationalized, in the Jungian Paradigm, even though such a notion was implicit to Jung’s thinking about synchronistic phenomena, given the limitations of the Jungian Paradigm’s strictly intrapsychic, self-regulatory model its operationalization was precluded, as the one-dimensionality of Jung’s synchronistic case examples more than evidences. Yes, Jung reached beyond Freud’s conflict model to discover the psyche’s self-regulating capability, but what Jung was unable to realize in keeping with his synchronistic facts was the much-called-for paradigmatic shift from a closed-system model of a self-regulating psyche to an open-system model of a psyche in a selfregulating totality. This constitutes the critical theoretical shift of the Syndetic Paradigm—a shift, as we will see, that not only affords us the means to receive and reassess Jung’s synchronistic facts, but leads us, moreover, much as Jung himself was led to do in moving beyond Freud’s model, to reassess in their entirety the facts of the Syndetic Paradigm’s own theoretical predecessor, that is to say, to reassess in their entirety the facts of the Jungian Paradigm itself. In contrast to the mechanistic Newtonian worldview in which the nature of phenomenal reality is understood to consist of solid objects moving in empty space—an understanding with which our sense organs would not have us disagree—the understanding presented to us by modern physics is that of a world which ultimately constitutes a dynamic, inseparable whole. No doubt as a consequence of this unveiling on the part of modern physics of the ultimate dynamic interconnectivity of phenomenal reality, science, more generally, has been led to include in its approach to the problem of nature a perspective that is not at all incommensurable with that reached by Chinese civilization centuries ago. Quite specifically, what has occurred in science by way of these discoveries of the dynamic

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interconnectivity of all of life is a shift from an otherwise exclusive preoccupation with the part toward what Marcel Granet termed with reference to the traditional Chinese worldview thinking in terms of the whole.14 Now of the various new developments in science that have occurred as a result of this critical shift from the part to the whole, one of the most striking initiatives as regards our concerns, given its direct as opposed to analogous connection to the Syndetic Paradigm, is the appearance of complexity theory. In the mid-1980s a group of leading scientists in the United States— among whom were two Nobel laureates in physics, Murray Gell-Mann and Philip Anderson, and one laureate in economics, Kenneth Arrow—came together in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to establish an interdisciplinary research center for the study of complexity theory.15 Under the auspices of what is simply known as the Santa Fe Institute a unique collection of scientists of diverse expertise was assembled, some of whom, it should be noted, arrived by way of their study of chaos theory,16 complexity theory’s scientific precursor. What they certainly didn’t share was a common scientific background. What they did share, however, was a belief that they were, as M. Mitchell Waldrop puts it, “forging the first rigorous alternative to the kind of linear, reductionistic thinking that has dominated science since the time of Newton—and that has now gone about as far as it can go in addressing the problems of our modern world.”17 Although the Santa Fe Institute is a private research center, its proximity to the government-sponsored Los Alamos National Laboratory is not without significance. Los Alamos, although readily associated with the development of the atomic bomb, nonetheless came to acquire, as Roger Lewin explains, “deep expertise in nonlinear systems analysis.” It was, accordingly, as an outcome of a good many lunchtime discussions at Los Alamos involving key members of that scientific community that the Santa Fe Institute came into being.18 Commenting on the general research orientation of the Institute, George A. Cowan, former director of research at Los Alamos and first president of the Santa Fe Institute, reflects: “The royal road to a Nobel Prize has generally been through the reductionist approach” . . . dissecting the world into the smallest and simplest pieces you can. “You look for the solution of some more or less idealized set of problems, somewhat divorced from the real world, and constrained sufficiently so that you can find a solution. . . . And that leads to more and more fragmentation of science. Whereas the real world demands—though I hate the word—a more

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If the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts, that is to say, the parts are ultimately in service of something other than the linear, mechanistic causal relationships that exist between them, what then, one certainly needs to know, is the whole in service of? It is this very problem that led individuals like Doyne Farmer, head of the Complex Systems group in Los Alamos theory division,20 to attempt to step beyond chaos theory which, in his opinion, did not address this question. Chaos theory, Waldrop writes about Farmer’s position, “told you a lot about how certain simple rules of behavior could give rise to astonishingly complicated dynamics. But despite all the beautiful pictures of fractals and such, chaos theory actually had very little to say about the fundamental principles of living systems or of evolution. It didn’t explain how systems starting out in a state of random nothingness could then organize themselves into complex wholes. Most important, it didn’t answer his old question about the inexorable growth of order and structure in the universe.”21 That the process we call life is an inexorable outcome of the universe’s own implicit order and structure is a paradigmatic assumption at the very heart of complexity theory. Complexity theory, its adherents thus anticipate, will one day lead to the discovery of a new scientific law which will be the “counterpart,” as Farmer suggests, “of the second law of thermodynamics,” which is to say, the tendency of a system toward disorder and decay.22 Such a law, Farmer continues, “would describe the tendency of matter to organize itself, and that would predict the general properties of organization we’d expect to see in the universe.”23 The technical phrase used by complexity theorists to describe this nonlinear dynamic is the edge of chaos. In complexity theory the edge of chaos is the point where, as Waldrop explains, “the components of a system never quite lock into place, and yet never quite dissolve into turbulence, either. The edge of chaos is where life has enough stability to sustain itself and enough creativity to

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deserve the name of life.”24 Similarly, Lewin writes with reference to the edge of chaos that it “has become iconic for the immanent creativity of complex systems.”25 Whether we are talking about economic, political, biological, or ecological systems, whether we are talking about evolution or the functioning of the psyche, nature, complexity theory tells us, does not move inexorably to decay and disorder, neither is it ultimately governed by mechanistic dynamics, nor is it a product of randomly generated outcomes; rather, nature, complexity theory would have us understand, is a process governed by what complexity theorists describe as spontaneous selforganization.26 And it is here that complexity theory directly aligns with the Syndetic Paradigm’s concept of the self-regulating or self-organizing totality. Now so as not in any way to lose sight of the significance of the critical point at which we have just arrived, I wish to review some of what we have already covered before proceeding further. As we have seen, the unparalleled contribution of Jungian psychology was its discovery of the self-regulating psyche. Through the compensatory symbolism of the unconscious, consciousness is thus not only supported and balanced in relationship to the challenges of everyday life, but it is no less directed with respect to the realization of the personality’s long-term developmental objectives. The latter is what Jung had in mind in speaking of the individuation process. Fundamental to the Jungian Paradigm, then, is the idea that there exists in each individual an innate developmental pattern or order which the self-regulating psyche works inexorably to bring to consciousness. The psyche, we could equally say in placing things in direct alignment with the terminology of complexity theory, spontaneously self-organizes along these developmental lines. Clearly this discovery in itself constituted a remarkable step forward in psychology, yet the next step, which the Jungian Paradigm to some degree anticipated with its synchronicity theory yet never took, is even more remarkable, for the next step has to do with the operationalization of a theoretical model in which the psyche is understood to be coextensive with a totality that is as innately ordered and self-regulated as Jung came to regard the psyche itself to be. This, of course, is the critical theoretical step of the Syndetic Paradigm—a theoretical step, which, among other things, strikingly parallels the research interests and findings of complexity theory. Nature, complexity theorists tell us, is an inherently ordered system capable of spontaneous self-organization. Stuart Kauffman, for instance, a

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scientist studying evolution at the Santa Fe Institute, argues that there “simply was not world enough and time for chance” to have created life as it exists today.27 “To make a single protein molecule, for example,” Waldrop writes with reference to Kauffman’s position, you might have to chain together several hundred amino-acid building blocks in a precise order. That’s hard enough to do in a modern laboratory, where you have access to all the latest tools of biotechnology. So how could such a thing form all by itself in a pond? Lots of people had tried to calculate the odds of that happening, and their answers always came out pretty much the same: if the formation were truly random, you would have to wait far longer than the lifetime of the universe to produce even one useful protein molecule, much less all the myriads of proteins and sugars and lipids and nucleic acids that you need to make a fully functioning cell.28 Because random mutations and natural selection could not possibly account for life as it exists today, given factors such as the above, Kauffman began to question if it were the case that order exists of itself in nature to the extent that that process which we describe as evolution might prove to be but an unfolding of nature’s innate order. “If that was the case, he reasoned,” as Waldrop explains, “then this spontaneous, self-organizing property of life would be the flip side of natural selection. The precise genetic details of any given organism would be a product of random mutations and natural selection working just as Darwin had described them. But the organization of life itself, the order, would be deeper and more fundamental. It would arise purely from the structure of the network, not the details.”29 This is not unlike, I would note, what we see with outward compensatory patternings where although the events of the respective compensatory patterns have their own causal chains their ultimate placement and meaning in the patterns in question is expressive of a deeper order. Here causal chains ultimately function in service of the deeper, unfolding compensatory order of the whole. The emerging whole is thus in such instances very much more than the sum of its parts. The idea that nature is innately ordered and that that orderedness reveals itself not only to us intrapsychically, as Jung came to understand so well, but no less in the outward patterning of events, places us on a new frontier that is equivalent in magnitude to the discovery of the unconscious itself. Here we are taken into compensatory intricacies not ventured into before, for far from simply being about the psyche mirroring outward

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compensatory processes, we see the so-called inner and the outer worlds interactively conjoined in dynamic process. Compensatory dynamics, in this regard, not being limited to, for instance, the intrapsychic factors A, B, C, & D simply paralleling the outward pattern A, B, C, & D, will also include processes in which the intrapsychic factors A, B, & D will meaningfully interact with, and indeed only find completion through, the outwardly patterned C. Of course the implications of all of this for the study of consciousness are enormous, as Norman Packard, one of the outstanding scientists at the Sante Fe Institute, has himself acknowledged. When asked by Lewin how exactly he foresaw complexity theory contributing to the study of consciousness, Packard responded: The way I see the science is that it’s concerned with information processing throughout the entire biosphere; information processing is central to the way the biosphere evolves and operates. Consciousness is just one part of that larger puzzle, and it’s important to remember that. Most studies of consciousness focus just on the phenomenon itself, and that’s solipsistic. I’m not saying that’s invalid, but you asked what unique contribution the science of Complexity could bring to the endeavor, and that is to place consciousness into the larger puzzle of information processing in the biosphere.30 The clinical ramifications of “[placing] consciousness in the larger puzzle of information processing in the biosphere,” which is to say in our terms, of making the paradigmatic shift from a closed-system model of a self-regulating psyche to an open-system model of the psyche in a selforganizing totality are very great indeed. Most striking of all perhaps is the called-for reassessment of traditional notions of transference and countertransference. Transference and countertransference are technical terms used to describe the operation of projection in the therapeutic relationship from analysand to analyst in the case of transference, and from analyst to analysand in the case of countertransference. Projection itself is a psychological mechanism by which an individual’s own experience is unconsciously assigned to another, which is to say, unknowingly and unconditionally. An individual who had been ill-treated in a previous relationship would be prone, for example, to project that experience of ill-treatment on subsequent intimate relationships, especially if the injury inflicted by the initial relationship was never addressed therapeutically. The disturbing bottom line in all of this is that such an individual could very well wrongly

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conclude by way of projection that his or her new partner is of the same abusive character as the first one. Of course such an unfounded conclusion would be devastating to a relationship of otherwise good potential. As therapeutic tools, then, transference and countertransference warrant special attention. But they do so, not because, as is erroneously imagined, the dynamics of projection are unique to the analytical process. Nor is it because, as is no less erroneously imagined, transference and countertransference dynamics present in the analytical process with a greater intensity and frequency than they do elsewhere. Rather, it is because the therapeutic process, if it is to be at all deserving of such a designation, must uncompromisingly concern itself with the bringing of such unconscious contents to consciousness. Projection is not unique to the therapeutic process either in terms of intensity or frequency; rather the therapeutic process by its very definition is simply called upon to deal with the contents and dynamics of projection more technically. Those who imagine otherwise, it seems to me, have most certainly lost sight of what comes out of people when, for example, they end up in court while moving through separation and divorce. Former partners, who not only swore their lives to each other before God, but went on as a couple to bring children into this world, can do some pretty terrible things to each other when acting out of projection. And cannot things similarly end up on the rocks between those who once were the closest of friends? Projection does not have to be therapeutically “tricked” out of people to go out of control. Transference, Jung himself accordingly writes with reference to the dynamics of everyday projection, “is a phenomenon that can take place quite apart from any treatment, and is moreover a very frequent natural occurrence. Indeed, in any human relationship that is at all intimate, certain transference phenomena will almost always operate as helpful or disturbing factors.”31 Why then, we should ask, do the dynamics of transference and countertransference continue to be wrongly elevated both within and outside of therapeutic circles to an almost magical status? Three influences come to mind. Firstly, would be the simplistic notions of power and authority that have come to be so fully entrenched in the group or collective consciousness of our culture. Secondly, would be the now widespread fear in our culture of intimate relationship itself—a fear that would cause an elementary school teacher to avoid the potential repercussions of physically comforting a crying child in need of such support. Thirdly, yet certainly not of least importance as it remains the most enduring factor of the three, would be that yet unchallenged, almost universally held core paradigmatic assumption of psychotherapists that the interpersonal dynamic

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of the therapeutic process can amount to no more than the sum of the respective projections of the analysand and analyst. Current political trends notwithstanding, one truly cannot properly draw conclusions about the abuse of power merely on the basis of the social or professional positions of the individuals concerned. To do so is not to understand what power and its abuse are actually about. Rank and position alone, as clinical experience teaches us, never guarantees exclusive access to the reins of power. If it were that simple “higher-ups” would never themselves be victims of the power drives of individuals occupying positions socially or professionally “beneath” their own, as they not infrequently are. Undoubtedly, social and professional position functions as a very great magnet for the basest of human power tendencies, but in that such power tendencies are products of the mind in its own right it is no less true that abusive power needs not the support of social or professional position to come into being and gain the upper hand over another individual. Failing to understand this can only serve to give abusive power even more frightening license than it already has. Psychotherapy is a relationship of power only to the extent that the therapist is inclined either through unconscious drives or conscious intentions to make it that way and the analysand succumbs, or if the analyst is drawn into such an engagement through similar initiatives on the part of the analysand. Psychotherapy in itself is not a relationship of power. Accordingly, whether or not the analytical process digresses into a relationship of power will entirely depend on the consciousness of its participants, much as is true of all other human relationships. Misunderstandings such as the above about the dynamics of power have no doubt greatly contributed to the fear of intimate relationship that exists in society today. Not unrelated to this, professionalism, sadly enough, has come to be concerned not so much with the problem of the healing engagement as it is with finding ways to create the greatest possible distance between the therapist and the person he or she is supposed to be healing. Professionalism today delights in its deed of making a taboo of psychic and physical proximity, and it does so, I would emphasize, utterly without regard for the far more important therapeutic fact that one can never heal, either physically or psychically, that which one cannot touch. Thus follows the misguided elevation of transference and countertransference dynamics along lines that would support the fear-driven compulsion of the collective consciousness to preclude any form of intimacy whatsoever between therapist and client, analyst and analysand, which is to say, to preclude anything real at all from occurring. After all, what would

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better meet the security needs of such a fear-driven collective mind than simply to imagine that that which seems to be happening—intimacy—is not really happening at all since its ultimate basis is nothing other than projection? Several years ago I joined a discussion with a group of psychotherapists who were looking at transference/countertransference issues. One therapist described a situation involving someone with whom he had been working. Their psychotherapeutic work was drawing to a close and the client had asked if they might pursue a friendship. The therapist was at a loss about his next move and had turned to the group for input. I then asked him, “Would you like to have a friendship with this person?” He looked at me with somewhat of a blank face and replied: “The question never occurred to me.” Now to his mind, and to the minds of a good number of therapists today for that matter, his thinking on this question was professionally correct. To my mind, however, his answer indicated that the psychotherapeutic relationship itself, having succumbed to the above-mentioned assumptions, simply had never become a real relationship. Of course, entirely in keeping with the above, the catchword today is boundaries. Certainly the concept has its place, but more often than not when this catchword presents with the analysands and indeed psychotherapists with whom I work in my practice—and I have worked with a good number of mental health professionals—what usually turns out to be needed in the situation in question is not so much boundaries as consciousness. All too often the concept of boundaries becomes but a pretext to justify the outright repression of those experiences, which, from a therapeutic perspective, more than deserve to be processed: “Something funny is going on here we don’t understand, so we just better put a wall up.” Unfortunately, even the strongest of such walls will never contain, not to speak of heal, the problem that unconsciousness presents. An individual with whom I worked once described to me an exchange that took place between her and one of her friends. The analysand’s friend had spoken to her one day about the “journey” of an individual with whom they both were acquainted. The analysand, for her part, found it inappropriate that her friend would speak of this other person’s experience as she had. Specifically, the analysand considered her friend’s initiative to be not only exploitive of the private experience of their mutual friend, but also intrusive with respect to the nature of their own relationship. She actually termed what had transpired during that conversation a “boundary infraction.” We then went to the unconscious.

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On the evening of their exchange the analysand dreamed the following. She dreamed that that which under normal circumstances would have been the smooth surface of a waterslide had become rough and jagged. The maternal birth canal, it seemed, had developed teeth. But why had it done so? Only as we moved around this question did the answer emerge. Contrary to what the analysand herself had initially indicated, it gradually became clear through our discussion that the real issue for the analysand was not that her friend had spoken inappropriately about their mutual friend. The real issue was not that her friend had committed a boundary infraction. The real issue, rather, was that the analysand had long ago reached the point where she simply couldn’t bear having her friend speak to her about anything. Long before the event of the so-called boundary infraction, the negative or devouring mother, symbolized in the dream by the unforgiving if not torturous slide, had come to overshadow the analysand’s experience of their exchanges. Clearly to have simply treated this event as a boundary infraction, as the analysand had hoped I myself might be enlisted to do, would not only have been to overlook a critical growth opportunity for the analysand, but it would have most certainly led to an ever deepening tension in her relationship with her friend that even the greatest of walls, as mentioned above, would not be able to contain. The purpose of psychotherapy is certainly not to help people construct walls; rather it is about helping them to come out from behind the walls they have constructed within themselves, with others, and with life in general. Psychotherapy is not about moving from the illusory to the illusory. Psychotherapy, rather, is about moving by way of self-organizing nature from the illusory to the real. As such, psychotherapy, among other things, is about moving from projection to Reality. To the extent, therefore, that transference/countertransference dynamics are employed as a means to that end the psychotherapeutic process aligns with the way of self-organizing nature. To the extent, on the other hand, that transference/countertransference dynamics themselves become the end, the real is abandoned to the illusory. Whereas Freud’s approach to the problem of transference/countertransference dynamics was to heighten or amplify their analytical presentation by way of the dehumanization of the analyst, which is to say, by way of concealing the analyst so that he or she would thus virtually assume the form of an inanimate projection screen, Jung, for his part, thought it more therapeutically efficacious to humanize the projective dynamic of transference/countertransference by way of a direct, face-to-face

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encounter between analysand and analyst. The classical Freudian technique of positioning the analysand in physical recline on a couch with the analyst sitting behind the analysand’s head, allowing for little or no therapeutic dialogue, effectively served at once to regress the analysand, unleash latent complexes and trigger powerful projections, often toward the analyst. The therapeutic silence that invariably followed such projective release served in turn to propel the analysand all the more deeply into regression and transference. If the analysand, Jung for his part believed, were to be so brutally driven by therapeutic technique into the depths of the transference and simply held there in this manner, although the analysand would surely be regressed into the complexes, he or she would not, on the other hand, likely find his or her way out of them. In order for the transference to move from its entrapment in the complexes to the more healing energies of the transpersonal or archetypal psyche it would be necessary, Jung held, for the analyst to constellate a different type of projection altogether. And the only way the analyst would be able to do that, Jung deduced, would be through the humanization of the transference/ countertransference dynamic by way of a direct, face-to-face encounter between analysand and analyst. Jung thus took the decision to move the analytical process off the Freudian couch and engage his analysands face to face in therapeutic dialectic. “The crucial point,” Jung explains in his memoirs, “is that I confront the patient as one human being to another. Analysis is a dialogue demanding two partners. Analyst and patient sit facing one another, eye to eye; the doctor has something to say, but so has the patient.”32 Whereas the objective of Freudian clinical technique, I will say in summation, was to direct the transference into excruciating levels of regression and pressurization through the dehumanizing of the analytical process, Jungian technique by contrast, sought to influence positively the direction of the transference by way of its humanization. Specifically, through the humanization of transference/countertransference dynamics in the form of the face-to-face dialectic encounter between analysand and analyst, Jung sought to diminish transference regression and volatility by not only putting consciousness into projections as they happened, but most importantly by directly activating, through the person of the analyst, a more complete therapeutic projection that would draw not merely on the complexes but on the archetypal or transpersonal dimensions of the psyche as well, especially the archetype of the self. There can be no doubt that Jung’s departure from Freud’s own answer to the clinical problem of transference/countertransference dynamics marked a most significant therapeutic development. Having said this,

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we nevertheless see that even Jung’s initiative in this regard falls short of the step we are now about to take, for although Jung eliminated the more regressive and brutal aspects of the Freudian handling of transference and countertransference, he did not, and this is a most critical point, step beyond the assumptions about consciousness that that model was based upon. The Freudian and Jungian Paradigms, to put it differently, offered two unique solutions to the same problem—the problem of how one is to work analytically with transference and countertransference dynamics given the assumption that the psyche is indeed a closed-system entity. With the Syndetic Paradigm, in contrast to this, wherein the psyche is not understood to be functionally autonomous, which is to say, a closed-system entity, but rather, an open-system entity that is seamlessly woven into the fabric of the self-organizing totality, we are led to reformulate and tackle a whole new question altogether. The question we are now led to address, given the open-system nature of the psyche, is the problem of how the dynamics of therapeutic intimacy are to be understood beyond conventional notions of transference and countertransference. In contrast to the closed-system therapeutic model in which the answers to the critical questions of therapeutic intimacy are sought exclusively within the linear ping-pong of projective exchanges between analysand and analyst, the open-system therapeutic model carries us, not around, but through and beyond the mechanistic-causal details of interpersonal projection to a nonlinear information processing whose ultimate basis is, not the psyche, but the unfolding order of nature itself. Here, in great contrast to conventional therapeutic assumptions, the respective psyches of the analysand and analyst, along with the myriad projections that issue from them, are no longer viewed as the container of the therapeutic process, rather they are viewed as that which is contained in the unfolding solution offered by the self-organizing properties of nature in its entirety. By way of illustrating the very complex workings of open-system dynamics I would like to describe several events that surrounded the birth of not only the first child of a couple with whom my wife and I were friends, but also the birth of their second child. The physical space preparations having to occur in a home prior to the arrival of a baby are usually promptly acknowledged and carefully attended to by most. What tends to be overlooked by an expectant couple, however, are the comparable preparations of psychic space. What tends to be overlooked at that moment of heightened anticipation are the critical consciousness preparations needing to occur in order for the parents-to-be to receive through consciousness the new life that is about to enter their

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world. Given all that is so fully underway in preparing for the new arrival, one would never imagine that such a shift in consciousness would not have occurred. Yet, from my own observations, I have come to learn that even under such circumstances psychological receptivity is anything but a certainty. Now although we cannot know what the specific implications will be of the absence of such receptivity, we should imagine that its absence will be of no small consequence, perhaps even to the birthing process itself. After all, what is at stake here is the critical matter of an expectant couple’s positioning in relationship to a highly complex, unfolding dynamic of self-organizing nature. What is at stake, to put it somewhat differently, is whether an expectant couple will themselves, through such receptivity, be able to align with the unfolding pattern within which they and their about-to-be-born child are now so directly situated. The events of the two examples are as follows. Prior to the arrival of the couple’s first child, at a time, moreover, when the baby’s due date had already passed, I awoke one morning with the very distinct feeling that there was something more I should be doing to support them. Several factors, it seemed to me, were potentially running resistance on the birth process. There were, for instance, certain apprehensions on the part of the mother-to-be since childbirth had not been without complications for her own mother. Furthermore, with the due date having now passed, I knew that anxiety would be starting to build, as it tends to do under such circumstances. Lastly, one of the grandmothersto-be had already arrived from out of town, and the other would be arriving shortly. I was concerned that the inn was about to exceed its capacity and perhaps it was indeed time for this couple to make their way to the manger. I thus decided to invite them to our home to see what might be done to shift consciousness, if that was in fact required. Now the evening the four of us spent together in conversation went very well and I will just say that psychic space was opened. That was a Friday evening, and as something of a parting note they explained to us that if the baby did not arrive within nine days labor would have to be induced. The following Friday morning at approximately 6:00 AM in actual time, but at 2:00 AM according to the dream, after having had no word from them since our evening together at our place, I dreamed that I was standing with our friends in a small room near a hallway. There were many people in the hallway and it was quite chaotic. I embraced the mother-tobe and told her to now let go. What I meant by “let go,” I quite specifically remember, was that she should shift from a complex-determined, familial

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level of consciousness. She was comforted and at that moment her labor suddenly started. Something I need to explain here is how in my experience dreams that provide nonsensory-based connection to objective events fall into two general categories. Firstly, are those dreams that simply convey information about objective events, much as one would experience in watching the news on television; secondly, are those dreams that provide what to all intents and purposes constitute a form of direct, interactive connection to the events themselves, rather as one would experience with video conferencing. In the case of the former, I will especially emphasize, one would simply have knowledge of what was going on; in the case of the latter, on the other hand, one would become part of what was going on. The latter, it seems to me, constitutes a profoundly shamanistic-like engagement with Reality, and this most certainly was the feeling of this dream. Upon awakening, then, given this feeling about the dream’s objective significance, I immediately reported it to my family who, of course, were themselves no less interested than I with how things were progressing. My children, who were very young at the time, concluded, on the basis of their knowledge of other similar experiences of which I had previously spoken, that the dream was just so and I should call our friends immediately. Since it was still early morning I waited a few hours to call. When I did, however, I not only learned that the expectant parents were at the hospital, but that labor had actually started around the time I had had my dream. Furthermore, it was explained to me that upon their arrival at the hospital they had spent a good deal of time in a hallway as the labor rooms were filled. I was then told something that was entirely startling. I learned that in the very early morning on the day of their departure to the hospital and of my own dream the father-to-be dreamed that a man came into their bedroom and embraced his standing wife who was nude, which would be to say symbolically, in the consciousness of her natural or instinctual being. This coming together, as he put it, had the energy of a human mandala in which all present felt greatly supported. Shortly after this, I would say in concluding this first example, one further piece of the highly complex, unfolding pattern was to come to light. An analysand of mine, who had no knowledge of these events whatsoever nor of this couple, described to me, in an analytical session in the course of our review of his own dreams of the previous two weeks, a dream which, I myself was struck to realize because of its content, had taken place the same evening our friends visited us at our home. In his dream, I was

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sitting in my living room—curiously enough from his point of view not my office—speaking to two women who were perhaps in their late fifties, the grandmothers-to-be, I immediately presumed. In the corner of the room—and here my experience of what he was telling me shifted from that of serious interest to awe—quietly sat a baby. My analysand’s dream, remarkably enough, had depicted exactly what had been addressed shamanistically during that evening at my home. Now I can say that the events surrounding the birth of this couple’s second child were no less intriguing in their complexity. Again just prior to the arrival of their baby we spent an evening together. Toward the end of that talk two comments were made that seemed to be connected, even though they were not intended to be. Firstly, it was mentioned that the door on their truck had recently been damaged by another vehicle backing into them. Secondly, it was pointed out to us as we were leaving how the hinges on their child-safety gate, which was situated at the top of the stairs, were coming loose to the extent that the functionality of the gate was about to be lost. That such attention had suddenly been drawn to these two gate/door problems—which might have very well constituted a compensatory pattern in their own right—did not strike me as entirely out of place in a symbolic sense, since it seemed to me that attention was now being drawn, albeit unconsciously, to the far more important problem of that gate/door through which life itself would soon be needing to pass. My dream that evening was more directly to the point. In it, our friend was moving around her home quickly and seemingly without focus, much as one would do when trying to avoid someone or something. For my part, I was trying to catch up to her. When we did finally connect, I touched her protruding abdomen and slid my hand down her body until it was directly over her vaginal opening—the gate—where I was there surprised to feel her baby’s head. She completely relaxed as I explained I would be again helping her much as I had done with the first birth. I then, very much to my own surprise, spoke the following words which I recognized as being from the I Ching: “The clouds pass and the rain does its work, and all individual beings flow into their forms.”33 I questioned her in a soft voice: “Do you hear the rain?” The words I spoke from the I Ching appear in that text under the hexagram of the Creative. When I awoke, therefore, I reviewed that entire hexagram in the event something in it might provide me with further insight into the meaning of my dream. I was surprised to find in the text an idea that prior to this dream meant little or nothing to me. Indeed, in the paragraph preceding the words I actually spoke in the dream, a description

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is given of what are characterized as the four attributes of the hexagram. With reference to the attribute sublimity the text reads: “The Chinese word here rendered by ‘sublime,’ means literally ‘head,’ ‘origin,’ ‘great.’”34 The next day I talked with her husband on the telephone. Feeling it best not to begin with my dream, I asked if he himself had managed to recall a dream following our evening together. He told me with a great sigh of disappointment that he had a dream, but it wasn’t what he had hoped for, that is to say, it didn’t seem to be in any way relevant to the concerns of that evening. I asked him to tell me the dream anyway. He dreamed he was on his way to church, and on the lawn of the church a game of pool was in progress. In this particular game of pool, however, the idea wasn’t to sink the balls in the pockets, as is usually the objective, but rather it was to place the balls as close as one could to the cushion around the edge of the table without touching it. What the players were doing here reminds one of how in pool it is determined who will lead off. Each player takes a shot and the one who comes closest to the cushion without touching it gets to go first. Given the fact that my friend knew this about pool, it seemed fair enough to conclude that the pool game in his dream symbolized an event that was very much stuck in its “prebeginnings.” Even though the pool game in his dream was very much underway, to all intents and purposes, it was being played as if it never really got started. I noted that a parallel compensatory image to this in the dream was that of him having stopped short of entering the church even though it had been his original intention to do so. In both symbolic scenarios, the compensatory picture was that of being stuck on the mere periphery of where things needed to be. Having explained this, I then told him about my dream so that he could share with his wife the parallel directives of both. What most certainly tends to be overlooked, I would again emphasize by way of summation, are the critical consciousness preparations needing to occur in order for the parents-to-be to receive the new life that is about to enter their world. Now a few weeks after the birth of this couple’s second child—a girl this time—a photograph appeared in the national press that was of no small significance to the events I have described above. The photograph, which was taken on the very day their daughter was born yet had only now been released to the press, was an actual satellite photograph of Cape Breton Island—a place of great symbolical significance to the baby’s mother who had not only been born there, but continued to call it home. The photograph, the accompanying newspaper caption explained, had been taken on that specific day to demonstrate the operation of a new Canadian satellite—a new satellite that was distinguished from others by

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its capability to take pictures through clouds and rain. My thoughts immediately turned to my dream in which the baby girl’s birth had been announced: “The clouds pass and the rain does its work, and all individual beings flow into their forms.” Now there is one further footnote to the above of which I myself only became aware after having reviewed my own dreams in preparation for writing this section. When, prior to the birth of the couple’s first child, I recorded in my journal the dream of having embraced the mother-to-be in a small room near a hallway, accompanying that dream was an odd reference to another friend and the late Canadian author Robertson Davies. Davies, it was said, who was still alive at the time of this dream, was going to be “pulling some strings” in connection with my friend’s birthday. I couldn’t imagine at the time what this meant, and I am not sure I know even now. But what I simply wish to point out here, in demonstrating further the great complexity of that with which we are dealing, is that it ultimately proved to be the case that not their first child, but actually their second child, the baby girl, would be the one to share my friend’s birthday. That first dream, in other words, which in the main addressed the birth of their first child, had rolled into it, amongst other things, that which would prove to be the actual birthday of their second child, an occasion which at that time was still years away. Second Principle of the Jungian Paradigm The psyche contains within its compensatory reservoir factors described by Jung as archetypes that compensate consciousness by providing transpersonal solutions to transpersonal problems. The seldom-followed yet most direct point of access to Jung’s concept of the archetype is to view it in terms of its function, as the above statement leads us to do. One of the truly distinguishing features of the Jungian model of the psyche is the understanding, based on the clinical observation of the process of psychic compensation, that the unconscious contains within its compensatory resources transpersonal solutions to transpersonal problems. Even though the problems with which we struggle on a day-to-day basis appear to be of an exclusively personal nature simply because of their overwhelming impact on our personal lives, it is not the case that they are just that. Indeed many of the problems with which we struggle in our everyday lives have transpersonal as well as personal dimensions. When, for example, a close friend or relative dies the loss of that individual often

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impacts so forcefully on one’s personal life that rarely will it be consciously experienced as anything other than a devastating personal problem. Yet in spite of such feelings, death itself is far from being just a personal problem. Death is also a transpersonal problem, and one with which humanity has struggled from time immemorial. The same can be said of the countless other transpersonal problems with which humankind continues to struggle in connection with love, sexuality, marriage, spirituality, parent-child dynamics, and sibling rivalry, to name but a few. All of these problems, impacting as they do on the personal lives of individuals, so often are regarded merely as personal problems. Yet this they certainly are not, and anyone falling into the error of regarding them as such and in turn engaging them on the basis of personal experience alone risks being dangerously outgunned, as it were, in the ensuing struggle for consciousness and meaning. When, therefore, according to Jungian theory, we are confronted within the context of our seemingly, strictly personal lives by problems of a transpersonal nature, archetypal factors within our psyches will come to our defense and spontaneously make available to us transpersonal solutions to these problems. Here, specific compensatory symbols of a transpersonal nature will be placed before us, compensatory symbols, which, by way of a common origin in the collective unconscious, will strikingly parallel the symbols that are found in the religious and mythological literatures of the world. I could present as an example of such transpersonal compensation the dream of a five-year-old boy. The boy’s younger brother had become ill with a neurological disorder that resulted in his sudden and unexpected death. The whole family was grief stricken, especially the children who as much as adults suffer under such circumstances. During this time of crisis, the five-year-old child dreamed that his aunt, his father’s sister, sneezed and the baby was now alive and okay. They could go and pick him up at the hospital. The five-year-old child would not have known that one says “God bless you” when someone else sneezes because it has long been believed that the soul may escape the body at that moment in the absence of an appropriate blessing. The child would not have known, furthermore, that that belief most likely came from the notion that breath and life are one and the same, such as we find in Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”35 Being without knowledge of these things, the child, then, certainly would not have known his dream

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was actually a rebirth dream in which the soul of his brother was being reborn following his death through the sneeze of his aunt, much as the soul carried within a woman for nine months is separated out from her body at the moment of birth. And the child would not have known, moreover, that this aunt, having been his caregiver when his mother was at work, was a most appropriate choice as the second mother through which the second birth should occur. The five-year-old child, we can be sure, would not have understood the symbolic subtleties that I have outlined here to illustrate the workings of transpersonal compensation. What the child did know, however, was that his brother who had died was now alive.36 Symbolic depictions of rebirth, or even symbolic depictions of festive occasions such as weddings or birthdays, are not at all uncommon compensatory, archetypal responses to death. Yet such responses do stand, of course, in great contrast to the experiences of the ego. From the point of view of the ego, given its overwhelming experience of personal loss, “death is indeed,” as Jung puts it, “a fearful piece of brutality.” From the point of view of the archetypal unconscious, on the other hand, from the point of view of its transpersonal knowing, death is depicted neither as an ending, nor as a time of separation, but rather as a time of transition, rebirth, and even reunion.37 In his dream of his infant brother, the five-year-old child was most certainly given access to the latter point of view, the archetypal understanding of death. This critical compensatory development along with its timely presentation in the course of my therapeutic work with his mother, with whom, it should be noted, I was not doing dream analysis, struck me as especially significant since consciousness was not being properly held within that family on the tragedy. The child’s mother had initially come to see me for brief therapy through her place of employment. She had asked to discuss work-related issues stemming from her baby’s illness, such as the pressure she was under for having missed work. When her baby died, immediately following our first session, she experienced his death as something to be quickly put behind her, much as she had done with other sad and tragic events in her life. Consciousness, accordingly, was not being held on her baby’s death by her, as it needed to be. However, in the case of her five-year-old son, it was, so the unconscious was thus given its opportunity to speak. Fortunately, the woman happened to mention the child’s dream to me. The healing that was achieved through his efforts cannot be measured. The conveyance of transpersonal meaning by way of archetypal intervention can be powerfully protective and transformative of conscious-

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ness, as we have just seen. What we now need to recognize is the extent to which archetypal intervention can determine behavior itself. From the earliest stages of his theorizations about the collective or archetypal unconscious, Jung described both cognition and behavior as being subject to transpersonal influences. Initially, such influences on cognition and behavior were depicted theoretically as emanating from the archetypes and instincts, respectively. In his 1919 essay titled “Instinct and the Unconscious,” Jung offered the following description: “Instincts are typical modes of action, and wherever we meet with uniform and regularly recurring modes of action and reaction we are dealing with instinct. . . . Archetypes are typical modes of apprehension and wherever we meet with uniform and regularly recurring modes of apprehension we are dealing with an archetype.”38 In 1946 Jung’s theoretical model of the collective unconscious underwent further revision. Whereas in his 1919 essay Jung had described the collective unconscious in terms of the discontinuous yet functionally complementary instincts and archetypes, by 1946 these two factors had come to be viewed as part of a single energy continuum—the energy continuum of what Jung theoretically termed the psychoid archetype. In my own work, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, where I have presented a more in-depth look at the problem of archetypal theory, especially as it relates to the synchronicity concept,39 I summarize this theoretical development as follows: Essentially, what Jung is attempting to develop and indeed achieves in his paper “On the Nature of the Psyche” is a theoretical model that more accurately portrays the compensatory interplay of the innate patterns of action and the innate patterns of apprehension or meaning in the collective unconscious. Accordingly, rather than speak of the complementary yet discontinuous opposites of instinct and archetype as he did in “Instinct and the Unconscious,” Jung proposes that the psychoid archetype be regarded as a continuum within which is contained the instinctual tendency, that is, the innate pattern of action, and that which he previously referred to as the archetypal tendency but now characterizes as spirit, that is, the innate pattern of meaning. The archetype itself is, then, now understood by Jung to be something of a progressive synthesis of the two factors of instinct and spirit.40 In order to illustrate specifically how these two energies function within an archetype, I will take as my example a rescue incident that was

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recorded by the television media as it happened. The archetype with which we will here be concerned is, of course, the hero archetype. Several years ago a passenger jet crashed into the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., shortly after takeoff. One of the moments of very high drama in the horrific events that followed was when a rescue ring being lowered from a helicopter continued to slip from the grasp of a woman struggling to keep afloat in the frigid water. After each failed attempt she weakened further. Then, just as it appeared she might perish, a man, simply a bystander watching from the shore, removed his coat and jumped into the icy water to assist her. Quite miraculously, he was able to take hold of both her and the rescue ring thus enabling the helicopter to lift them to safety. When individuals rescue others without regard for their own safety, often it is the case that when their heroic deeds are to be formally recognized, perhaps with the presentation of a medal or citation, these same individuals respond almost sheepishly to the suggestion that they are in fact heroes. Their responses, I would here offer, are more than a matter of tasteful modesty. Indeed what they are wishing to convey, I would suggest, is that in reality they simply were not the ones who acted. Ego-consciousness did not plan their heroic responses, nor did it even process them. What they did, the heroic actions they took, came to them, rather, directly out of the unconscious by way of the instinctual side of the archetype of the hero. Now the influence of the archetype doesn’t stop here, for it also plays a role in shaping how the onlookers who are witnesses to such heroic acts process the meaning of what they see. When people observe a man jump into the water to save another human being they certainly do not have to draw on their personal experiences to make sense of what they are viewing. Clearly the spine-tingling rush of energy that grips individuals who observe such rescues is in no way derived from past experiences. Rather, it comes from what Jung, borrowing a term from Rudolf Otto, characterized as the archetype’s numinous charge—the charge that is released when a transpersonal meaning passes from the collective unconscious into consciousness. What witnesses to such heroic acts experience in meaning, therefore, is not simply a man jumping into frigid water without regard for his own safety to save a woman; rather, what they experience by way of archetypal influences is a hero in action. Second Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm In contrast to the present position of Jungian psychology that, in the main, continues to treat archetypal compensation as a strictly intrapsychic phenomenon,

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within the Syndetic Paradigm archetypal compensation is viewed as a phenomenon present in nature as a whole. Furthermore, although the transpersonal compensatory content that is transmitted through the archetype is valued within the Syndetic Paradigm, it is believed that its proper clinical application entails the avoidance of the archetypal reductionism that is characteristic of the Jungian position. At the heart of the shift in Jung’s theorizing about the archetype, as noted above, was its designation as a psychoid factor. In describing it as psychoid, Jung had two things in mind. Firstly, as we have seen, Jung wished to combine the previously discontinuous factors of instinct and spirit in a single theoretical construct. Secondly, and this is the very much overlooked component of Jung’s initiative, Jung wished to identify the archetype as a psychophysical factor coextensive with nature in its entirety. Indeed largely as an outcome of his observation of synchronistic phenomena, Jung was led in his theoretical understanding of the archetype beyond the strictly intrapsychic to a position in which the archetype came to be regarded as a factor operating in nature in its entirety.41 “Since psyche and matter,” Jung explains in his 1946 essay “On the Nature of the Psyche,” are contained in one and the same world, and moreover are in continuous contact with one another and ultimately rest on irrepresentable, transcendental factors, it is not only possible but fairly probable, even, that psyche and matter are two different aspects of one and the same thing. The synchronicity phenomena point, it seems to me, in this direction, for they show that the nonpsychic can behave like the psychic, and vice versa, without there being any causal connection between them. Our present knowledge does not allow us to do much more than compare the relation of the psychic to the material world with two cones, whose apices, meeting in a point without extension—a real zero point—touch and do not touch. In my previous writings I have always treated archetypal phenomena as psychic, because the material to be expounded or investigated was concerned solely with ideas and images. The psychoid nature of the archetype, as put forward here, does not contradict these earlier formulations; it only means a further degree of conceptual differentiation, which became inevitable as soon as I saw myself obliged to undertake a more general analysis of the nature of the psyche and to clarify the empirical concepts concerning it, and their relation to one another.42

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In taking the specific step of attaching to the archetype the adjective psychoid and thereby identifying the archetype with the microphysical, space-time realm of modern physics, Jung’s quite unequivocal theoretical objective was to no longer confine the archetype to the psyche as such, but rather, present the archetype as a psychophysical factor operating within nature in its entirety. At the microphysical level, as Jung had come to understand through his collaboration with the Nobel physicist Wolfgang Pauli, those defining factors of the world of our everyday experience no longer hold sway. In the microphysical world, the solid objects and empty spaces of the world of our everyday experience give way to that which physicists liken to a dynamic interconnected whole— a unitary reality in which notions of time and space are rendered meaningless. This microphysical world, Jung thus came to believe, was no less the world of the psychoid archetype. “Through his observations of synchronistic phenomena,” I wrote in C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, Jung determined that the psyche does at times, “as the knowledge of future or spatially distant events shows,” function outside the normal space and time framework. In the unconscious, space and time appear to be relative, that is, “knowledge finds itself in a space-time continuum in which space is no longer space, nor time time.” Commenting further, Jung states: “We conclude . . . that we have to expect a factor in the psyche that is not subject to the laws of time and space . . . [and] this factor is expected to manifest the qualities of time- and spacelessness, i.e., ‘eternity’ and ‘ubiquity.’ Psychological experience knows of such a factor; it is what I call the archetype.” Related to this, Jung observed, through his study of the intrapsychic processes and the equivalent external psychic or physical processes characteristic of synchronistic phenomena, that an archetype “underlies not only the psychic equivalences but, remarkably enough, the psychophysical equivalences too.” This tendency of the archetype “to behave as though it were not localized in one person but were active in the whole environment,” led Jung to conclude that there is through the archetype a partial identity of psyche and matter, hence its description as a psychoid factor. Taken as whole, the above findings, therefore, led Jung to characterize the archetype as constituting, at the microphysical level, a psychophysical continuum of meaning in which the traditional concepts of space, time, and causality simply do not exist.43

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Now having established the above, it does perhaps need to be emphasized yet again that although Jung most clearly took the theoretical step of identifying the archetype as a psychoid factor no serious attempts were made, either by Jung himself or Jungians, to incorporate that most significant theoretical step into mainstream Jungian psychology. As was explained earlier, within scientific belief systems those observations that do not fit into a system’s more established understandings are almost always marginalized, if not completely discarded. “Normal science,” Kuhn was quoted as stating, “. . . often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are subversive of its basic commitments.” Hence, within scientific communities, it is seldom the case that there occurs “disagreement over fundamentals.” What fits the assumptions of the existing model are allowed in; what doesn’t fit its assumptions are kept out. What fits gets assimilated to the existing system; what doesn’t fit ends up in a type of theoretical limbo—and this, we should understand, is exactly where Jung’s theoretical initiative on the psychoid archetype as a factor coextensive with nature was to be consigned both by Jung and Jungians. For his part, Jung didn’t translate his theoretical initiative into his comprehensive psychological model simply because that model, being based as it was on the assumptions of a strictly intrapsychic paradigm, could never concede the theoretical space for such revision. Most Jungians, for their part, on the other hand, learned little or nothing about Jung’s attempted theoretical leap. And what they did come to know, moreover, ultimately had, once again consistent with paradigmatic constraints, no significant impact whatsoever on the comprehensive theoretical model within which they worked. Jung’s initiative was thus destined to remain in the intrapsychic world of the Jungian Paradigm but an alien presence relegated to its uttermost theoretical fringes. We can see such theoretical marginalization at work, for instance, in those situations where Jungians have been compelled to interpret the term psychoid as referring to a unique and separate level of the unconscious altogether, rather than designating the nature of each and every archetype, as Jung most certainly intended it to do. This is exactly that to which Samuels defaults in speaking of the psychoid unconscious.44 Curiously enough, yet not entirely surprisingly in light of what has already been said about paradigmatic constraints, the passage that Samuels cites from Jung in support of his own notion of the psychoid unconscious is the very one I myself cited above in which Jung clearly designates the archetype itself as a psychoid factor.45 When it comes to the theoretically incongruent, I will again emphasize, what a paradigm cannot ac-

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commodate it will attempt to neutralize or mute by way of theoretical marginalization. Continuing then with Jung’s theoretical discussion of the role played by the psychoid archetype in experiences and events of a synchronistic nature, one thing with which the Syndetic Paradigm cannot agree, it should be pointed out, is the Jungian Paradigm’s view that the psychoid archetype is the foundational basis of these phenomena. The phenomena of synchronicity, Jung writes, “seem to be bound up with the archetypes.”46 Elsewhere he reflects: “By far the greatest number of spontaneous synchronistic phenomena that I have had occasion to observe and analyse can easily be shown to have a direct connection with an archetype. This, in itself, is an irrepresentable, psychoid factor of the collective unconscious.”47 [Note Jung says collective unconscious as opposed to psychoid unconscious.] Jung continues: “Meaningful coincidences—which are to be distinguished from meaningless chance groupings—therefore seem to rest on an archetypal foundation.”48 And finally: “like every archetype, the self cannot be localized in an individual ego-consciousness, but acts like a circumambient atmosphere to which no definite limits can be set, either in space or in time. (Hence the synchronistic phenomena so often associated with activated archetypes.)”49 The point I wish to make here is not that I do not regard the archetype to be a psychophysical factor operating out of normal space-and-time limitations, for I do regard it as such. The point I wish to make, rather, is that it is the position of the Syndetic Paradigm that the archetype is not the foundational basis of what is occurring. Rather, the archetype is simply that through which self-organizing nature—which is the true basis of these phenomena—may or may not find expression. Self-organizing nature, in other words, not the archetype, is that which constitutes for the Syndetic Paradigm the basis of what Jung termed synchronistic phenomena. Now that Jung would be as inclined as he was to designate his theoretical construct of the archetype as the basis of synchronistic phenomena betrays a paradigmatic bias, I would suggest, that has its origins in the larger and more critical problem of the Jungian Paradigm’s proclivity to archetypal reductionism. It is a curious fact that after having expended such effort to lift the therapeutic process out of the trap of Freudian reductionism, Jung himself would in turn channel therapeutic dynamics into a reductionistic trap of his own making. Indeed rather than taking a true step beyond reductionistic limitations such as were found in the Freudian Paradigm’s assessments of power and sexuality, the Jungian Paradigm created a reductionistic trap

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in the therapeutic form of its own distinctively Romantic fixation on the archetypal or transpersonal aesthetic. Rather than taking a true step forward, the Jungian Paradigm, in this regard, merely replaced one form of therapeutic reductionism with another. Where the Freudian Paradigm could see no more in the workings of the psyche than a relentless, largely complex-driven regression into the basest forms of the instincts, the Jungian Paradigm, for its part, in the main, could see no more in the workings of the psyche than an equally reductionistic upward pull into the realms of archetypal or transpersonal meaning. Having reached a similar conclusion about the limitations of such theoretical and clinical one-dimensionality in the Freudian and Jungian systems, Ken Wilber speaks of an “elevationist” tendency in Jungian psychology, which, as he emphasizes, is no less dangerous than the “reductionist” tendency of the Freudian approach. “Jung and his followers,” Wilber writes with reference to the fundamental defect of the elevationist tendency, “are forced to read a deeply transpersonal and spiritual status into states that are merely indissociated and undifferentiated and actually lacking any sort of integration at all.”50 In their present forms, Wilber thus concludes about the Freudian and Jungian systems, that the best we can say “is that they are both half right and half wrong.”51 What is, therefore, now needed, we ourselves would add, is a more complete picture of Reality than either of these two reductionistic systems has offered. Reality, I wish to say at this point by way of summation, reveals itself to us through the compensatory meanings of the self-organizing activities of nature. If, therefore, our encounter with unfolding Reality is reduced to something less than an experience of the self-organizing whole that nature is, Reality-based functioning will most certainly be lost to us. If, through Freudian reductionism, our experience of self-organizing life is ultimately reduced to complex-driven power drives, Reality will most certainly be lost to us. If, through Jungian reductionism, our experience of self-organizing life is ultimately reduced to an archetype, no matter how cleverly, the same will no less be true. Yes, anyone can pull an archetype out of any given situation, but simply doing so has nothing whatsoever to do with the compensatory dynamics of unfolding Reality. Reality, to be sure, is not to be found exclusively in either the dynamics of personal or transpersonal psychology. Reality, rather, presents in nature’s dynamic and purposive compensatory blending of the two. It is where the personal and transpersonal entwine in the unfolding dynamics of the spontaneously self-organizing whole. With the intention of conveying more fully the dimensions of Jungian archetypal reductionism, I wish to review a synchronistic case exam-

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ple that to my mind is entirely typical of Jungian reductionistic or elevationist tendencies. The fact that this case was published in what is perhaps the most reputable Jungian journal—the Journal of Analytical Psychology— more than indicates, I would note, the general acceptance of this way of thinking within Jungian professional circles. The case begins with the author, Sean Kelly, and a friend, identified as Gregory, sitting in the latter’s second-floor apartment in Ottawa, Canada, “absorbed in a discussion of the Absolute.” Both men, we are told, who were nearing the completion of their doctoral dissertations on Hegel, were yet again continuing what had been an ongoing discussion of “Hegel’s speculative logic of the Absolute” which, notably on this occasion according to Kelly, had culminated in “a sublime moment of perfect mutual understanding and intellectual hyper-lucidity.” The world it seemed now “stood at [their] feet,” and with “spirits still uplifted” they left for a walk through the grounds of Ottawa’s Festival of Spring.52 Walking together toward the Lower Town district of Ottawa, the author found himself recalling family experiences, especially ones associated with those areas of the city through which they now passed. “I remarked,” Kelly tells us, “with an implicit tone of sadness or regret, that it had been several years since I had seen anyone from my father’s side of the family. We lost touch quickly after my father died. (I was 7 at the time.)” Kelly’s thoughts then turned to his father’s brother, his Uncle Derek, who, according to family reports, was an alcoholic living in that very neighborhood in “some seedy hotel” on a disability pension. Coming to an intersection, Kelly and his friend turned left, and just as they did a man approached them inquiring about the time. Kelly, who was without a watch, nevertheless had with him a “solar ring pendant.” He removed it from around his neck, pointed it into the sun, and came up with a reading that it was in fact 3:10. Then, with his eyes still recovering from the glare of the sun, he turned to face the man who had stopped them. As he did, both he and the man immediately realized that they knew each other. The man was his Uncle Derek. The excitement of the moment of mutual recognition immediately gave way to a brief and awkward exchange. As Kelly and Gregory then went on their way they reflected on the impact of the encounter, especially Uncle Derek’s physical appearance. Gregory spoke of Derek’s eyes, which reminded him of those of a friend, Roland, “an odd young man,” Kelly writes, “with whom Greg had earlier had some accidental, and somewhat unsettling, relations (I was never apprised of the details).” For Kelly’s part, he found himself fixated on the damage that chronic alcoholism had inflicted on his Uncle Derek’s nose. The final shock, however, the “double

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synchronicity” as Kelly puts it, came as they continued toward the Festival grounds and saw Roland making his way along the other side of the street, mere moments after his name had been mentioned in the course of their discussion of Kelly’s uncle.53 Concerning Kelly’s handling of the question as to how these events are meaningfully connected, no answer of therapeutic value, I would suggest, is forthcoming. Indeed the conclusions that are drawn in this Jungian case study about the compensatory significance of these events are so general that they are no more therapeutically exacting than the statement “all meaning flows from God.” As true and even as encouraging as such a statement might be, I would not be alone in suggesting that we need to narrow things down somewhat when it comes to the practice of psychotherapy lest we completely succumb, through archetypal reductionism, to the undifferentiated meaninglessness that so often typifies so-called New Age thought. With regard to such New Age elevationist tendencies, Wilber himself reflects: “All sorts of endeavors, of no matter what origin or of what authenticity, are simply elevated to transrational and spiritual glory, and the only qualification for this wonderful promotion is that the endeavor be nonrational.”54 Now Kelly’s own inability to touch the ground in his analysis of the critical question of meaning is perhaps most clearly evidenced in his summation. The text reads: Apart from the resonant character of Greg’s parallel synchronicity, a fascinating peculiarity of this case is the unconscious articulation, in our initial discussion, of the Self as archetype of wholeness (complexio oppositorum). The “absolute” character of the Self accounts not only for the synchronistic dimension proper, but for the principle of compensation at work in the constellation of the shadow. Indeed, what might at first appear as a merely reactive balancing of light with shadow, of the perfect impersonal with the all too human, must be seen as an intentional, if paradoxical, gesture on the part of the Self. Such gestures point to the sphere of the unus mundus, where inner and outer, light and shadow, and all such relative distinctions, find their intelligible ground.55 Now after having offered no more than archetypal generalities in his analysis of the compensatory meaning of this “double synchronicity,” after having said no more than that the compensatory meaning of these events is the great compensator, the self, which is merely to say the compensatory meaning of these events is that all such compensatory meaning flows from the great compensator, the self, the paper is brought to a close.

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In the summation, we are told: “The paper concluded with a commentary which, in keeping with the introductory clarifications, highlighted the essential roles of compensation and archetype.”56 Having outlined what Kelly himself said about this case history, we must now pursue what he didn’t say, for it is only through our study of what wasn’t said by Kelly that we will make the compensatory meaning of these experiences accessible to the analytical process. Kelly’s case analysis is a classic example of Jungian archetypal reductionism wherein Romantic propensities carry things upward, and the higher they manage to do so, all the better. Indeed Kelly goes right to the top in giving the archetype of the self the central position in his analysis of these synchronistic compensatory dynamics. Pulling the archetype of the self out of a given compensatory situation, as Kelly does, is neither a great nor particularly enlightening feat, since, within Jungian psychology, the self, being regarded as the central archetype of orientation and meaning, is actually believed to stand behind all compensatory activity, archetypal and otherwise. Accordingly, just about anything and everything of a compensatory nature could be reduced to the archetype of the self should one choose to do so. If, therefore, one puts in one’s thumb and pulls out the self one very well may not be exceeding an “all meaning flows from God” level of insight and analysis. This is Kelly’s predicament and of course it is the Jungian predicament in general. Simply to speak about the archetype of the self, as Kelly does in his commentary on compensatory dynamics, is nothing more than pure Jungian archetypal reductionism or elevationism. We can do much better than that, but to do so we must be willing to descend and truly engage the unfolding situation. Even though, then, there is little if anything to be gained from an analytical perspective in speaking about the archetype of the self as Kelly himself does, there is a basis for speaking of the father archetype, and right behind it, perhaps even more to the compensatory point, the father complex. There can be little doubt that the problem at the very core of this “double synchronicity” must be, for both men, the problem of the differentiation of the masculine position itself. Indeed both synchronistic experiences, I would suggest, are part of the same constellated compensatory pattern, the pattern of the father archetype/father complex in general, and more specifically still, the problem of what I term the unrelated masculine. Although I will be speaking about the unrelated masculine in greater detail later in this work, I will here briefly reflect on the unique problem it presents. First and foremost, the unrelated masculine is about the pursuit of goal without relatedness. It is about a type of tunnel vision that would

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lead to the forceful, even violent, imposition of ideals and principles on life. It is the bulldozer that would drive through a house to get to the backyard when there is clearance on either side. It is the firefighter positioned at the door with axe in hand who would break it down without first seeing if it is unlocked. It is the strictly abstract, cold, otherworldly exclusivity of the disembodied masculine spirit that rarely, if ever, experiences the warmth of the grounded inclusivity of the embodied feminine. In short, it is the masculine principle without its feminine counterpart, and, as is clear enough to individuals knowledgeable about these matters, neither one of these principles can be whole in the absence of the differentiated presence of the other. The unrelated masculine is the masculine consumed by the masculine in its unconscious and undifferentiated form. The unrelated masculine is the masculine lost in the undifferentiated masculine without objective point of reference. In the case of Kelly, we cannot but imagine a connection here to an event he himself noted—the tragic, premature loss of his own father at the age of seven. The case of the “double synchronicity” is from beginning to end, a litany of the problem of the unrelated masculine. Here we at once see the tendency of the unrelated masculine to move, in the absence of feminine principle counterbalance, into the higher reaches of pure spirit, as well as the characteristic disasters that invariably attend its reentrance. On its way up, we see Kelly and Gregory having reached “a state of almost manic lucidity in [their] discussion of Hegel’s concept of the Absolute.” It was as if, Kelly tells us, “the world stood at our feet.” “With spirits still uplifted,” they then set out for the festival. Next came the encounter with the “stranger” requesting the time. Kelly, not wearing a watch, took the time from the sun itself using a “solar ring pendant” that had been designed by a seventeenth-century German monk. On its way down, we see Kelly blinking his eyes to readjust his vision after having looked directly into the sun’s glare. Then, at that very moment of reentry from the upper regions of the solar world of the unrelated masculine, what Kelly finds standing right before him is none other than his Uncle Derek—a man afflicted with the wound characteristic of those who are inclined to overindulge in the spirits [spirit]. It is on this very wound, the wounded nose—a wound symbolical of corrupted masculine intuition and instinct—that Kelly fixes his gaze without really knowing why. Moments later, and connected specifically to Gregory’s own reentrance, a parallel symbolic representation of masculine woundedness and arrest presents itself. Both men observe walking along the street a man about whom they had just spoken—“an odd young man with whom Greg had earlier had some accidental and somewhat unsettling, relations.”

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Reality, I wish to say in closing this section, is revealed not through our ascent into archetypal generalities, but rather through our descent into the details of the psychologically specific. As with the Blakean notion of being able “to see a world in a grain of sand,” it is only through seeing and accurately interpreting the particular that we truly are given access to the whole. Never will we access the Reality line by jumping over the particulars of personal psychology; rather, such access will come about only by processing through them. When the critical particulars of personal psychology are jumped over by way of the archetypal, the soul simply ends up traveling in circles, round and round on the merry-go-round of archetypal theme. When, on the other hand, the dynamic edge of the psychological particular is identified and engaged in the context of the unfolding self-organizing whole that is nature, within which is enfolded the archetypal, we enter the Reality line. Third Principle of the Jungian Paradigm The compensatory process takes place under the direction of a central archetype, the archetype of orientation and meaning, the self. Jung describes the self as both the spiritus rector and goal of the individuation process. The formulation of the self, I would suggest, is largely to be viewed as Jung’s theoretical response to Freud’s own preoccupation with the dynamics of the ego and its defenses. In fact, in one of Jung’s first descriptions of the self, presented in a lecture in 1916 before the Zurich School for Analytical Psychology, Jung actually characterized the self as “the unconscious or subconscious ego.”57 Much as the assumptions of Freud’s conflict model of the psyche led him to assign the preeminent psychotherapeutic role to a point within consciousness, the ego, Jung, consistent with the assumptions of his selfregulatory model, was led to assign the preeminent psychotherapeutic role to a point in the unconscious, the archetype of the self. For most Jungians, the self, we can be sure, constituted Jung’s most important clinical finding. Through it, they believed, therapists would be given the means to reach beyond the ego, the point of orientation and meaning for the conscious personality, and directly engage and work with analytically that which formed the point of orientation and meaning for the psyche as a whole, conscious and unconscious, the self. As we already learned through our earlier discussion of the self-regulatory model, Jung held that the compensatory process works not merely to address the day-to-day compensatory needs of the individual, but no less to meet the personality’s more comprehensive developmental require-

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ments. Concerning the latter, as early as 1918, Jung came to believe that the archetype of the self is both the director and goal of the personality’s comprehensive development. “From my own experience,” Jung writes in his memoirs with reference to his gradual, experiential awakening to the self, “I knew by now that I could not presume to choose a goal which would seem trustworthy to me. It had been proved to me that I had to abandon the idea of the superordinate position of the ego. . . . During those years, between 1918 and 1920, I began to understand that the goal of psychic development is the self. There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the self.”58 As is true of most of Jung’s key theoretical constructs, the concept of the self was introduced and revised in his writings over a period spanning no less than four decades. Jung’s discussion of the self, accordingly, is not without complications and even contradictions. Perhaps the most serious theoretical issue stemming from Jung’s protracted writings on the self has to do with the question of its very nature. Jung offers two contradictory explanations. At times Jung leads us to believe that we create the self; at times Jung leads us to believe that the self creates us and is our ultimate goal, as the above citation from Jung’s memoirs indicated. Jung’s adherents, for their part, it seems, have coped with this theoretical discrepancy by simply choosing to embrace one of the two explanations with little or no regard for the other. Outside Jungian circles, however, others have not been so accommodating. Glover’s questioning of Jung’s contradictory theorizing about the self is a case in point. Although Glover’s concerns are clearly not without merit,59 Samuels, as a Jungian insider, entirely fails to comprehend the legitimacy of Glover’s doubts. “Glover’s objections to Jung’s idea of the self,” Samuels would thus have us imagine, “are characteristically trenchant (1950). He wonders if the self is to be conceived of as something one works towards or makes, or as something one is developing out of or from. The answer is, of course, both, but Glover’s question illuminates these twin trends in analytical psychology: those who see life more as an unfolding of what was always there and those more interested in pursuit of a goal.”60 Samuels, it seems to me, entirely misses the point. For if we are accurately to reflect the essential question being raised by Glover, we need to drop the ambiguous “works toward” component of Samuels’s rephrasing and straightforwardly ask: “Is the self something that one makes or is it something that makes us?” Even more to the point we could reiterate our above question: “Do we create the self or does the self create us?” If the critical question about the self’s nature is phrased in one of these two ways, even Samuels, I believe, would no longer answer “both.”

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Yet the very real and disturbing fact is that in Jung’s own writings the “answer” with which we are inadvertently presented to even our now unambiguous question remains “both,” which is in effect to say, Jung inadvertently offers two mutually exclusive, utterly contradictory “answers.” As a consequence of this, going back to my above statement, there exists among Jungians, albeit unacknowledged by the adherents of that collective, two entirely incongruous schools of thought on this matter. One group holds to the theoretical position that the self is produced through the individuation process in the coming together of the conscious and the unconscious. The other group, no less drawing on Jung’s writings, regards the self strictly as an archetype, that is to say, an innate psychic factor that has acted from the time of our birth as the secret spiritus rector of our life journey. If, then, such contradictory understandings of the nature of the self are to be found in Jung’s writings, how, we would ask, are we to make sense of it all? The answer, to my mind, is to introduce a theoretical distinction that Jung himself did not make in his discussion of this problem. Jung’s theoretical discussion of the self, I would suggest, can be conceived of as falling into two distinct categories. Firstly, there exists a body of writings dealing with Jung’s discussion of the self as an archetype, that is to say, as the spiritus rector and goal of one’s psychic journey. Secondly, there exists a body of writings dealing with what we could very well characterize as the functional emergence of the self, that is to say, how the archetype of the self functionally comes into being in the individuation process through the coming together of the conscious and unconscious. In its role as archetype, the self is first and foremost to be regarded as the central ordering archetype, and as such that to which all other archetypes submit and from which they take their direction. “So long as a mental or indeed any psychic process at all is unconscious,” Jung explains, “it is subject to the law governing archetypal dispositions, which are organized and arranged round the self.”61 Behind any given archetypal manifestation, therefore, stands the archetype of the self. Within Jungian psychology, the archetype of the self is regarded as both the alpha and omega of our psychic existence. “The beginnings of our whole psychic life,” Jung relates, “seem to be inextricably rooted in this point, and all our highest and ultimate purposes seem to be striving towards it.”62 Placed in the context of the individuation journey, this developmental process is conceived of in terms of three distinct stages, as Edinger has most carefully explained in his Ego and Archetype.63 The starting point is the ego’s experience of unconscious identification with the self. This, Jungians suggest, is our Garden experience. What then follows,

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as we might anticipate, is the Fall. In this the second developmental stage, the ego undergoes the necessary and painful experience of separation and conscious differentiation from the self, with which it was wrongly identified. The analytical undoing of the ego’s inflation in this regard, as Edinger notes, somewhat but not entirely lightheartedly, perhaps gives credence to what is more commonly characterized as the “head-shrinking” component of analysis.64 With differentiation thus established, the third and final stage is entered upon. In this stage, the ego must find its way back to the Garden, but not in the sense of unconscious identification with the self as before. Rather, the ego’s return to the Garden must come about through the cultivation of conscious relationship to the self. The archetype of the self, I would thus summarize, is at once for Jungians that out of which the ego emerges and that toward which the differentiated ego consciously returns. Now although the above three-stage progression is a relatively accurate picture of what occurs with regard to ego/self dynamics there is, however, something for which this description does not account. What the above model specifically does not convey is that our experience of “arrival” or “return” is a gradual and indeed incremental process. Having this caveat in mind Edinger himself has emphasized the need for the development and maintenance of the ego/self axis at all stages of the individuation process. Jung, for his part, as we have already seen, speaks of the circumambulation of the self, as opposed to a more linear approach to our goal. “Clinical observation,” Edinger relates with the ego/self axis in mind, “leads one to the conclusion that the integrity and stability of the ego depend in all stages of development on a living connection with the Self.”65 Jung, as noted earlier, states: “There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the self.” Not conceptualizing the ego’s approach to the self in terms of a direct and absolute line of progression from A to B, what Jung would have us understand is that the “return” is more accurately conceptualized in terms of a progressive movement around a center pole—a movement not only around it, but upward as well, as with an upward moving spiral. And it is through such upward spiraling from unconsciousness to consciousness, we can now say, that the self functionally comes into being. Given, then, that that which we have characterized as the functional emergence of the self is a core outcome of the individuation process, it is not surprising that Jung sought to give attention through his writings to this unique experience. Jung especially showed such initiative in some of his earlier writings wherein the experience of the functional emergence of

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the self came to be regarded as the experiential equivalent of Eastern notions of enlightenment. Jung was very much drawn to the study of Eastern philosophical texts, especially their discussions of enlightenment. There were several reasons for this, but perhaps the most important reason of all was that Jung was taken with the Eastern conviction that one’s “redemption” or liberation, as it would more formally be put, could be achieved through the systematic cultivation of consciousness. Not unlike the individuation process itself, this Eastern understanding stood, to Jung’s mind, very much in contrast to Christian-derived, Western assumptions in which salvation could only be secured by way of vicarious atonement. “In accordance with his conception,” Jung thus writes in his Commentary on the Chinese text The Secret of the Golden Flower, “the Christian subordinates himself to the superior, divine person in expectation of His grace; but the Eastern man knows that redemption depends on the ‘work’ the individual does upon himself. The Tao grows out of the individual.”66 In the course of his study of Eastern philosophical accounts of the process of enlightenment, Jung discovered remarkable parallels to his own clinical findings. Here, Jung was not only inspired and supported by what he read, but he was significantly influenced in the manner in which he theorized about the individuation process in general, and his concept of the self in particular. Accordingly, it is the case that we especially find in these early writings that Jung, wanting desperately to link the experiential awakening characteristic of the individuation process to the enlightenment experience, which is to say in our specific terms, to link the experience of the functional emergence of the self to the enlightenment experience, chose to represent the self, not as an archetype proper, but rather, as something that is actually created through the systematic differentiation of consciousness, much as is the enlightenment experience itself. In the following passage, which is taken from Jung’s Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower, two theoretical assertions are especially worth noting vis-à-vis Jung’s descriptions elsewhere of the self as an archetype. Firstly, it is asserted in this passage that the self is created through the coming together of the conscious and the unconscious in the individuation process. This assertion, of course, stands very much in contrast to the fact that in Jungian theory archetypes are by definition innate factors. Secondly, it is asserted below that the self constitutes “a hypothetical point between the conscious and the unconscious,” a theoretical positioning, I would note, which an archetype by definition would be incapable of assuming in that an archetype strictly remains, according to Jungian theory, an ultimately unknowable factor of the collective unconscious. The text reads:

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But if the unconscious can be recognized as a co-determining quantity along with the conscious, and if we can live in such a way that conscious and unconscious, or instinctive demands, are given recognition as far as possible, the centre of gravity of the total personality shifts its position. It ceases to be in the ego, which is merely the centre of consciousness, and instead is located in a hypothetical point between the conscious and the unconscious, which might be called the self. If such a transposition succeeds, it results in doing away with participation mystique, and a personality develops that suffers only in the lower stories, so to speak, but in the upper stories is singularly detached from painful as well as joyful events. The creation and birth of this superior personality is what is meant by our text when it speaks of the “holy fruit,” the “diamond body,” or refers in other ways to an indestructible body.67 As a direct consequence of being given by Jung descriptions of the “self” such as the above that contrast irreconcilably with descriptions given elsewhere of the self as an archetype, Jungian adherents to this day remain split in their understanding of one of the most fundamental concepts of the Jungian Paradigm. And perhaps even more remarkable still is the fact that the adherents of that paradigm do not even recognize that to be the case since, as noted earlier, the existence of that split has been masked by a discipleship that is comfortable embracing just one of the two official “explanations” while showing no regard whatsoever for the other. James Heisig, for instance, in his work Imago Dei, which purports to present a comprehensive study of the theological aspects of the self, more than evidences the extent of theoretical chaos on this matter within Jungian circles, when he speaks of Jung’s—and I will emphasize here the key word with my own italics—occasional description of the self as an archetype. Writing about a theological interpretation of the self put forward by Edinger, Heisig states: “My only complaint against his analysis is the identification of God the Father with the Self. This is justifiable only in terms of Jung’s occasional use of the term ‘Self’ to refer to an unconscious archetype.”68 I will here simply rest my case. Third Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm The process of individuation is not conceived of in terms of an interaction between the ego and a specific center or entity, rather it is conceived of as a compensatory interaction between the ego and the complex system of nature in its entirety in a process of unfoldment.

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In the above we were able to glimpse the inconsistencies and subsequent confusion that has attended Jung’s theorizing about the self. Certainly more could be said about all of this, and later in this work this is exactly what I will do in turning to examine yet another theoretical problem altogether that is associated with Jung’s notion of the self. At this point, however, simply on the basis of what has been outlined above, one would at least wonder why it seemingly is the case that the therapeutic efficacy of Jungian psychology has not been impacted by this sorry state of theoretical affairs. How, we might specifically ask, is it that the Jungian analytical process has not been compromised by a muddle of this enormity involving its principal theoretical concept? The perhaps startling answer to this question, I would offer, is that Jung’s theoretical construct of the self was never needed in the first place. One of the most fundamental principles of scientific inquiry is that fact and theory are to be kept in the closest possible relationship to each other. Theory is to come into being as a simple and straightforward explanatory outcome of the facts. Explanatory theoretical redundancies, accordingly, are not acceptable. Yet theoretical redundancy, I would suggest, is exactly that with which we are presented in Jung’s construct of the self. When Jung theorizes, as he does on the basis of his observation of compensatory dream symbolism, that the psyche is governed by self-regulatory dynamics, Jung is, to be sure, offering a theoretical account that is a legitimate expression of his clinical facts. Here Jung keeps theory and fact within acceptable proximity to each other. When, however, Jung doesn’t stop at that theoretical point and goes on to indicate that the self-regulatory dynamic is governed by a hidden and unknowable ordering factor termed the self, Jung not only wrongly takes one step too many beyond his factual basis, but he commits the error of introducing a duplicate explanatory theory. Now having said this, I will immediately note that even though the construct of the self is in effect presented within the Jungian Paradigm as a duplicate explanatory theory of compensatory dream material, it really is not deserving of comparison to the explanatory account offered by Jung’s self-regulatory theory. That is because the construct of the self, being removed as it is from the facts of Jung’s clinical observations, amounts more to a statement of faith than a scientific explanation. And as is so characteristic of such faith-based explanations, the construct of the self offers us nothing more than a series of dead-ends. Typically we are told by faithbased explanations that there is this unknowable controller X operating behind the natural order, but beyond that notion there is nothing with

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which we are practically left to work. All that is left is for us to think of X, or the self, as the Jungian Paradigm would have us do, as this secret “arranger.” Such split-off notions open nothing to us whatsoever when it comes to the pursuit of the systematic study of the life process; in fact they serve to alienate us from it. We see within Jungian circles today, for instance, the disturbing consequences of Jung’s theoretically split-off notion of the self being brought to bear on the dynamics of synchronicity. Most disconcerting of all perhaps is the emergence of the belief that synchronistic phenomena— instead of being expressive of the innate orderedness of nature—are “arranged” by the self operating over and above the natural order. John Dourley’s following explanatory account of the dynamics of synchronicity exudes this erroneous type of thinking. “In the synchronistic event,” Dourley reflects, “the self as the ‘arranger’ exercises its sway over nature and consciousness in orchestrating apparently chance correlational events to create an impact on the individual in the interests of the individual’s realignment with the intrapsychic self.”69 Clearly one cannot get much further off the mark, for this is not the way of the self-regulating psyche, nor is it the way of the self-organizing totality. Such crude linear dynamics cannot begin to account for the great complexity of nature’s self-organizing activities. The process of individuation, I will reiterate, according to the Syndetic Paradigm, is thus conceived of, not in terms of an interaction between the ego and a specific center or entity, but rather, in terms of the compensatory interaction between the ego and the highly complex system of nature in its entirety in a process of unfoldment. Returning then to the specific problem of the self as a redundant explanatory construct, it is worth noting that Samuels himself has expressed concerns along this very line. Indeed Samuels comes very close to acknowledging Jung’s error in this regard when he writes: “It is difficult to see what the precise function of the self archetype would be, given that all the archetypes have such a patterning function.”70 Now after having so succinctly raised the critical question, Samuels, however, quickly backtracks as we see in the following passage. The text reads: The concept would be redundant but for two special, additional properties of the self that raise it above the ordinary rank of archetypes. These are (a) the self functioning as a synthesiser and mediator of opposites within the psyche, and (b) the self as the prime agent in the production of deep, awesome, “numinous” symbols of a selfregulatory and healing nature. These special aspects of the self lead

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In contrast to what Samuels suggests above, it is not the archetype per se that has a patterning function, but rather, the compensatory dynamics of the self-regulatory psyche that do—compensatory dynamics, it should be yet again emphasized, of which the archetype itself is in service. Within Jungian theory, the psyche is understood to be self-organizing, and that is to say that everything within it—archetypes, complexes, and all other psychic contents without exception—are equally subject to its selfregulatory patterning. Concerning Samuels’s second contention that a “prime agent” must exist to produce the “‘numinous’ symbols of a selfregulatory and healing nature,” one could only wonder why he would say such a thing when Samuels would very well know that Jung repeatedly spoke of numinosity as being an intrinsic attribute of each and every archetype. “Since the archetype is numinous,” Jung explains, “i.e., possesses a specific energy, it will attract to itself the contents of consciousness— conscious ideas that render it perceptible and hence capable of conscious realization.”72 Elsewhere Jung writes: “I must stress one aspect of the archetypes which will be obvious to anybody who has practical experience of these matters. That is, the archetypes have, when they appear, a distinctly numinous character which can only be described as ‘spiritual,’ if ‘magical’ is too strong a word. Consequently this phenomenon is of the utmost significance for the psychology of religion.”73 One can only imagine that if Samuels were not locked into a Jungian mindset that takes for granted the necessity of the concept of the self, Samuels’s initial concerns about its redundancy would have proven to be irrevocable. I should like to say in conclusion that the theoretical attributes of Jung’s concept of the self are more than accounted for within the selfregulatory model of the psyche. Accordingly, in eliminating this theoretical construct as the Syndetic Paradigm does, it is not the case that the attributes and depth meanings Jung associated with the self are lost. The intensity of our encounter with the mysteries of life, for instance, is in no way lessened when we speak in terms of the self-organizing properties of nature as opposed to the compensatory workings of the archetype of the self. In fact, they are enhanced. Nor do we lose a sense of intimacy in shifting from a relationship with a single point of orientation and meaning in the unconscious to a relationship with a self-organizing totality. Nothing is lost, for the compensatory dynamics at work are still as intimately tied to the experience and need of the individual as they were before. Was it misguided science, a desire to counter theoretically Freud’s ego-based

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analytical orientation, or the security of directly aligning his psychological model with Judeo-Christian anthropomorphism that compelled Jung to create and employ the theoretical construct of the self? Whichever it was, any theoretical construct, we can be sure, that attempts to account for selforganizing dynamics in terms of a single entity operating within the confines of linear dynamics will have the clinical utility of a split-off ideal. And it is for this very reason, we can no longer deny, Jung’s concept of the self has become a liability.

II

NATURE’S INTRINSIC MORALITY Fourth Principle of the Jungian Paradigm The Jungian ethic arises out of the critical evaluation of the compensatory meanings issuing from the unconscious in the course of the individuation process. The significance of the phrase “critical evaluation” is not to be underestimated. Indeed, in that all compensatory responses take place under the direction of the self and, more importantly, the self is regarded by Jung to be of questionable moral character, it is incumbent on the ego, not the self, to determine and maintain moral standards. Fourth Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm An ethic emerges in the course of the individuation process through the conscious assimilation of what are understood to be the intrinsically moral compensatory activities of nature. Given the intricacies of the arguments to be studied in this section, we will need to follow a different format than we have used to date. Our approach up to this point has been to present the respective positions of the Jungian and Syndetic Paradigms successively. What we, however, now need to do is to examine the two paradigmatic positions concurrently. There can be no doubt that to Jung’s mind one of the most important contributions of Analytical Psychology has been to our understanding of what it means to be ethical. And perhaps there is no more concise explanation of all that this entails than we find in Jung’s foreword to Erich Neumann’s Depth Psychology and a New Ethic. Writing in summary, Jung reflects: “We might therefore define the ‘new ethic’ as a development and differentiation within the old ethic, confined at present to those uncommon individuals who, driven by unavoidable conflicts of duty, endeavour to bring the conscious and the unconscious into responsible relationship.”1 Most certainly, it is here in the form of this bringing together of the 77

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conscious and unconscious into responsible relationship that we approach the heart of the Jungian notion of the ethical. What we must now attempt to uncover, therefore, is exactly what this characteristic Jungian experience of the ethical entails, and how, moreover, this understanding compares and contrasts to that of the Syndetic Paradigm. In C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, I identify and describe three salient features of the ethical dimension of the Jungian worldview. In that the summation offers us a solid point of departure for our present discussion, I will quote from it at length. The text reads: The most general, yet nonetheless important, moral challenge with which the individual is confronted is the moral challenge to accept consciously the responsibility of the individuation process itself. In that the individuation process is experienced as a task “imposed on us by nature,” the task of the individuation must, Jung suggests, be received “as a binding personal commitment.” Individuation is for Jung the challenge to become what one is virtually destined to become. It is the challenge to fulfil consciously the unique pattern of development that has existed in potential from the beginning and that nature now strives, through its compensatory activities, to lead one to realize. . . . A second feature of the ethical dimension of [the Jungian worldview concerns] . . . the need to ground in reality the insights one achieves through the encounter with the unconscious. “With the advance toward the psychological,” Jung writes, “a great change sets in, for self-knowledge has certain ethical consequences which are not just impassively recognized but demand to be carried out in practice.” It is clear that for Jung this problem of making a reality of the insights one achieves through one’s confrontation with the psychic material of the unconscious was a concern of the greatest ethical importance, and approached with exacting seriousness. “No matter how deeply absorbed or how blown about I was,” Jung explains in his autobiography, “I always knew that everything I was experiencing was ultimately directed at this real life of mine. I meant to meet its obligations and fulfil its meanings.” . . . A third moral challenge, which is identified by Jung as being particularly demanding, is the problem of coming to terms with what he describes as the shadow. The shadow, which constitutes something of a secondary personality living in the unconscious, is the personification of the “hidden, repressed, [and] for the most part inferior and guilt-laden” aspects of the individual. Accordingly, the

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shadow contains many of those qualities that one is all too ready to recognize in others but less able and willing to discover in oneself. Although one would suspect that these hidden traits are completely malicious and negative, it is not the case that they are. The shadow contains positive as well as negative traits and, moreover, consists of both personal and transpersonal elements. With “shadow work,” the basic objective is to bring these hidden aspects of the secondary personality within the scope of consciousness. . . . Clearly, one does not readily accept the painful inferior aspects of one’s personality that this type of work brings to light. And, we should add to this, one does not always readily accept hidden talents, for these too present burdens of a different sort. Yet ultimately, one must come to accept these negative and positive personality traits that previously were recognizable only in others. Therefore, if shadow work is to be successful, considerable moral strength is required. As Jung relates: “The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort.”2 What the Jungian and Syndetic Paradigms have in common when it comes to this first ethical principle is a belief in the necessity of moving through the birth canal of one’s self-realization consciously, which is to say, right end as opposed to wrong end first. And while both certainly hold that that process is to proceed by way of an encounter with nature’s compensatory dynamics, they certainly do not, in practice, look to the same places in anticipation of that encounter. The Jungian Paradigm, in the main, seeks that encounter intrapsychically; the Syndetic Paradigm, by contrast, seeks that encounter in nature in its entirety, which is to say, both intrapsychically and in the self-organizing patterns of nature beyond the psyche. How significant are these paradigmatic differences? They are very significant. For if we are to measure the challenge associated with this first ethical principle, not merely in terms of a compensatory dynamic that is strictly intrapsychic, as the Jungian Paradigm in the main holds it to be, but rather, in terms of a compensatory dynamic encompassing nature in its entirety, we readily see the degree to which the ethical imperative of this first ethical principle becomes exponentially amplified. When our experience of compensatory dynamics progresses beyond the strictly intrapsychic to encompass nature in its entirety, not only for the individual, but no less for the theoretical constructs of the psychological paradigm operating under such assumptions, does the eth-

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ical imperative of this first ethical principle become all the more real and all the more inescapable. The transformation of personality, it should be explained as we now turn to investigate the second ethical principle, is most accurately conceptualized in terms of three distinct stages. Firstly, that which is obstructing the personality must be identified. Secondly, the requisite consciousness to overcome, or better still, move through this obstruction must be found. Both of these steps, I would note, proceed largely under the direction of compensatory dynamics. The fulfillment of the third stage of transformation, by contrast, depends almost entirely on the conscious efforts, or more specifically still, on the moral fortitude of the individual in question. In the third stage, one must find within oneself the moral strength to accept the responsibility of grounding in one’s life the insights that were acquired in the two other stages. Nothing is truly understood, nothing is truly known until the insights that have come to one through the compensatory unfoldment are planted, as Jung himself puts it, “in the soil of reality.” Jung continues: “That is what we usually neglect to do. We allow the images to rise up, and maybe we wonder about them, but that is all. We do not take the trouble to understand them, let alone draw ethical conclusions from them. This stopping-short conjures up the negative effects of the unconscious.”3 When an individual fails to carry forward in practice insights obtained under the compensatory direction of nature, there can be no question of there being negative consequences. In dreams, such disconnections between consciousness and life typically take the symbolic form of a degradation or cheapening of the sacred. For instance, an individual may dream of being on a spiritual pilgrimage when, just as he is about to mount the steps leading to the sacred site that has been his goal, he abruptly turns back. Suddenly, at that very moment in the dream, what had previously had all the qualities of a genuine and deep spiritual quest becomes lost to a carnivallike atmosphere in which people are selling cheap religious trinkets. A dream like this presents when one has done exactly the same thing in one’s own life: hesitated and turned back at a critical moment when something must be carried forward in practice. Now one might ask about the above: What if the individual in question simply was unable to mount the steps, symbolically speaking? What if it was the case that the goal truly exceeded his or her developmental capability? Clinical experience, I would answer, has shown that an individual would not have had such a dream if he or she had not the consciousness and ability to mount the steps in the first place. Such dreams are about turning one’s back on the meaning one can realize in one’s life,

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they are not about turning one’s back on the meaning one cannot realize. Such dreams do not present to those being pushed beyond their limits; rather, they present to those who are in the grip of spiritual regression, hence the shocking representation of loss in the form of the degradation or cheapening of the sacred. Something further to note about dreams of this nature—especially with individuals for whom such lapses have acquired the consistency of habit—is that often beneath their seemingly innocuous carnivallike or gamelike atmosphere, there exists an ominous element, indeed an even deadly element. And most importantly, this danger is something which the figures in the dream, and thus the dreamer himself or herself, either do not sufficiently acknowledge, or fail altogether to comprehend. The message being conveyed here is that that which the individual is treating as a mere game is not a game at all. In such dreams, guns are being handled as if they contain blanks, when in fact the ammunition is live. The neglect of meaning in life always exacts its price, and it is just a matter of time before Reality hits with full force. In the journey of the soul, the ammunition is always live. In the Chan or Zen tradition, the mind well situated on the path of enlightenment is distinguished by the straightforwardness of its Reality engagement. In the terminology of the Syndetic Paradigm, we would describe the straightforward mind as the ability to engage directly, consciously and ethically unfolding Reality as it presents in both the inward and outward experiences of our everyday lives. Now if we were to concede that such a direct, conscious, and ethical engagement with unfolding Reality seems at times to be a goal of the Jungian Paradigm, we would never concede, on the other hand, that the Jungian Paradigm is in any way positioned, either theoretically or clinically, to promote such an outcome, for the only engagement that the Jungian Paradigm promotes consistently is that of a merely aesthetic engagement with the world of inner experience. Largely as a consequence of its radical, inner-world orientation, largely as a consequence of its disconnection from the outer world, largely as a consequence of its archetypal Romanticism, what the Jungian Paradigm remains, in spite of all stated ambitions to the contrary, is merely a vehicle of aesthetic, rather than ethical, engagement with unfolding Reality. Any analysand operating within an inner-world model like that of the Jungian Paradigm will be more than led to experience his or her analytical process along the lines that most individuals experience a good film or play, which is to say, merely aesthetically. People go to the theater and find themselves deeply moved emotionally by what they see; yet when they leave the theater their lives typically remain unchanged by their ex-

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periences. This is because although they have seen it they have not experienced themselves as being in it, which is also to say, being it. Analytically, this is the experience of the analysand who passively watches the drama of his or her life unfold in his or her dreams without ever experiencing himself or herself as being the participant in what is being represented, which, of course, is the Reality of the situation. The force and immediacy of an outward encounter with the compensatory dynamics of unfolding Reality, will, however, take things to an altogether different level. It is indeed quite a different matter when one is actually contained within it and thus fully gripped by it out there. No longer is the ethical problem of meaning and consciousness so readily lost to mere aesthetics. No longer does the illusion exist that direct engagement, which is to say, being in it, is a matter of choice. Suddenly one’s relationship to unfolding Reality becomes absolutely straightforward and in the moment of this much-needed consciousness shift an ethical imperative emerges as never before. As the following case will demonstrate, this is especially true when it comes to shadow intrusions. In notable contrast to the almost exclusive cultural preoccupation in his time with masculine principle functioning, Jung, quite remarkably, was able to identify and bring into play in his own psychology a working understanding of feminine principle consciousness. Whereas the masculine principle in Jung’s model was associated with exclusiveness, differentiation, and goal orientation, the feminine principle was associated with inclusiveness, relatedness, and receptivity.4 Concerning ethics specifically, whereas Jung held that masculine principle functioning inclined one to process ethical decisions in terms of absolutes or principles, feminine principle functioning, on the other hand, inclined one to process ethical decisions in terms of existing situational factors. Now it is interesting to note that Carol Gilligan came to a parallel understanding of masculine and feminine principle functioning in her more recent study of women and ethics. Gilligan took for her starting point the question of how women came to their decisions to have abortions. Gilligan then moved into the far more complex problem of the differences between men and women in their approaches to ethical problems in general. After having thus uncovered masculine and feminine principle differences paralleling Jung’s own findings, Gilligan concluded, much to Jung’s unacknowledged credit I should note, that the longstanding Freudian characterization of women as amoral stems from the fact that Freud himself failed to recognize that women simply do not process moral problems in the same manner men do.5 In that the masculine and feminine principles function optimally within the personality when in balanced relationship to each other, it is

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the case that the development of one-sidedness in either direction is problematic and will invite compensatory intervention. The unrelated masculine, as we have already seen, epitomizes such imbalance and thus typically presents as a preoccupation with principle at the expense of human feeling, and/or in terms of the pursuit of goal without relatedness to oneself or others. The therapeutic treatment of the unrelated masculine invariably calls for an analysis of the shadow. And such shadow work—which, of course, constitutes the third and final component of Jungian ethicality—seldom proves to be anything less than an incredibly painful process. Indeed, it is often retrospectively declared by analysands that had they but an inkling, prior to being cast into its dark depths, of all that shadow work would ultimately entail, they would have had more than second thoughts about entering into it in the first place. The analysand whose case material we are about to examine6 was at such a point of despair. And much as people will often long to do, having reached this point, the analysand simply wanted to leave behind the seemingly negative shadow work and escape into the “more positive stuff,” as he himself put it. Fortunately, during the evening of the day in which this very concern was recorded in his journal, the analysand recalled the following dream. The analysand dreamed he was in a hospital treating patients without the proper medical training or licensing to do so. Most significantly, he was about to provide treatment for a man with “trigger finger.” The image of the analysand on the verge of treating a medical condition he had not been trained or licensed to handle was certainly an apt depiction of the analysand’s dilemma. Clearly any attempt on the part of the analysand to move the analysis at that particular point into “the more positive stuff” would have resulted in nothing other than the premature, perhaps even dangerous abandonment of the shadow work still underway. The dream, therefore, was telling the analysand that for him to take such an initiative with the analysis was as ethically inappropriate and indeed harmful as him making a serious medical decision for which he was neither trained nor qualified. “Trigger finger,” curiously enough, is a more than appropriate symbol of the unrelated masculine. Trigger finger is a medical condition in which the normally smooth movement of a tendon has become constrained by the narrowing of its surrounding tendon sheath. Typically the condition will worsen if the tendon itself should develop nodules, as a consequence of the ongoing trauma of its choppy movement through the tendon sheath. Given these underlying factors, it is symptomatically the case

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with trigger finger that when one attempts to flex the affected finger, greater force than normally would be applied to produce such a movement must be used. Moreover, once the finger moves, it will in turn become stuck in the bent position. It then can only be freed by being physically straightened by the other hand. With trigger finger, we might say with reference to the problem of the unrelated masculine, there is no middle ground. There is no smooth, which is to say, related movement between inaction and action, passivity and overkill. Over the next two days, the trigger finger dream was followed by further dreams dealing with the problem of masculine unrelatedness. In one dream, the analysand was traveling on the subway to an underground destination when he suddenly realized that “thugs” had rerouted the train and it was about to collide with another. The analysand got off the train and notified the appropriate authorities, thus sparing both the train and its passengers. The next day the analysand dreamed he was driving to a sporting event while half asleep and unable to awaken. The analysand feared that the police might stop him for impaired driving. Concerning our interpretation of the first dream, we would begin by noting the significance of the analysand having to take an underground route. The analysand, we can derive from this, still needs to continue his journey through the underground world, which, of course, is the world of the unconscious. Not surprisingly, in this underground world the analysand encountered “thugs,” shadow figures who are powerful personifications of the unrelated aspects of his own masculine shadow. There he learned, moreover, that they were about to create a tremendous collision through sabotage, much as the analysand himself would inadvertently do if he too were to attempt to reroute the unconscious dynamics of his analytical process by ending his shadow work prematurely. Responding, however, quickly and appropriately to what the thugs were about to do, the analysand got off the train and notified the station authorities, thus avoiding what would have been certain disaster for the train and its occupants. The unconscious, we can take from this dream, was seeking to maneuver the analysand onto the right side of the problem with which he was struggling. Along this line, the analysand’s use of the “appropriate authorities” in ultimately bringing this particular crisis to resolution should be noted. Of course the analysand’s actions in this regard stood very much in contrast to what we saw in the trigger finger dream where he was about to proceed with something that he had neither the appropriate qualifications nor authority to handle. Clearly the destructive potential of the shadow contents with which the analysand was engaged was not to be underestimated. In the subway dream, the analysand barely kept the shadow

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figures from getting the upper hand. In the dream that followed, the precariousness of the analysand’s position was yet again underscored in the image of the analysand struggling to drive while on the verge of complete unconsciousness. A complex, it seemed, that was only just being kept at bay, was making preparations to deliver a complete knockout blow. Several days later the analysand attended a play that proved to be of remarkable compensatory import. The play “A Walk in the Woods” unfolded around a series of discussions on arms reduction between an American diplomat and his Soviet counterpart. The American was new to the work, and as a consequence far more idealistic about what was taking place. The more seasoned Soviet, on the other hand, was more than aware of the real limitations under which the two men were indeed operating. In contrast to the American, the Soviet recognized that the “negotiations” taking place had for the most part simply been staged for the sake of political considerations in their respective countries and abroad. He knew that the two men would not be formulating real policy. The Soviet thus focused his attention, not so much on the outcome of their “negotiations,” the goal, that is to say, but on the more meaningful problem of getting to know his American counterpart as a person. He did this by encouraging the American to join him for walks in a nearby park—an involvement the American initially regarded as unprofessional. The critical event in the play took place when the American, walking by himself on a break in Geneva, littered the ground with a piece of paper and found himself being berated by a Swiss police officer for having done so. Suddenly, the tension that had been secretively building in the American as a result of the repeated affronts to his idealistic sense of selfimportance could no longer be contained. Suddenly, the American diplomat’s persona shattered, thus enabling the hitherto split-off, unrelated masculine energy of his own shadow to present with a vengeance. Pushing away the police officer and turning toward the now gathering crowd, the American flashed his diplomatic credentials in a frantic and desperate attempt to convince those present—and no less himself, we could add— of his importance. Later recalling the incident to the Soviet as he joined him in the park for yet another of their walks, the American could feel nothing but shock and dismay for his behavior. In this breaking through of the diplomat’s unrelated masculine side from behind the persona of political idealism, not only is one of the great problems of personal psychology brought to consciousness, but so too is one of the core problems of militarism, the arms race, and global conflict— that being the problem of the undifferentiated shadow. How can there be global peace without justice? How can there be justice if perceptions

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and actions are informed and driven by the darkest of unconscious projections? Psychological wholeness through shadow work, Jung always maintained, not mere ideology, is the only way out of our present predicament. For no amount of weapons, no security perimeters, no matter how heavily fortified can protect us from the consequences of unleashing into the world our own undifferentiated shadows. Writing about this very concern, in a work completed only ten days before his death, Jung thus reflected: If, for a moment, we regard mankind as one individual, we see that the human race is like a person carried away by unconscious powers; and the human race also likes to keep certain problems tucked away in separate drawers. . . . Our world is, so to speak, dissociated like a neurotic, with the Iron Curtain marking the symbolic line of division. Western man, becoming aware of the aggressive will to power of the East, sees himself forced to take extraordinary measures of defense, at the same time as he prides himself on his virtue and good intentions. What he fails to see is that it is his own vices, which he has covered up by good international manners, that are thrown back in his face by the communist world, shamelessly and methodically. What the West has tolerated, but secretly and with a slight sense of shame (the diplomatic lie, systematic deception, veiled threats), comes back into the open and in full measure from the East and ties us up in neurotic knots. It is the face of his own evil shadow that grins at Western man from the other side of the Iron Curtain.7 Not surprisingly, on the evening of the play the analysand’s dreams returned to the problem of the unrelated masculine. In one of his dreams, a Volkswagen Beetle was reduced to a crumpled mass of metal after having tried to pull a much larger vehicle out of a depression in the land. In his second dream, the analysand was in a doughnut shop buying up all the “good ones,” even as he knew that the “passive” man standing in the line behind him would be left without any. In the above dreams, we observe, not just the excess to which the unrelated masculine carries one, but also the consequences of such unrelated behavior for others. The first dream, in which a smaller car was destroyed trying to pull a much larger one out of a depression in the land, demonstrates the danger to which the unrelated pursuit of goal exposes one. This would be the case, for instance, where one stubbornly takes on a challenge or battle where failure or defeat is certain, or where through the unrelated

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pursuit of goal one works oneself to a point of complete burnout. The second dream, by contrast, depicts the type of injuries and deprivations to which those caught in the wake of the unrelated masculine are secondarily exposed. In the analysand’s second dream, the identifiable victim in this respect was, of course, the “passive” man who patiently waited behind the analysand while the latter helped himself to all the good doughnuts. In comparable life situations, such secondary fallout might take the form of an extremely passive seller or service provider bowing to pressure to reduce his or her cost unreasonably. Now given all that had occurred, both inwardly and outwardly, the analysand certainly knew that he had placed more than just a foot into the problem of the unrelated masculine. As the analysand was about to learn, however, his drop into the world of the unrelated masculine was still far from over. The following day, as the analysand was driving slowly along a road scanning the surrounding area for a place to park his car, he suddenly realized in glancing ahead to check the road that he was about to enter a pedestrian crosswalk. Pressing hard on the brake, he brought his car to a full stop after having just crossed the pedestrian line. He was in front of a hospital. Looking to his left, he then saw a group of men coming toward him, one of whom was yelling at him without restraint for not having properly yielded. As he watched the man approach his car window, the analysand’s experience shifted from that of shock, to indignation, to uncontrollable rage. Within seconds he had completely lost it, as he himself put it. He was ready and even wanting to fight physically. At that moment, I will now just say, the analysand had arrived at the very center of the compensatory pattern of the unrelated masculine that had been unfolding in and around him for the past week. What the analysand had witnessed in the play of the previous night was now his Reality. As with the Swiss police officer’s excessively punitive reaction to the diplomat’s carelessness, the pedestrian’s response to the analysand’s failure to stop at the crosswalk line was entirely disproportionate. At no time were the pedestrian and his friends at risk of physical injury. Yet just as the diplomat had experienced, the analysand now found himself the recipient of an inflated wrath triggered not by a true situational danger, but rather, by the violation of principle. And just as the unrelated outburst of the Swiss police officer had released in the diplomat his own undifferentiated masculine energy, so too was the analysand’s undifferentiated masculine energy released by the merciless tirade of the offended pedestrian. The analysand, we should understand, had literally arrived at the hospital, and his limitations with regard to the problem of the “trigger finger” of the un-

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related masculine were now more than evident. Fortunately for the analysand and all concerned, the pedestrian stood down and walked away, much as the Swiss police officer had done in the play. In the journey toward conscious wholeness, I will say in summation, there can be no short-circuiting of the developmental process. If we attempt to do so by just going after the “good stuff,” we will only empower that from which we wish to escape. To come to terms with the shadow, we must know it in its entirety, and it was indeed by way of both the inward and outward interventions of self-organizing nature that the analysand was led to do just that. Our discussion up to this point in this section has focused on the ethical problem of how we are to understand and assimilate to our lives the meanings of the compensatory directives of self-organizing nature. The ethical question to which we are now about to turn, however, takes us deeper still, for reaching beyond the question of our responsiveness to nature’s compensatory activities, it explores the ethical character of that out of which these compensatory meanings issue, which is to say, it explores the ethical character of self-organizing nature as such. Is selforganizing nature, it is of no small importance to know, intrinsically moral? To this critical question, we will now see, the Jungian and Syndetic Paradigms do not answer in kind. For whereas the answer received from the Syndetic Paradigm is an unequivocal yes, the highly convoluted answer of the Jungian Paradigm ultimately is no. Now before proceeding further I need to offer a word of caution about the Jungian “answer” that is to follow. It will not be easy to accept or even believe the Jungian answer that you are about to receive since that answer so blatantly contradicts much of what appears in Jung’s writings elsewhere. The Jungian answer, one must know in advance, is a theoretical contradiction, and it is a grossly misguided one at that, to the extent that it goes against that paradigm’s most fundamental theoretical assumption, which of course is its notion of the self-regulatory psyche. How could such an answer be anything but an unconscionable inconsistency? How could a psychology that claims to adhere to the self-regulatory model answer no to the above question, unless it is within that psychology’s agenda to endorse and encourage regression, meaningless suffering, and even evil? We are only left to imagine, therefore, that the Jungian answer we are about to examine—an answer which, as misguided as it might be, very much lives and thrives within the theories and clinical practices of Jungian psychology today—is indicative of a theoretical split that went entirely out of control. Whether we are talking about a self-regulatory model that is strictly intrapsychic or a self-regulatory model that extends to nature in its en-

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tirety, the one thing that is incontrovertibly true about both is that egoconsciousness is being led by nature; it is not doing the leading. Egoconsciousness, more specifically, is allowing itself to be led by that which it ultimately trusts, self-organizing nature. If, however, moving to the diametrical opposite of this, ego-consciousness is having to function as the regulator and director of its development because nature, for whatever reason, cannot be trusted to do so, then we do indeed abandon the self-regulatory model and commit ourselves to the psychodynamic model of the Jungian Paradigm’s precursor, which is the conflict model of the Freudian Paradigm. The ego, the Freudian Paradigm would have us understand, must above all else side with culture and its moral conventions to resist the threatening and morally destructive forces of nature residing in the unconscious. The “principal task of civilization,” Freud reflects, “its actual raison d’etre, is to defend us against nature.” For Freud, quite specifically, the task of civilization is to defend us against the insatiable instinctual drives residing in our own psyches, which, in the absence of appropriate cultural restrictions, would in short order precipitate our complete destruction. Nature would destroy us, Freud writes reflecting a point of view completely the inverse of that of the self-regulatory model, “coldly, cruelly, relentlessly . . . possibly through the very things that occasioned our satisfaction.”8 Very much in contrast to the Freudian Paradigm in which culture constitutes a necessary line of defense against nature, the Syndetic Paradigm holds that self-organizing nature is that to which we must necessarily turn to defend ourselves against culture. For the Syndetic Paradigm, in other words, the innate moral character of self-organizing nature surpasses that of culture. Now this being the case, we need to understand exactly what the Syndetic Paradigm has in mind in speaking of nature’s intrinsic morality. Perhaps the most direct point of access to what the Syndetic Paradigm has in mind in speaking of nature’s intrinsic morality presents in the clinically observable tendencies of self-organizing nature to support and further life. Through its compensatory activities, both inwardly and outwardly, self-organizing nature, according to the clinical observations of the Syndetic Paradigm, works ceaselessly to support and further life. And selforganizing nature remarkably seems to do so, the Syndetic Paradigm would further add, in a manner that is not detrimental, but rather complementary to the equal ambitions, if we can describe them as such, of all life forms to reach their respective potentials. According to the Syndetic Paradigm, to put it somewhat differently, not only is everything in the biosphere interconnected, but also it no less seems to be the case that in

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this arrangement of interconnectedness no one part ultimately progresses at the expense of another. The ethicality of self-organizing nature, therefore, according to the Syndetic Paradigm, is that the self-realization of each part necessarily proceeds in the context of what we perhaps can only describe as the ongoing self-realization of the unfolding whole. That nature ceaselessly and unconditionally supports and furthers life in this manner is, for the Syndetic Paradigm, what makes it innately moral and indeed, to draw now on the language of Jung’s own discussion of what he terms the problem of evil, innately “good.” That which is genuinely “immoral” or “evil,” by contrast, is for the Syndetic Paradigm that which actively opposes and even reverses this otherwise purposive and progressive life flow. Now to my mind, as I have already mentioned, it defies all reason that a psychological system would continue to embrace the self-regulatory model if it were to believe that that which is doing the “regulating” is as inclined, through its compensatory workings, to oppose and reverse the life flow as it is to support and further it. How could a psychology continue to trust itself to the self-regulatory model if it believed that that which was doing the regulating was as likely to sponsor evil as it was good? Yet that is exactly what the Jungian Paradigm continued to do long after it theoretically concluded that the central ordering archetype, the self, which, of course, is understood by Jung to oversee and direct all self-regulatory activity within the psyche, is as likely to sponsor evil as it is to sponsor good. We can yet again but only imagine that within the Jungian Paradigm this 50/50 formula concerning the self emerged as an entirely split-off theory, but this notwithstanding, the fact no less remains that the 50/50 formula became the definitive theory of the Jungian ethic. Of course the core essay out of which the 50/50 formula emerged is Jung’s 1952 paper “Answer to Job.”9 The Book of Job is the biblical account of Job, a righteous man, who found himself in the unfortunate position of being in the crossfire of a struggle between God and Satan. Satan bet that if he were to be given license to inflict suffering on Job he could cause this most faithful servant of God to turn against Him. As the story goes God granted Satan this freedom, yet Job, after having seen his children die, after having experienced abandonment by his closest friends and wife, after having endured unspeakable physical suffering and deterioration to the point that the continuance of his life seemed doubtful, still remained firm in his faith in God. What was Job himself to make of all of this? What are we to make of all of this? What needs to be said to a man whose only fault, according to Jung, was his “incurable optimism in believing that he [could] appeal to divine justice?”10 Jung’s answer, Jung’s answer to Job is more

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than hinted at in his introductory reflections to his essay. The source of Job’s suffering, Jung tells us, is God’s own psychopathology, God’s own “divine darkness.” The text reads: The Book of Job is a landmark in the long historical development of divine drama. At the time the book was written, there were already many testimonies which had given a contradictory picture of Yahweh—the picture of a God who knew no moderation in his emotions and suffered precisely from this lack of moderation. He himself admitted that he was eaten up with rage and jealousy and that his knowledge was painful to him. Insight existed along with obtuseness, loving-kindness along with cruelty, creative power along with destructiveness. Everything was there, and none of these qualities was an obstacle to the other. Such a condition is only conceivable either when no reflecting consciousness is present at all, or when the capacity for reflection is very feeble and a more or less adventitious phenomenon. A condition of this sort can only be described as amoral. How the people of the Old Testament felt about their God we know from the testimony of the Bible. That is not what I am concerned with here, but rather with the way in which a modern man with a Christian education and background comes to terms with the divine darkness which is unveiled in the Book of Job, and what effect it has on him.11 Now although all that Jung is here saying seems to be self-evident enough, I should warn you that finding our way to Jung’s true position is unfortunately not so simple. Indeed, the pattern we encounter in the Jungian presentation of the Job story in particular, and the problem of evil in general, is one in which statements such as the above about God are retracted or neutralized as quickly as they are made. The game being enacted by Jung and his followers takes the form of making strong statements about the nature of God/self, on the one hand, while at the same time denying that their theoretical assertions relate in any way to something outside of, or separate from the psyche. With the Jungian discussion of this problem, therefore, we can only determine what is truly being said if we are to separate what Jung and Jungians say they are saying, from what they are in fact really saying. A number of theological writers—perhaps not entirely surprisingly given their unique need to establish exactly what Jung is or is not saying about God—stand among the few to have found their

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way to the very heart of this problem. One such individual, H. L. Philp, expressed his concerns and doubts in the form of a series of questions posed to Jung. “In studying your writings,” Philp explains, I have come to the conclusion that you are dealing with a figure of Satan which cannot be identified with the traditional Christian view of him which has just been outlined. Although psychologically he is so important a figure, it seems to me that, especially in your Answer to Job, you go far beyond a psychological study. . . . No reader could be blamed for thinking that you were dealing with a metaphysical entity. The kind of construction you put upon the Book of Revelation, including your treatment of the Incarnation of Christ, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the relation of Satan to all this, forms a line of argument leading up to the place of individuation. . . . You appear to represent Satan not only as what you would call a psychic fact, but as an independent and real personality. If this is not your meaning, then the language you use about the reign of Antichrist and the whole range of Satan’s activities is meaningless. . . . I should like to understand clearly what you mean, for instance, when you refer to Antichrist and his reign, and when you state that this was astrologically foretold.12 The response of Jung and Jungians to intelligent questioning such as the above, as well as to the no less important questions raised elsewhere by others, such as the Dominican priest, Victor White, was simply to discredit the men from whom these questions issued. The problems theological writers encountered, Jungians retorted, had nothing at all to do with discrepancies within the Jungian argument itself, but rather everything to do with the blind devotion of these individuals to Church dogma, which entirely obstructed these individuals in their ability to comprehend the Jungian position. Nothing, however, I would suggest, could be further from the truth, for the only dogma by which anyone was blinded in these particular instances was Jungian dogma—a dogma which shielded Jung and his followers from having to acknowledge to themselves and others the real position they had taken up on this critical question. Quite specifically, I am referring to the Jungian statement of faith, the prescribed dogmatic belief that only psychological truths are being described in the Jungian discussion of the problem of evil when in fact objective realities beyond the strictly intrapsychic are as well. Writing in his highly regarded biography of Jung about the tension between Jung and White, Gerhard Wehr provides us with an excellent ex-

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ample of such Jungian dogmatism. Writing with reference to White’s increasing doubts about the validity of Jung’s position, Wehr, merely echoing the Jungian party line on this matter, reflects: “Soon he [White] began to have second thoughts, the misgivings of one who suddenly realized that agreement with psychological insights could lead to conflict with Church dogma.”13 White, I would say in response to Wehr, was not a man spooked by perceived threats from strictly psychological truths, nor was he drawn away from the Jungian fold by blind adherence to Christian dogma, as Wehr and other Jungian writers would have us believe. The source of White’s alienation was nothing other than his complete frustration and disappointment—and this is a glaring understatement—with the fact that Jung and Jungians could not call a spade a spade, much as Wehr himself, as we will now see, is unable to do. Wehr’s analysis of the tension between White and Jung on the problem of evil is a typical exercise in Jungian self-contradiction. On the one hand, as we just saw above, Wehr dutifully upholds the prescribed Jungian position in speaking of strictly “psychological insights.” On the other hand, however, in telling us elsewhere in this same book why Jung undertook the writing of “Answer to Job” in the first place, Wehr transgresses the boundary of the strictly psychological. Indeed, in concluding his list of reasons that in the end led Jung to write “Job,” Wehr writes: “Added to this were the great contemporary events of the just-ended world war, with its flash floods of deceit, injustice, subjugation, and mass murder, which had shocked all humanity. Thus there was reason enough to ask, ‘What does a kind and almighty God have to say to this?’”14 Very much in contrast to what Wehr and the dogmatic pronouncements of Jung and others would have us believe, that which is being described here as having compelled Jung to write “Job” and wrestle in that work with God’s “divine darkness” goes well beyond the realm of strictly psychological truth. As with other Jungian writers on this subject, therefore, the discrepancy between what Wehr says he is saying, and what in fact he is saying, are two very different things. Lionel Corbett, in his book The Religious Function of the Psyche, provides us with yet another, even more fully developed example of the problem. I regret having to quote at such length, but I believe it is necessary to do so in order to demonstrate just how intractable the Jungian theoretical split on this matter has become. The text reads: Jung became very passionate about Job’s dilemma in his essay Answer to Job, which stimulated enormous controversy, because on the surface it seemed that within it Jung had crossed a line into forbidden

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In the first part of his commentary, Corbett is most careful in explaining to his reader that Jung’s discussion of the problem of evil has nothing to do with an objective God, but is rather a matter of strictly psychological experience. Quite astonishingly, however, the one who is seemingly most unconvinced by this argument is Corbett himself, for in the latter part of his commentary he abandons the intrapsychic realm as his point of reference and proceeds directly into the realm of objective reality. And here, as was the case with Wehr above, Corbett is no longer talking about “people’s ideas of God,” nor is he talking about “the canonical God image,” rather what Corbett is talking about is the “dark side of divinity” that is incarnate in our world today—the dark side of divinity which reveals itself in the evils of war and the countless sufferings of the masses. Once again, therefore, contrary to what Jung and Jungians would have us believe, the 50/50 formula is not merely about our strictly intrapsychic impressions of God, it is about God. Now to this I must add one further point. Regardless of whether Jungians use the term God, the self, nature, or the unconscious, what we should know is that they are essentially talking about the same thing. Jungians are talking about that which acts on us, that which directs us in our development, that which is, to use Jung’s specific term for the self, our spiritus rector, that which regulates the life process either strictly intra-

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psychically or in nature in its entirety. Whichever term is used, Jungians are talking about the same thing and, moreover, they are saying the same thing about it. They are saying that it is amoral, that it is as likely to promote evil as it is to promote good, that it is not worthy of our trust, and that man is morally superior to it. The following collection of excerpts from the writings of Jung and his followers more than demonstrate this critical point. About the objective and entirely tangible presence of God’s evil in this world, Neumann, after having studied the manuscript of “Answer to Job,” wrote to Jung in a letter dated December 5, 1951: “In particular it is— for me personally—also a book against God, who let 6 million of ‘his’ people be killed, for Job is really Israel too. I do not mean this in any ‘petty’ sense; I know we are only the paradigm for the whole of humanity in whose name you speak, protest and console.”16 To which Jung replied in a letter dated January 5, 1952: “Very many thanks for your kind letter and the way you have understood me. This compensates for 1,000 misunderstandings!”17 About the evil workings of the self-regulatory psyche, Neumann elsewhere states in his Depth Psychology and a New Ethic: “what used to be known as Satan . . . now parades in modern dress as the demands of the unconscious . . . luring us to our destruction.”18 Similarly, in her book Sacred Chaos: Reflections on God’s Shadow and the Dark Self, Francoise O’Kane, writing with reference to the malevolent attributes of God and the archetype of the self, rhetorically asks: “God’s shadow, the dark Self . . . provokes unspeakable suffering in individuals whose life it overshadows. . . . Can we accept that God has a shadow and that He therefore does not simply love us?”19 She later continues: “I am trying to find a way to help those individuals who are directly confronted with the dark side of God.”20 Along this same line, but going further still, Jung, in a letter to Morton Kelsey dated May 3, 1958, describes the inherent evil of God, nature, and the compensatory activities of the unconscious as follows: “The absence of human morality in Yahweh is a stumbling block which cannot be overlooked, as little as the fact that Nature, i.e., God’s creation, does not give us enough reason to believe it to be purposive or reasonable in the human sense. . . . This most shocking defectuosity of the God-image ought to be explained or understood. The nearest analogy to it is our experience of the unconscious: it is a psyche whose nature can only be described by paradoxes: it is personal as well as impersonal, moral and amoral, just and unjust, ethical and unethical.”21 Finally, about the moral inferiority of God, the moral superiority of human beings, and the great moral burden this places on the latter, Jung

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writes in “Answer to Job”: “Since the Apocalypse we now know again that God is not only to be loved, but also to be feared. He fills us with evil as well as with good, otherwise he would not need to be feared; and because he wants to become man, the uniting of his antinomy must take place in man. This involves man in a new responsibility. He can no longer wriggle out of it on the plea of his littleness and nothingness, for the dark God has slipped the atom bomb and chemical weapons into his hands and given him the power to empty out the apocalyptic vials of wrath on his fellow creatures.”22 Along this same line, Marie-Louise von Franz, speaking in the Jungian film Matter of Heart with specific reference to a vision of global catastrophe Jung had at the end of his life, describes how now, more than ever, it is incumbent on mankind to confront God’s evil nature, so that He might be kept from destroying the world. “I try to pray,” von Franz offered in a moment of deep reflection toward the end of her interview, “that it may not happen—that a miracle happens. . . . I think one shouldn’t give up. Because if you think of Answer to Job, if man would wrestle with God, if man would [only] tell God that he shouldn’t do it.”23 Entirely consistent with Jung and von Franz, Ann Belford Ulanov tells us in her essay “Jung and Religion: The Opposing Self” that Jung “places evil, finally, in God directly. God’s nature is complex and bears its own shadow side. It needs human beings, with their focused body-based consciousness, to incarnate these opposites in divine life and thus help in their transformation.”24 God, Ulanov in other words would have us understand, looks to mankind to overcome his own evil shadow. God looks to mankind, Ulanov is telling us, to provide him with the means, the moral direction, to overcome his own evil nature. In conclusion, we have seen the extent to which the 50/50 formula has taken hold of Jungian thought. That it has done so, as mentioned above, is somewhat beyond comprehension in that the 50/50 formula stands in violation of one of the most fundamental assumptions of the Jungian Paradigm, the self-regulatory psyche. The question as to how it managed to reach this stature is a problem, accordingly, deserving of comment. My own sense is that it was a case of the psychologically blind leading the psychologically blind. Jung, I would go so far as to suggest here, but not substantiate until later in this work, was knocked senseless by his own father complex in his personal engagement with the problem of evil. Jungians, in turn, who seldom if ever take issue with anything Jung has to say, simply followed along under Jung’s infallibility pronouncement oblivious as to where that pronouncement would carry them. To this day, they still have not figured it out. They still have no sense whatsoever that they

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have been led out of the self-regulatory model of their own paradigm back into the Freudian conflict model—a model in which the ego, rather than being led forward by an intrinsically moral nature, has no recourse but to seek in vain refuge in the largely, pseudo morality of the collective. In the case of the 50/50 formula, therefore, Jungian psychology has inadvertently become suspended between two worlds. It has become suspended in a type of nowhere zone. And I would offer as my final reflection on this Jungian predicament that that upon which we look, far from being merely a theoretical split, is yet another instance of the Jungian split with Reality itself. The Romantic mind, as previously explained, is inclined to slice Reality along subjectivist lines. Delusion, in this regard, supplants Reality when as if becomes is. Indeed much of what we describe as psychopathology has to do with this type of unholy alchemy, that is to say, the unwarranted and unnatural transmutation of as if to is. There is a very big difference between the two. There is a very big difference between thinking “it is as if everyone is against me” and thinking “everyone is against me.” Unfortunately for the Jungian readership, the Romantic leanings of the Jungian Paradigm preclude such distinctions, especially when it comes to the problem of evil. As well evidenced above, when it comes to the problem of evil, as if becomes is. The purely subjective experience “it is as if God is evil” becomes by way of Jungian Romanticism “God is evil.” We do not validate our experiences or feelings by invalidating Reality. Similarly, in order to validate the existence of evil, we certainly do not need to overstate the problem by elevating evil to the theoretical height to which Jung himself was inclined to carry it. Evil is indeed real enough, but evil does not, as Jung’s Romantic proclivities wrongly convinced him, need to be placed in the Godhead, nor the self, nor within the comprehensive, self-regulatory workings of the psyche to be fully acknowledged for what it is. There clearly are dark tendencies within the psyche, antilife tendencies having both personal and transpersonal origins, but to accept, on the one hand, that such dark elements exist within the psyche is not to suggest, on the other hand, that the psyche itself, that is to say, the psyche as a functioning whole, has evil tendencies. There are antilife elements within the psyche, but the psyche itself, as the clinical study of its self-organizing activities tells us, consistently supports life. Accordingly, and very much in contrast to the Jungian Paradigm, within the Syndetic Paradigm, evil as a functional antilife force finds its theoretical place not in the Godhead, nor in the self, nor in the self-regulatory workings of the psyche, but rather, at the transpersonal level, within specific archetypes or one single archetype depending on how one is inclined to place it, and at the per-

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sonal level, within the realm of the complexes. I wish to first provide some reflections on the transpersonal basis of evil before turning to the problem of the complexes. That evil is archetypally based is perhaps best evidenced by its universal, albeit culturally conditioned appearance in the religions and mythologies of the world. What it specifically means to be overtaken by evil and directed away from God, or the life force, may vary from culture to culture, but the underlying fact of the transpersonal existence of such an antilife influence is itself that with which we must be concerned. Does evil have an archetypal or transpersonal basis? Freud himself certainly came to believe it does, although in all due respect I should emphasize he would not have described it as archetypal, but rather, as instinctual, the death or destructive instinct25 to be exact. “After long hesitancies and vacillations,” Freud explains in his “An Outline of Psycho-Analysis,” “we have decided to assume the existence of only two basic instincts, Eros and the destructive instinct. . . . The aim of the first of these basic instincts is to establish ever greater unities and to preserve them thus—in short, to bind together; the aim of the second is, on the contrary, to undo connections and so to destroy things.”26 There are two things to be especially noted about Freud’s theory. The first is Freud’s characteristic partiality to theoretical polarities, which, of course, is very much in keeping with his conflict model of the psyche. Freud’s theoretical bias in this regard was something he himself had no hesitation to acknowledge and indeed was something of which he was proud. In his essay “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” Freud thus reflects: “Our views have from the very first been dualistic, and to-day they are even more definitely dualistic than before—now that we describe the opposition as being, not between ego-instincts and sexual instincts but between life instincts and death instincts.”27 My second point concerns the fact that Freud imagined that through this new polarity he had actually uncovered something of such far-reaching implications that he himself, at least initially, was inclined to spurn it. This was a polarity of such foundational import, Freud believed, that it even held implications for that which people describe as God. “I remember my own defensive attitude when the idea of an instinct of destruction first emerged in psycho-analytical literature,” Freud writes in his 1930 essay “Civilization and Its Discontents,” and how long it took before I became receptive to it. That others should have shown, and still show, the same attitude of rejection surprises me less. For “little children do not like it” when there is talk of

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the inborn human inclination to “badness,” to aggressiveness and destructiveness, and so to cruelty as well. God has made them in the image of His own perfection; nobody wants to be reminded how hard it is to reconcile the undeniable existence of evil. . . . The Devil would be the best way out as an excuse for God. . . . But even so, one can hold God responsible for the existence of the Devil just as well as for the existence of the wickedness which the Devil embodies. In view of these difficulties, each of us will be well advised, on some suitable occasion, to make a low bow to the deeply moral nature of mankind.28 Now I expect that your reading of the above will be accompanied, as it was in my own case, by at least a slight experience of shock. For what Freud directly states in this his 1930 essay, and states somewhat less directly in his 1920 work “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” is not that different, if it is at all, from what Jung himself was saying in his 1952 essay “Answer to Job.” What Freud in essence is here stating is that life is a 50/50 polarity between good and evil, and that morality comes from no source other than man. Man is morally superior to that which we describe as God and, accordingly, Freud counsels, “each of us will be well advised, on some suitable occasion, to make a low bow to the deeply moral nature of mankind.” Jung himself would not have put it differently. Now it is a curious fact that the concord that exists between Freud and Jung on this matter has been lost on both Jung and Jungians. Jung and his followers, such as Samuels, Shorter, and Plaut,29 for instance, have done no more than align Freud’s death instinct with Jung’s notion of psychological enantiodromia, that is, the tendency of psychic energy to convert into its opposite. No connection whatsoever is made to Jung’s discussion of the problem of evil as such. In his essay “On the Psychology of the Unconscious,” Jung, after having described the death instinct as nothing other than a much needed compensation to Freud’s overvaluation of the sexual instinct, only manages somewhat lamely to conclude: “I must content myself with this passing reference, without entering more closely into the questionable nature of the conception. It is sufficiently obvious that life, like any process, has a beginning and an end and that every beginning is also the beginning of the end. What Freud probably means is the essential fact that every process is a phenomenon of energy, and that all energy can proceed only from the tension of opposites.”30 Given the fact of the Freudian Paradigm’s conflict model, it should come as no surprise that in seeking to position transpersonal evil within his metapsychology Freud arrived at a 50/50 formula in which the ego

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alone would serve as the psyche’s mediator and moral authority. Clearly a conflict model of the psyche has no theoretical alternative but to conceptualize energy dynamics in terms of a clashing of opposites. Mediation and moral direction can come from no source other than the ego. In a conflict model, the ego alone becomes the moral container for all that occurs. That Freud would, then, theoretically position transpersonal evil within a 50/50 formula is entirely predictable. Jung, however, is an altogether different matter, since unlike Freud he was not operating within a conflict model of the psyche. Indeed for Jung to have arrived at the same theoretical place as Freud required, I will emphasize yet again, the complete abandonment of his paradigm’s core theoretical assumption, the selfregulatory psyche. Very much in contrast to the Jungian Paradigm, the Syndetic Paradigm does not cast aside the self-regulatory model in addressing theoretically the problem of evil. Accordingly, in contradistinction to the 50/50 formula embraced by the Freudian and Jungian Paradigms, the Syndetic Paradigm maintains that evil is ultimately encompassed, which is not to say controlled, by the moral direction of the self-organizing workings of nature. Operating entirely independently of the influences of evil, selforganizing nature, to put it differently, encompasses but does not control evil to the extent that it provides the ego with the consciousness and direction it needs to move through the problem with which it is presented, rather than settle the problem on the ego’s behalf. And it is no doubt directly as a consequence of the Syndetic Paradigm’s observation and study of such compensatory dynamics that it has come to understand that the form of evil that most greatly threatens us, and thus the form of evil with which we should be most concerned, is the evil that appears in our lives by way of complexes. Whether we are talking about complexes as points of psychic vulnerability through which transpersonal evil finds the specific means to manifest in the psyche and in life, or whether we are talking about complexes as being in their own right the most enduring and powerful antilife forces an individual will encounter in the course of his or her life, complexes themselves are, for the Syndetic Paradigm, the critical points of intervention and healing in the human struggle against evil. Now to help differentiate the theoretical understandings of the complex held by the Jungian and Syndetic Paradigms, three questions will be taken up in the discussion that follows. Firstly, we will investigate the question of the complex’s autonomy. Secondly, we will address the question of its purported archetypal core. And thirdly, we will ascertain the degree to which the complex is a psychopathological factor.

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That complexes exhibit at times a degree of autonomy is not in itself a point of contention between the Jungian and Syndetic Paradigms. Theoretical tension does arise between the two Paradigms, however, in connection with the question of their ultimate autonomy. Complexes, the Syndetic Paradigm would grant, function relatively autonomously in relationship to the ego. Indeed under certain circumstances complexes are known to override ego-consciousness altogether. But in so doing, they never, in the estimation of the Syndetic Paradigm, go so far as to override the self-regulatory dynamics of the psyche, as Jung and Jungians suggest they do. The following clinical examples will help to clarify this point. In dreams, the overtaking of ego-consciousness by a complex is often symbolically depicted by an individual’s lack of control in situations in which control would normally be present. For example, the driver of a car will have fallen asleep at the steering wheel or, similarly, a driver’s hands will become paralyzed leaving him unable to control his or her vehicle. In yet another dream a driver may be shown to have no control over the accelerator or brakes. Somewhat more commonly, an individual may be attempting to run or even walk from a threatening situation and find he or she is unable to do so. In all of these dreams, the compensatory message of self-organizing nature is essentially the same. The one who should be in control is not in control. Ego-consciousness should be in control yet it is not because a complex has appropriated control. An individual with whom I worked dreamed that he was riding as a passenger in a car driven by a woman whose hands were paralyzed. Of course it wasn’t the most enjoyable of outings for him since her lack of control of the vehicle’s wheel was causing the car to smash into just about everything in sight. What the dream was depicting quite well was the analysand’s experience of possession, at the level of ego-consciousness, by his mother complex. Now the mother complex in the case of this analysand took the form of causing him to disengage from life, especially when it came to critical matters of meaning. When the unconditional love of the maternal presents in a person’s life without the counterpoint of the differentiating masculine, the effect on the individual will be that of being insulated or cut off from life, rather than being led into it. Under such circumstances, the seemingly protective maternal womb becomes a death trap. This was precisely the situation of this analysand. The dream’s compensatory message, therefore, was that the analysand was putting himself at risk by spending too much time as a passenger in the undifferentiated space of his mother complex, rather than assuming responsibility for the important work in his life still needing to be done.

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A dream such as this one is always intended to disturb. It wants above all else to leave one with the indelible impression that something is very wrong, even dangerous about the way things are going. Of course this dream had such a compensatory impact, but what presented outwardly immediately after our session carried things further still. Quite remarkably, upon leaving our session the analysand was served with a lawsuit stemming from a car accident involving his daughter two years previous. She had lost control of her vehicle while driving in a snowstorm and crashed into a car parked at the side of the road. One of the contributory factors to the accident was a broken windshield wiper on the passenger side of the vehicle. The fact that the snow was not being cleared from the windshield on the passenger side of the vehicle during the snowstorm greatly reduced, if not completely obstructed, his daughter’s ability to see the parked car. Now the compensatory upshot of all of this, the analysand later explained to me by way of something of a confession to self-organizing nature, was that prior to the accident he had actually known for weeks that the windshield wiper was not working. The analysand knew he could blame nothing other than his tendency to disengage for it not having been fixed. Returning to the question of the complex’s degree of autonomy, we can now more specifically ask: Although the complex can inhibit or even knock out ego-consciousness, does it have the capability to suspend or override the self-regulatory dynamics of the psyche? Does the complex have the capability to suspend or override the self-organizing dynamics of the psyche and nature as a whole? My answer to these questions, in contrast to the answer offered by Jungian psychology, is that the complex does not have such a capability. There are at least two important things we learn from clinical material such as the above. The first, as just noted, is that a complex can override ego-consciousness and function with varying degrees of autonomy in relationship to it. The second is that self-organizing nature, rather than succumbing to the machinations of the complex, retains at all times the capability to stand outside the problem that the complex presents. The self-organizing properties of nature are never contained by a complex, but contain it, much as the compensatory dynamics of a dream portray the problem presented by a complex objectively and in its fullness so as to provide the subject with the requisite consciousness to assimilate rather than being assimilated by the problem. Moving from unconsciousness and possession to consciousness and unobstructed vision is, we should yet again affirm, the way of nature. It indeed is, clinical experience would have us understand, the immutable direction of ethical nature. Turning now to the Jungian Paradigm’s theoretical treatment of the complex, it is clear that both Jung and Jungians grant to the complex an

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autonomy that the Syndetic Paradigm does not. Does the Jungian Paradigm, however, go so far as to view the complex as ultimately functioning independently of the self-regulatory workings of the psyche? The answer provided by the following excerpts more than suggests it does. In “A Review of the Complex Theory,”31 which was first published in 1934 and then republished with revisions in 1948, although Jung enters into his discussion of the question of the ultimate autonomy of the complex with a certain theoretical restraint, that restraint is readily thrown to the wind as the paper progresses. The complex, Jung writes, “has a powerful inner coherence, it has its own wholeness and, in addition, a relatively high degree of autonomy, so that it is subject to the control of the conscious mind to only a limited extent, and therefore behaves like an animated foreign body in the sphere of consciousness.”32 Although Jung’s above theorizing about the complex would appear to align with the theoretical position of the Syndetic Paradigm, the one assertion that causes concern and thus inclines one to raise a caution flag is Jung’s contention that the complex “has its own wholeness.” This caution flag, it becomes clear as Jung’s treatise unfolds, is not without warrant, for Jung directly goes on to describe the complexes, no longer in terms of their “relatively high degree of autonomy,” but rather, in terms of their “autonomy.” What before was simply characterized as the complex’s “own wholeness,” Jung now disturbingly characterizes as actually constituting a “splinter psyche” in its own right. As Jung writes: “But even the soberest formulation of the phenomenology of complexes cannot get round the impressive fact of their autonomy, and the deeper one penetrates into their nature—I might almost say into their biology—the more clearly do they reveal their character as splinter psyches.”33 Moving along this same theoretical line, Jung, in his essay “Problems of Modern Psychotherapy,” even goes so far as to term the complex “a miniature self-contained psyche.”34 Now for Jung to have described the complex as having “a powerful inner coherence” that at the level of ego-consciousness “behaves like an animated body” is one thing, but to go so far as to describe the complex, on the other hand, as “a miniature self-contained psyche” is, for any paradigm that purports to adhere to the self-organizing model of the psyche, altogether theoretically incongruous. A final question, therefore, remains: Is all of this simply a matter of careless wording on Jung’s part or is this a theoretical issue of genuine consequence? After having reviewed some further reflections on this question by Jung and Jungians I am left with no doubt the latter is true and that Jung’s characterization of the complex as “a miniature self-contained psyche” has been of profound theoretical consequence for his psychology.

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Jung himself, for instance, without any regard whatsoever for the most important assumption of his own theoretical model, the self-regulating psyche, astonishingly tells us in his “A Review of the Complex Theory” that the complex, not the self-regulating psyche, is the “architect of dreams.” “The via regia to the unconscious, however,” Jung explains with reference to Freud’s own discoveries, “is not the dream, as he [Freud] thought, but the complex, which is the architect of dreams and of symptoms.”35 Now far from having quietly slipped into oblivion, Jung’s characterization of the complex as the “architect of dreams” has been adopted and even promoted in Jungian literature by such notable writers as Jacobi,36 Samuels,37 and Samuels, Shorter, and Plaut.38 Of course such pronouncements are not without theoretical and clinical consequences. At the very least, we will witness the functional, which is to say, clinical collapse of the self-regulatory model of the psyche; at the worst, we will witness the licensing of dissociation itself, a most current example of which presents in Sherry Salman’s essay “The Creative Psyche: Jung’s Major Contributions” in The Cambridge Companion to Jung. “For Jung,” Salman writes, “the psyche was inherently dissociable, with complexes and archetypal contents personified and functioning autonomously as complete secondary systems. He conceived of there being numerous secondary selves, not merely unconscious drives and processes.”39 To which Salman adds by way of summation after having offered some additional reflections on the Jungian notion of the self: “The psyche’s two regulating mechanisms, dissociability, and the Self, are two ‘opposites’ which together comprise the Jungian model.”40 Theoretical shades, I cannot help but imagine, not only of the purportedly selfcontained and thus split-off world of the complex, but also of Jung’s no less split-off 50/50 formula of the self and its morally ambivalent compensatory initiatives. The development of theory is an endeavor of no small importance to clinical practice. How we theorize about a particular psychological experience will establish the parameters of our future clinical engagement with experiences like it. Accordingly, in interpreting dream symbolism with the intention of facilitating healing in an analysand, it will matter greatly to us whether our theoretical assumptions tell us that that which we are observing has as its author a complex or it has as its author self-organizing nature. It will matter greatly to us if our theoretical assumptions tell us that the compensatory dream symbolism of self-organizing nature always contains the complex or that the complex presents in dreams entirely independently of all such compensatory dynamics. In the case of the former, we will look to compensatory dream symbolism for ethical direction in bringing the complex to consciousness and moving through it. In the case

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of the latter, we will rely on nothing other than conscious reasoning to make progress with the problem that the complex presents. What our respective paradigmatic assumptions and theories tell us about the compensatory dynamics of dream symbolism will either greatly restrict or greatly enhance that which we will derive from it. Very much in contrast, then, to the theoretical position of the Jungian Paradigm, which identifies the complex as such as the ultimate sponsor and container of the dream process and its symbols, the theoretical understanding of the Syndetic Paradigm is that self-organizing nature, through its compensatory activities, always contains the complex with the intention of resolving the problem that it presents. Self-organizing nature, the Syndetic Paradigm holds, leaves no psychic stone unturned. Everything is gathered into the process of spontaneous self-organization—complexes, archetypes, and all. Everything, both inwardly and outwardly, is subject to the ethical, self-organizing unfoldment that is Reality. This, the Syndetic Paradigm holds, is the ethical way of nature. And it is to this unfoldment that we should attend with the deepest alertness and deference. Turning then to the question of the so-called archetypal core of the complex, there should be no doubt that for the Jungian Paradigm the archetype forms the foundation of the complex. The archetype, Jung explains, constitutes the “ultimate basis” of the complex.41 “Because of its instinctual nature,” Jung writes elsewhere, “the archetype underlies the feeling-toned complexes and shares their autonomy.”42 Now in giving due respect to the Jungian position, I should be very clear in stating that I take no issue with the notion that an archetype may play a significant role in the formation of a specific complex. What I do take issue with, however, is the Jungian assertion that a complex necessarily has an archetype at its core. An archetype may at times play a significant role in the formation of a complex, but even under such circumstances, I would not go so far as to say that it constitutes its core. This is because the influence of an archetype on the formation of a complex is more tangential than it is foundational. The father complex, for instance, which at first glance presents as a good example of a strictly linear progression from archetype to complex, reveals itself, when more carefully examined, as being as much a product of personal developmental factors as it is a product of transpersonal or archetypal meanings. I will pursue this point further. Through the father archetype, each individual carries an innate knowledge of fathering. Interfacing with this transpersonal knowledge, are one’s actual life experiences of being fathered or, as we must also add, one’s experiences of its notable absence. As a psychological phenomenon, the father complex as such, we thus need to understand, emerges out of the

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dynamic interplay of both transpersonal and personal factors. That out of which the complex is born, to put it somewhat differently, is neither the archetype nor the actual personal experiences of the individual, but rather a third psychological point in which the personal and transpersonal factors collide and fuse. The emergence of a father complex is a truly dynamic process. As such, a father complex will be as much a product of what wasn’t as it will be a product of what was. For instance, certain “negative” components of the father complex, rather than being invariably attributable to personal experiences of fathering, as even many therapists themselves assume, may in fact be attributable to the virtually unpreventable discrepancies between the good fathering, conventionally speaking, an individual has known and the expectations of fathering internally held by way of the father archetype. Certain “negative” components of the father complex, in this respect, would emerge not out of negative childhood experiences of being fathered as such, nor out of negative archetypal influences, but rather, out of that psychological point where the personal and archetypal “negatively” interface. Now the negative impact on the formation of a complex of what wasn’t is in no way limited to the above described tensions between the personal and archetypal experiences of fathering, but extends no less to the invariable tensions that exist between what I would call the personal actual and the personal potential, which is to say, between the actual fathering one receives and the fathering one needs to realize one’s unique and preconfigured, by way of self-organizing nature, developmental potential. Mentorship, as with parenting in its deepest sense, is about one individual supporting and holding in consciousness that which is seeking to emerge in another individual, almost always unbeknownst to the latter. Mentorship is about creating space. In its highest form, it is about one individual creating the space for the emergence into life of that which constitutes the core meaning of the individuation process of another. Mentorship cannot be fabricated. One cannot, even with the best of intentions, support in another individual the emergence of that which one does not in truth understand oneself. Accordingly, although mentorship most certainly parallels the truest objectives of parenting, parents are seldom mentors in the deepest sense of this term to their own children, as they typically lack the consciousness to be so. Now, unfortunately, when it comes to the formation of complexes this fact is typically not apparent to children, even as adults. To the extent, therefore, that one has wrongly awaited, or even continues to await, the awakening of such depth

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meaning by way of his or her actual parents, that individual’s father or mother complex will ultimately be—again simply as a consequence of what wasn’t—permanently etched with “experiences” of negative parenting. In fact such a “failing” on the part of the parent will psychologically register within the complex in much the same way as a parental failure to meet any other basic need. Of course the “negative” parenting of which the parental complexes consist can come from a host of other circumstances. Traumatic experiences during one’s formative years, for example, especially traumatic experiences that are not typically regarded as such by the collective consciousness and hence left entirely unprocessed, will impact very negatively on the development of the parental complexes. Today, for instance, although it is quite rightly accepted within the collective consciousness that the damaging effects of sexual abuse may last a lifetime and are deserving of careful therapeutic treatment, there are a good many other traumas of no less significance that remain well off the collective radar screen, so to speak. The keyword today tends to be the word “abuse,” but here we are in error for we are seeing the situation more in terms of the negative intention behind the experience, rather than simply in terms of the negative impact of the experience on the child. If it is “abuse,” we imagine it to be a nearly irreversible trauma, yet if it is a life occurrence without abusive or negative intention behind it, conscious or unconscious, such as a death of a parent, the experience of moving to another culture, or being hospitalized as a child and subjected to isolation and painful medical procedures, it is not held by the collective to constitute abuse and, as such, is expected to be overcome or forgotten in relatively short order. We once again fall into the trap of thinking more in terms of what we understand and accept about a given situation, rather than thinking in terms of what the child may be experiencing. Contrary to collective and therapeutic assumptions, the death of a parent during childhood is not only experienced as an act of abuse, but also no less as an experience of negative parenting. From the point of view of the child, we should understand first and foremost, that that original, biologically determined ground of maternal bond and love that had once been there is no longer. We should understand that the parenting of which he or she is so desperately in need has been forcefully taken away. Along this very line, an individual who lost his mother while still a young boy dreamed that she had been abducted by something as malevolent as a satanic cult. His dream didn’t stop there, however, for as the dream unfolded the mother herself began to act like the Satanists who had abducted her. What does this tell us? It tells us that a good mother had inadvertently

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provided her child with a powerful negative mother experience merely through the fact of her untimely death. More precisely still, we would say that the mother complex, as a direct consequence of this tragic and unpreventable personal loss, assumed the form of the abusive, evil negative mother. Now the third and final question on the complex that it has been our objective to address has to do with the extent of its pathology. Is the complex strictly about pathology or is it about healthiness as well? The answer to this question, I will emphasize, is of no small significance, for this answer more than any other establishes the parameters of our therapeutic engagement with the complex. Specifically, it will tell us whether the complex is something to be brought to consciousness and let go of, or whether the complex is to be embraced as a much needed component of our psychic lives. Jolande Jacobi’s book Complex/Archetype and Symbol has become for Jungians the standard work on the complex. That Jacobi received Jung’s full and unconditional endorsement for her work on this subject was no doubt a factor leading to its widespread acceptance. “I am gratefully indebted to her,” Jung writes in tribute to Jacobi in the closing sentence of his foreword to Complex/Archetype and Symbol, “for having spared me the labor of having constantly to refer my readers to my own writings.”43 Returning to our question about the complex’s degree of pathology, we certainly do not venture far into Jacobi’s work before the direction of her own thinking on this matter is apparent. The complex, Jacobi tells us, far from being strictly “a manifestation of illness,” as Freud believed it to be, is a necessary component of our well-being and good health. Drawing on Jung to substantiate this assertion, she explains: “For him [ Jung] they [complexes] became ‘focal or nodal points of psychic life, which must not be absent, because if they were, psychic activity would come to a standstill.’ . . . All human beings have complexes. They constitute the structure of the unconscious part of the psyche and are its normal manifestations.”44 In accord with Jacobi and very much reflecting not only Jung’s understanding of the complex, but no less that of most Jungians today, Samuels himself emphatically states about the complex: “It is important not to see ‘complex’ as a purely pathological manifestation.”45 Given the fact that the Jungian Paradigm, in contrast to the theoretical conclusions of the Freudian and Syndetic Paradigms, came to hold that the complex is not strictly about psychopathology, but also about healthiness, it would certainly help to understand exactly what led it to do so. Unfortunately, the answer that Jacobi provides to this question is about as theoretically convoluted as one can get. I cannot take the time to follow

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her answer through from beginning to end, but I will do my best to make a needlessly long and ultimately anticlimactic answer a concise one. In that the Jungian Paradigm, Jacobi would have us understand, associates both healthiness and unhealthiness with the complex, we can imagine there indeed exists not one, but two types of complexes—those that are pathological and those that are healthy. “Clearly this inference,” Jacobi explains, “cannot be rejected . . . if we . . . recall that Jung draws a certain distinction between the complexes of the personal unconscious and those of the collective unconscious.”46 And what exactly, we have every reason to wonder, are the complexes of the collective unconscious? They are, we later find out after something akin to a theoretical wild goose chase, none other than the archetypes themselves. After having run all over the theoretical map in search of the “healthy complexes,” those of us who have managed to endure this ordeal to the very end finally must discover for ourselves, because Jacobi never backs off on the charade, that the “healthy complexes” are in fact archetypes, not complexes at all.47 For the Syndetic Paradigm, it can be straightforwardly asserted, the complex is strictly about pathology. To be in the grip of a complex is to be in a state of illusion, not Reality. The psychological/spiritual work of analysis, accordingly, is to free ourselves from the confines of complex-driven illusion. The psychological/spiritual work of analysis is to bring the complex to consciousness by way of self-organizing nature so as to free us altogether from its influence, that is to say, to enable us to step out of it completely. The ethical implications of this struggle are enormous, yet it nevertheless remains a psychological/spiritual challenge that the Jungian Paradigm has never, and indeed will never assume as long as it mistakenly persists in associating healthiness with the complex. To the extent that we can be clear about what the complex is, that is to say, that it is a pathological phenomenon, so can we be clear about the nature of our relationship to it. The psychological and energy dynamics of one who is in the grip of a complex are very different from the psychological and energy dynamics of one not similarly confined. To be in a state of illusion is to be in a state of imbalance. And to be in a state of imbalance is to be in a state of tension. The tension produced by such imbalance seeks discharge, yet since it cannot do so directly because the experience out of which it has arisen is not of Reality, it must do so indirectly and unconsciously. The unconscious release of energy associated with the constellation of a complex thus presents itself as arrested emotion, and/or compulsive bodily discharge. Seldom does Jung use the term complex without it being accompanied by the descriptors feeling toned or emotionally charged. Jung’s pioneer-

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ing work on the Word Association Test established the fact that affect almost always attends the complex.48 Now although both the Syndetic and Jungian Paradigms can agree on the intensity of the emotional content accompanying a complex, they are not in agreement when it comes to the question of the nature of that emotional content. The Syndetic Paradigm, consistent with its belief that the complex is a strictly pathological factor, holds that the emotion associated with it is unhealthy or neurotic emotion. The Jungian Paradigm, on the other hand, consistent with its belief that the complex is not strictly about pathology, holds that the emotion associated with it constitutes the foundation of our emotional life in general. The Syndetic Paradigm, accordingly, would never suggest as Samuels and other Jungians do that “we feel according to our complexes,”49 unless it were to qualify this statement by saying we feel neurotically according to our complexes. In strict contrast to the position of the Jungian Paradigm, then, for the Syndetic Paradigm, the complex is simply about crazy space, and the emotion associated with it is nothing other than neurotic or arrested emotion. Now based on my study of the literature on the complex, as well my own clinical experience of it, I have to say that I would be at a loss to present an example of a complex directly and positively informing one’s everyday feeling. I would, on the other hand, have no difficulty finding numerous examples, from both the literature on this subject and my clinical experience, to illustrate the opposite. Jung himself, for instance, notes how the eruption of the negative emotion associated with a complex is so extreme that the state one finds oneself in is rather like what would be deemed, in other times or cultures, a state of possession by a spirit or demon. With reference to such an experience of coming under the influence of the negative, even violent emotional energy of a complex, Jung thus writes: Probably no one imagines this state as being particularly harmless, and there is in fact no difference in principle between a slip of the tongue caused by a complex and the wildest blasphemies; it is only a difference of degree. The history of language provides innumerable illustrations of this. When someone is in the throes of a violent emotion we exclaim: “What’s got into him today?” “He is driven by the devil,” “hag-ridden,” etc. In using these somewhat worn metaphors we naturally do not think of their original meaning, although it is easily recognizable and points without a doubt to the fact that naïver and more primitive people did not “psychologize” disturbing complexes as we do, but regarded them as beings in their own right, that is, as demons.50

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The feeling associated with a complex is unhealthy because it does not reflect the true feeling of the actual situation. A complex distorts what is taking place. When one thing is happening, a complex will superimpose on that experience the neurotic experience and feeling that has been derived from an altogether different experience. I spoke earlier about the disruption of a developing romantic relationship by a complex. As the relationship intensified, it should be recalled, a complex relating to the fear of intimacy was triggered in one of the individuals. The consequence of this being that that individual could now only feel threatened by the relationship. A false or neurotic feeling, in other words, came to be superimposed by the complex on the relationship. A false or neurotic feeling, more specifically, came to be superimposed by the complex on the analysand’s more authentic feeling and desire for a deeper experience of relationship and intimacy. Needlessly, however, the relationship came to an end as a consequence of this. I will present a second example. An analysand once told me a dream in which a car had disappeared when the ground beneath it had suddenly liquefied. The dream, it seemed to me, indicated an experience of an abrupt collapse of meaning, most probably brought about by a complex. When a dream like this is associated with a complex, it is often the case that the analysand whose dream it is grew up with an alcoholic parent, or a situation of comparable volatility. In this instance, the analysand was in fact the adult child of an alcoholic. Now we can readily imagine what would happen to a child’s meaning if he or she were talking to someone who was intoxicated. We can imagine that what would happen would be exactly what happened to the car in the dream—the child’s experience and meaning would get sucked into nothingness. With alcoholism, there can be no question of genuine processing or emotional exchange. Rather, under its destructive influence, the ground of relatedness between parent and child invariably collapses causing meaning to disappear along with it. It was not difficult to deduce, then, that this dream was associated with a complex whose basis was the analysand’s childhood exposure to parental alcoholism. What was not apparent, however, was why this particular complex presented in the analysand’s dream on the specific day that it did. Now in reviewing the events of the day preceding the dream, it did come out that the analysand and his supervisor had been at odds over a difference of opinion. What specifically activated the complex, however, was not simply the fact of their differing opinion, but rather, that this difference had not been properly processed. Shortly after their discussion began, what was supposed to be a dialogue seemed to have quickly digressed into a monologue given by the supervisor. The fact that the supervisor was

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not talking with the analysand, but rather, talking at him is precisely what triggered the complex. The immediate consequence of all of this for the analysand was that instead of being able to “hold his ground,” as he usually was more than capable of doing, he uncontrollably slipped into a state of emotional paralysis. What the complex precisely did, therefore, was to reconstruct, between the analysand and his supervisor, the very feelings of despair and helplessness experienced by the analysand as a child whenever he attempted to communicate with his alcoholic father. The genuine feelings of the actual situation, frustration and perhaps even anger, were thus usurped by the false or neurotic feelings of the complex, which is to say, meaninglessness and emotional paralysis. The triggering of complexes are indeed everyday experiences. And the more we understand about the complex and its workings, the more we are in a position to appreciate the intricacies of what, to borrow Freud’s phrasing, is well described as the psychopathology of everyday life. The feeling associated with a complex is first and foremost about pathology because it is not true to what is actually unfolding in a given situation. And in that it is split off from the actual situation, it has, moreover, no potential for being processed through. It is not part of the flow of the life process, and it has no potential for being so. The feeling that comes through a complex is as unrelated as a tape-recorded message on repeat. The feeling of a complex is, therefore, what I refer to as arrested or dirty-burning feeling. When emotion and feeling are clean burning, they are moving with the flow of life itself. New life is born through them. When emotion and feeling are dirty burning, they devour life. Clean-burning anger supports life. At times it alone provides the emotional intensity needed to move things forward. Arrested anger, however, has no such agenda. It simply seeks to destroy everything from the inside out—first the individual, and then everything in its vicinity. Whereas clean-burning tears, to use another example, heal, dirty-burning tears keep one wallowing in self-pity. Cleanburning feeling ultimately generates healthy life energy, dirty-burning feeling simply produces tension that seeks neurotic discharge. Accordingly, it is the case with certain highly neurotic individuals who live largely out of their complexes that their idea of an intimate encounter amounts to nothing other than bringing themselves and those around them to a place of complete, utterly unrelated emotional collapse, rather than connection. Their enslavement to the neurotic pattern of arrest, tension, and discharge is such that they feel satiated only when they, and everyone else in their presence, have collapsed into a state of absolute meaningless exhaustion. To discharge the tension of a complex is certainly not to process it through. One never gains ground with a complex by hurling oneself into

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the emotion or feeling associated with it. For to be caught in the arrested or dirty-burning emotion of a complex is like being in a car whose wheels are on ice. You can put the accelerator through the floor, so to speak, but you are not going anywhere. And the car’s wheels, moreover, are going to stop spinning, not when the car moves forward, because it is not going to do so, but when the car has run out of gas. This point is something that most psychotherapeutic approaches that place a great emphasis on emotional discharge do not understand. When someone is in the grip of a complex and the therapist asks that individual to pound away on something such as a pillow, it is only beneficial to the extent that it may help to identify the intensity of the emotion associated with the complex. It will not, however, move the individual through the complex. Therapists often mistake the exhaustion that is the inevitable outcome of this type of exercise for actual therapeutic progress. A vicious cycle thus sets in. The individual in the grip of the complex pounds away like mad until he or she collapses. The calm that attends physical exhaustion is wrongly taken for therapeutic effect. In a matter of days, however, or even hours, the complex’s battery recharges and the individual is once again, potentially truly addictively, in need of more “work.” The truth is, however, no real work was done on the problem of the complex in the first place. What, then, is a more productive therapeutic course of action when dealing with a complex? In that the compensatory workings of self-organizing nature ultimately contain rather than are contained by the activities of a complex, we are given, through our dreams, precise direction as to how we are to free ourselves from the complex’s pathological influences. I could use as an example of this the experience of an analysand. The analysand in question was compelled by an intimacy complex to create no-win situations in her relationships. She did this through selective idealizations. If a relationship were going poorly, she would experience it as going well; if a relationship were going well she would experience it as going poorly. Similarly, if a relationship had gone poorly, she would experience it as having gone well. Along this very line, even after having been separated for approximately one year from a partner with whom she had lived unhappily for several years, the analysand still found herself drawn by the complex to entertain what might have been, rather than what actually had been. What the analysand was entirely lacking when it came to her experience of relationship was emotional grounding. And it was as a direct consequence of this that the sadness she was now feeling over the loss of her previous relationship was spiraling out of control. At a time when we had not yet obtained perspective on the nature and extent of this problem, several dreams offered us a line of advance.

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In one dream, the analysand was being “seduced” by another woman into entering a doorway leading to the “other world.” The “other world,” we could easily imagine, was the world of the ideal. This was indeed the world into which my analysand would so often pass to escape the genuine feelings of her “this-worldly” existence. A secondary figure in this same dream, it should be noted, was a “mentally impaired young man,” who personified this emotionally impaired side of the analysand. In our analytical work together, the analysand certainly had had difficulty moving into her feelings and experiences, even when it was simply a matter of recording them in her journal. What the analysand accordingly needed and was thus now being offered through self-organizing nature was the direction to descend fully into life and relationship. What the analysand needed and was now being offered through self-organizing nature was the encouragement to descend into life by way of her real feeling, rather than fleeing it by way of the seemingly safer route of the other-worldly ideal. Following the analytical session in which the above dream symbols were discussed, the unconscious wasted no time in leading the analysand forward. One dream returned to the theme of escape. In the dream, there was a deluge, and the analysand acted to protect government files from the rising water. The government files, it seemed, symbolized societal or collective ideals. The rising water, on the other hand, symbolized the tears of the analysand’s genuine suffering—the genuine tears from which she had always heroically protected the revered collective ideals held by her and others. A doubling of this compensatory theme occurred in the image that followed. And it was here that any remaining doubts about the analysand’s unhealthy heroics were to be conclusively ended. A river had become polluted with pieces of insulation. This, we could understand, symbolized how the analysand’s insulating of herself from life and its attendant emotions had brought her into conflict with nature itself. Her emotional repression, the unconscious wanted the analysand to understand, was polluting the river. She was beginning to get it, so it was now possible to face directly that which led to the collapse of her former relationship and the genuine nature of her emotional suffering during and since its cessation. In the next dream, the analysand was on a couch with her former partner. She was attempting to initiate lovemaking, yet without success, since her former partner was completely intoxicated. Of course, here was a compensatory picture that even the analysand could not fail to comprehend, especially in light of our preceding discussions. Its message was clear: in the dream, as in her life, the analysand was not functioning in terms of the actual degree of intimacy between her and her former part-

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ner, but rather, in terms of what she imagined or idealized to exist. The intense emotion she experienced in connection with her previous relationship was, therefore, not clean-burning emotion, but rather, dirty-burning emotion or complex-based emotion, hence its inability to heal. As with all complex-based experiences, the analysand had become trapped in an impossible situation—a situation in which any forward movement whatsoever would be entirely denied her in the absence of her extrication from the complex. More precisely put, the complex was keeping the analysand caught in the utterly hopeless predicament of grieving the loss of an intimacy that had never really existed. Complex-driven suffering, as noted above, is not real, and as such it cannot in itself be resolved, it must simply be stepped out of. The dream that was to follow hit this nail directly on the head. In the dream, the analysand was grieving the loss of a very expensive camera due to negligence on the part of a friend. The absolutely critical compensatory twist, however, was that the camera in question was a type of camera she had never actually owned. The arrested emotion of a complex, I wish to emphasize again at this point, cannot be worked through, it can only be stepped out of. Once an individual has come to know through the compensatory workings of nature his or her way around a complex, there comes a time when stepping out of it is exactly what is required. Perhaps it does seem easier or even therapeutic by some standards to continue with one’s emotional seizures, but at some point we must face the unpleasant reality that they will not get us to where we really need to go. We will now turn our attention to the problem of complex-driven discharge through the body. The dispersion of psychic tension generated by a complex does not, as noted at the beginning of this section, take the exclusive form of arrested emotion, as it may assume the form of tension within the body and attain discharge accordingly. If the tension associated with a complex assumes the form of tension within the body, that tension, we should understand, will seek physiological release through one or more of the numerous varieties of compulsive bodily discharge. In the good majority of cases such discharge will take the form of the compulsive use of food, legal and illegal drugs, alcohol, and last, but far from least, sexuality. Certain individuals, more so than other individuals, are highly subject to arrest and regression when they meet with the slightest resistance. An analysand, for instance, once ended up being propelled by a complex into an uncontrollable downward spiral after having received a somewhat, and I am deliberate in my use of the word somewhat, critical evaluation of her performance at her place of employment. While still at work, she experienced no more than a slight sense of shock. However, by the time she

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reached her home, she had become regressed by the constellated complex into a state of utter shock. Upon her arrival at home, she found herself gripped by a complex-driven tension, which unbeknownst to her now sought to be discharged. And this it did, we should note, in two specific ways: firstly, through an outburst of arrested emotion against her boyfriend, and secondly, through the compulsive consumption of a bag of candy. That evening her dreams announced the presence of a complex. There were two dreams that I will especially note, both of which dealt with the highly self-destructive nature of the complex. In the first dream, the analysand was with, and feeling desire for an individual who had actually been physically abusive of her when she was younger. In the dream, significantly, the greater her desire was for him, the more punishing his abuse was of her. Ultimately she was murdered by him as the dream ended. Of course it should not be overlooked how the analysand’s actual exchange with her boyfriend was something of a reversed version of this same dynamic. In the dream, the analysand was attracted to someone wanting to hurt her. In her actual encounter with her boyfriend, on the other hand, the analysand was hurting someone wanting to love her. Now in contrast to the murderous physical beating of the first dream, the second dream, in seeking to shed further light on the self-destructive tendencies of the complex, turned directly to the problem of the analysand’s candy binge, that is to say, her compulsive abuse of food to discharge physiologically the tension of the constellated complex. The selforganizing psyche captured the complex as follows. The analysand was in an unfamiliar house. A Pacman-like figure—a figure whose singular purpose was to devour everything and anything it could get hold of—was zooming around the house in a frenzied state, looking to clamp onto her throat. At first the analysand fought this thing, but soon realized she could not overcome it and succumbed. The analysand succumbed, it is important to note, much as she had succumbed to the release of her arrested emotion against her boyfriend and by way of that herself, much as she had succumbed to her self-destructive desires for an abusive partner in the first dream, much as she had succumbed to her self-destructive desire to consume a whole bag of candy. Taking hold of her throat, self-organizing nature would have her understand, the regressive, devouring energies of the complex had gained the upper hand. No matter what specific form it takes, the regressive and ultimately destructive pattern of complex-driven, compulsive bodily discharge is uniform. The forward movement of one’s life energy and meaning is blocked. The ego, lacking the strength to hold the tension created by this experi-

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ence of arrest in consciousness and move through it, succumbs to compulsive bodily discharge thus propelling the life energy and meaning associated with the original experience into the depths of the complex’s regressive vortex. My next case concerns an individual who was addicted to the smoking of legal and illegal substances. The complex-driven pattern of this individual’s life was exactly as described above. Forward progress would be undertaken. It would in turn be challenged by the activation of a complex. The analysand would then succumb to the immediate gratification of discharging the resultant tension by way of his smoking addiction. Meaning would be thus devoured. Now in light of these regressive tendencies great attention had been given during our analytical sessions to the problem of psychic leakage. The analytical session preceding the two dreams we are about to examine was no exception. The dreams are relatively straightforward and even simple. They do, nonetheless, walk us through the stages of the problem with which we are here concerned. In the first dream, the analysand was performing well in a “hard” game of basketball when suddenly he announced to those present that he had to leave “for just a minute.” He left, but what he did not do was return to the game. Instead, he went to a cafeteria where he sat down for a meal. While there, he gave a card as a gift to an individual whose energy he characterized as manic-depressive. Dreams do not have to be elaborate to be profoundly meaningful. The most elementary of presentations can be of deep compensatory significance. Whether, therefore, a simple or more complex symbolism is used to convey a compensatory message, the most important function of a dream is to let one see clearly, against the background of unfolding Reality, what one is actually doing in one’s life. The compensatory message of the analysand’s dream was clear and indelible. The basketball game was an allegory of his life problem. When it came to the “game,” even the “hard game,” the analysand had the capability to play well and contribute greatly. Other members of his team were of course depending on him to do so. Yet at the height of the game, at that critical point when performance tensions would be at their greatest just prior to the completion of the task at hand, the analysand’s complex-driven response would be to quit and release himself from the tension of this responsibility by way of compulsive bodily discharge, here symbolized by his retreat to the cafeteria. His life, the unconscious would have him understand, was being conducted like that of a man who, regardless of how well he was doing, always covertly, and that is an important behavior to note, quit the game before it was over. And this indeed was exactly what the analysand would do in his

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life. Here was an individual of real ability and potential. When he most needed to press forward and bring things to completion, however, his masculine energy would fail him and he would collapse into the false comfort of a compulsive bodily leak, thus placing himself, as the dream would have us understand, in the company of those who are the most unregulated of individuals when it comes to energy dynamics, manic-depressives. Now whereas the first dream depicted exactly how the analysand’s complex presented in everyday life, the second dream directed us toward the core of the problem itself. More specifically, in his second dream a direct line was drawn between the problem of psychic leakage and his father complex. The image itself was once again simple, but graphic. The analysand was attempting to fill the gasoline tank of his father’s truck, but the tank itself never filled. It was as if it was bottomless. To be in the grip of a complex, it should again be emphasized, is to take unreality for Reality. Accordingly, until one acquires the consciousness and ego development to do otherwise, one will repeat the error of returning to, and pouring oneself into that which can provide no genuine answer, no genuine way out of the dilemma by which one is gripped. It is like endlessly pouring one’s energy, symbolized here by gas, into the “bottomless” hole that the complex, here specifically, the father complex, invariably is. One cannot satiate, through the pouring out of one’s energy, that which is ultimately insatiable. One cannot satiate that which is complex driven. No matter how much energy one pours into it, one will always come up empty. To progress one must pass from unreality to Reality. One must, in other words, completely step out of the complex and place one’s energy in service of life, self-organizing nature. Even under the best of circumstances, making progress in the differentiation of a complex is never easy. It is a slow process and at times will even grind to a halt. Now what I myself am led to reflect on given the nature of this largely uphill struggle is Jung’s much noted assertion that the Freudian reductive method of dream analysis serves to bind the movement of psychic energy.51 On the one hand, I am inclined to concede the truth of Jung’s assertion. On the other hand, however, I believe we must also allow for the annoyingly slow pace at which complexes are differentiated. When, for instance, an analysand is unable to make sufficient progress with the work he or she is doing on a complex, it is not uncommon to see specific compensatory patterns repeat themselves in that analysand’s dreams seemingly ad infinitum. Such a point of psychic impasse is enormously frustrating and even painfully boring for both analyst and analysand. Yet there is no getting around this. There is no easy solution or escaping of the problem. Psychic energy needs to move forward, but it can’t.

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Psychic energy thus finds itself inescapably bound, not by the limitations of the Freudian reductive method, but by the ego’s inability to progress against the complex. Now something that must not be done at this point, as Jungians themselves will do perhaps in looking to release the psyche from the grip of the “reductive,” is to attempt to “resolve” this impasse by imposing an archetypal interpretation on what is happening. Nothing could be more contraindicated at this point. Nothing could be more counterproductive than to substitute a more or less fabricated archetypal problem for a piece of real ego work. To turn to the archetypal at such a point would do nothing to move things genuinely forward. If an analysand, for instance, was obstructed by a father complex in dealing with the power drives of his employer, any redirecting of therapeutic focus to the problem of the negative aspects of the father archetype would only serve to remove the analysand from the necessary pressure of meeting the real challenge at hand. Similarly, to reduce the complex-driven power dynamic of an ongoing marital conflict to the problem of tension within the feminine archetype would offer the couple nothing more than an illusory escape from the hard work they must undertake if they are to progress. Such a tendentious imposing of the archetypal is only about tension sublimation and false comfort; it is not about consciousness and authentic forward movement. Progress has to do with the speed with which that which is on the edge of one’s ego development is genuinely advanced— the rest is simply inflation. “A beginner in a subordinate place,” the I Ching tells us in its characteristically beautiful language, “must take upon himself the labor of advancing. There might be an opportunity of surreptitiously easing the way—symbolized by the carriage—but a self-contained man scorns help gained in a dubious fashion. He thinks it more graceful to go on foot than to drive in a carriage under false pretenses.”52 When it comes to the problem of the differentiation of the complexes, the Syndetic Paradigm is exacting. Escape into the archetypal is more or less precluded. And in that the complex is unequivocally deemed a phenomenon of pathology, there are no grey areas when it comes to the question of assessing our relationship to it—one is either in the complex, or out of it. This is the precise measure applied by the Syndetic Paradigm. It is a straightforward measure, which, we should not fail to understand, is as excruciatingly demanding as it is simple. It is a measure, as we will now see, which comes directly into play in the Syndetic Paradigm’s assessment of the dynamics of human sexuality.

III

SEXUAL ALCHEMY Fifth Principle: The Freudian Paradigm on Human Sexuality The Freudian Paradigm holds that the sexual instinct stands not only in opposition to individual experiences of love and intimacy, but that it constitutes, moreover, an obstacle to the formation and progression of culture itself. According to Freud, therefore, the development of intimate relationship, as well as our progression as a culture, is entirely dependent on the sublimation of the sexual instinct. Fifth Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm In great contrast to the position of the Freudian Paradigm that failed to find its way beyond the pathologic forms of human sexuality, the Syndetic Paradigm holds that the sexual instinct as such is intrinsically moral. The ultimate objective of human sexuality, accordingly, is for us to deepen our experience of consciousness and life by aligning ourselves directly with the life-giving energies of the sexual instinct in its own right. In Western culture, discussions about human sexuality generally stay within the parameters of what we might characterize as the morality/ amorality polarity. This is to say, they are either conducted with reference to collective moral ideals or they are conducted without reference to morality at all. In the case of the former, what we have in the main been given by the moralists are strategies for sexual containment, whereas with the whatever-feels-good approach of the amoralists, we have been given its diametrical opposite. Concerning the contribution of the collectively based moralists, I would in the first case emphasize that even the most elementary knowledge of human sexuality past and present in Western culture makes it difficult for us to regard containment as anything other than a failure. I would then add in the second case that if containment were to have greater effi121

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cacy and even succeed, we should not fail to anticipate exactly what “success” would look like. Success, under such influences, could amount to nothing other than the repression and neglect of the sexual instinct. Now the amoralists for their part fare no better when it comes to the critical problem of the integration of the sexual instinct. Of course most people would not expect this to be the case, as they would wrongly imagine that the amoralists’ characteristic lack of sexual restriction would facilitate the liberation of the sexual instinct. The unforeseen actuality, however, is that such licensing of sexual behavior along hedonistic lines ultimately amounts to no more than a licensing of unconsciousness. The ultimate consequence of which being that human sexuality, rather than directly aligning with the innate ethicality of the sexual instinct as such, is degraded to the point of becoming a mere conduit of compulsive bodily discharge. And this being the case, as should readily be appreciated from our above discussion of compulsive bodily discharge, human sexuality finds itself in the grip of that which is no less an enemy to the objective of integration than outright repression. The deeper problem of the integration of the sexual instinct, therefore, is a problem that few understand and one with which fewer still come to terms. For the vast majority of people, human sexuality thus remains, in spite of all romantic pretenses to the contrary, in spite of all attempts to contain it, in spite of all attempts to unconditionally embrace it, nothing other than a subconscious discharger of largely unconscious psychic tensions. For the vast majority of people, to put it even more bluntly, human sexuality amounts to no more than an exercise in compulsive bodily discharge. And it is exactly for this reason, it is exactly because of this its default role as a subconscious conduit of such highly volatile, largely unconscious psychic tensions, I would add, that sexuality has from time immemorial assumed for humanity more the form of a curse than a blessing. Far from being simply an instrument of physical pleasure and/or love, human sexuality calls into play a dynamic web of psychological experience, conscious and unconscious. Yet to this day, even among psychotherapists, human sexuality continues to be viewed and treated without reference to those powerful psychological energies that invariably pathologize it. If we are ever to gain ground with the problem of human sexuality, culturally or therapeutically, we will have to do better than this. No solution to the problem of human sexuality is going to come from a containment strategy based in conventional morality, nor is it going to come from the unrestricted pursuit of bodily gratification. Rather, the solution to this problem will ultimately have to do with the ability to engage and process productively the conscious and unconscious psychological dy-

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namics attending the sexual experience itself. At the heart of the problem of human sexuality, I would thus submit, is the problem of consciousness. At the heart of the problem of human sexuality is the problem of conscious versus unconscious sexuality. Conscious sexuality has to do with the direct observation and channeling of all attendant psychological energies. Conscious sexuality has to do with the freeing of the sexual instinct from the death grip of the complexes. Conscious sexuality, in its broadest sense, has to do with the ethical challenge of taking energies which would otherwise follow a course culminating in sexual dissipation, which is to say, a course culminating in the mere secondary subconscious discharge of psychological tensions, and placing them on a track whose endpoint is that of sexual cultivation, which is to say, whose endpoint is that of a heightened and conscious connection by way of the sexual instinct to the life force of self-organizing Reality. Now through its clinical observation and study of the psychology of the individual, the Syndetic Paradigm—in contrast to the Jungian Paradigm, yet in agreement with the Freudian Paradigm—has been led to acknowledge how very core the problem of human sexuality is to the more comprehensive problem of the human condition. For the Syndetic and Freudian Paradigms, clinical observation has provided them with this fact. What the Syndetic Paradigm cannot agree with, however, is exactly how the Freudian Paradigm has chosen to interpret this fact. Specifically, the Syndetic Paradigm cannot agree with the Freudian assumption that the sexual instinct as such is the principal author of this fact. It does not assume, to put it differently, that the sexual instinct as such is the driver behind all physical and/or psychological experiences of overt or covert sexual content. The Syndetic Paradigm holds, rather, that although there clearly is a sexual instinct in its own right propelling us toward sexual experience, we also find, consistent with the above described dynamics of compulsive bodily discharge, that a great deal of undifferentiated psychic energy which is not fundamentally sexually based becomes entangled with the sexual instinct and seeks discharge secondarily. When it comes, therefore, to accounting for the clinical fact of the extensive presentation of overt and covert sexual content, we could say by way of summation that whereas the Freudian Paradigm holds that the sexual instinct underlies just about everything, the Syndetic Paradigm holds that just about everything [undifferentiated] attaches to the sexual instinct and neurotically or secondarily seeks to channel through it. Although, therefore, the Syndetic Paradigm cannot agree with Freud’s theorizing about the primacy of human sexual experience, it is not without respect for his vital work in this area. Jung’s only slight interest in this

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important question, on the other hand, defies reason, especially coming from a depth psychologist. Indeed it would seem that Jung either failed altogether to comprehend the significance of Freud’s clinical work on sexuality or he simply could not bring himself to acknowledge that work through, at the least, its modified incorporation into his own psychology. Perhaps Jung, to give him the benefit of the doubt, understood that a great deal of clinical sexual content does not originate in the sexual instinct and he simply chose in his theoretical and clinical work to attempt to leap over the whole mess. Yet even if this were the case, Jung committed a serious error in judgment. This is because regardless of whether we are talking about sexual content derived directly from the sexual instinct, or psychic tension of an entirely different nature unconsciously discharging itself sexually, we are talking about energies that are presenting in life through a sexual dynamic, and if they are not clinically met in the form in which they present they will not be effectively addressed therapeutically. No matter what the reason for its theoretical and clinical omission, there can be no doubt that Jung’s failure to give the critical problem of human sexuality the full attention it deserved exacted a price in the form of the Jungian Paradigm’s clinical efficacy. Whereas Jung avoided the abyss of sexual dynamics, Freud, as we well know, descended into it. Now although Freudian psychology and depth psychology as a whole greatly benefited from that descent, Freudian psychology would pay its own unique price for its efforts. Specifically, Freudian psychology would inadvertently become entangled in the dark world of complex-driven sexuality in a manner that it would not be able to undo. The consequences of all of this for the Freudian Paradigm was that in its theoretical and clinical treatment of human sexuality it would never get beyond, nor even see beyond for that matter, the pathological expressions of sexuality. The Freudian Paradigm, in short, would never find its way to an understanding of the sexual instinct in its own right. The untangling of the knot of compulsive bodily discharge in the form of complex-driven sexuality—what I have also termed eroticized arrest—is no small task. Indeed of the different forms of compulsive bodily discharge, the dark alliance between the complexes and sexuality seems to be among the most intractable. Although we cannot know with certainty why this is the case, three things come to mind. Firstly, sexual pleasure and thus discharge is readily and freely available to just about everyone from the youngest of ages, in contrast to the equivalent gratification through substances such as alcohol and drugs. Secondly, being a relatively taboo and thus highly secretive area of human activity, human sexual ac-

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tivity moves directly into the closet, as it were, during the earliest years. Thirdly, since the complexes are part of that to which Jung refers as the shadow, they are themselves highly secretive and closeted creatures. It is not hard to imagine, therefore, that in the darkness of such secretive, albeit inadvertent meeting places, sexuality would succumb to the overwhelming influences of the complexes, causing Eros to give way to eroticized arrest. Now just as the shadow does not necessarily outwardly take the form of antisocial, criminal behavior, eroticized arrest does not necessarily outwardly take the form of antisocial, sexual deviancy. The most enlightening dimensions of shadow work, it should be understood, are typically not about the uncovering of power tendencies behind clearly antisocial behaviors, but rather, about the exposing of those far less obvious power tendencies beneath behavior that is, from a social perspective, exemplary. When it was stated above, then, in sympathy with Freud’s own clinical observations, that the place of eroticized arrest is the place where people for the most part function within their sexual lives, this was not to suggest that we should anticipate long lines at S-M shops, any more than we should anticipate the incarceration of the majority of the population due to the criminal tendencies within the shadows of individuals. When it comes to the shadow and eroticized arrest, we are not, for the most part, talking about conspicuous manifestations. We are not talking about something that most individuals would be able to observe directly in themselves or others unassisted. Indeed much as an x-ray is required to determine exactly if and how a bone is broken, even a skilled psychotherapist will not be able to determine, without the assistance of the x-raylike, compensatory symbols of self-organizing nature, whether an individual’s sexual energy is following a course of arrested sexuality or conscious sexuality, dissipation or cultivation. The following case material will illustrate this point. It should be explained as something of a backdrop to this first case that even the most self-contained of individuals at times act in a manner that is detrimental to the therapeutic temenos, that is to say, to the sacred circle drawn by nature around the therapeutic process. For instance, it is not uncommon for analysands, especially relatively newly initiated ones, to want to share with others some of the more important insights coming out of their analytical sessions. Although it is easy enough to understand why they would be so inclined, as a rule it is not in their best interest to do so, at least until that which they wish to share has truly become their experience. Meaning can never be successfully removed from the therapeutic container if the analysand in question is not equipped through con-

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sciousness to protect and contain it. Unfortunately, more often than not it is the case that when analysands approach others to share their analytical experiences what they are in fact wrongly looking for is containment. Much unfolds in an analysis that bystanders, even with the best of intentions, will not have the consciousness to understand, not to speak of help contain. This is especially true when it comes to those individuals with little or no experience of the analytical process. There are, furthermore, experiences associated with the analytical process that simply do not lend themselves to being communicated to others, even to the most enlightened of souls. I specifically have in mind what von Franz characterizes as the ineffable element of the therapeutic relationship. “Sometimes the relationship or analysis,” von Franz explains, goes on in half-said words which are understood in a specific way by the other person, but which you cannot repeat when speaking of the case. You can tell the dreams, and repeat what you told the analysand about their meaning, but you know perfectly well that you are telling only half the story. There are also things which cannot be told because they happen without your knowing. Somebody may say later: “I don’t remember what you said at the time, but you laughed in a certain way which suggested something to me.” That can happen without either party noticing at the time, and such effects cannot be helped and cannot be spoken of, though in actual fact they may form the basis of the analytical and therapeutic process.1 The whole of the analytical process always exceeds the sum of the parts. Certainly we can talk about the parts with a relatively high degree of accuracy. When it comes to the whole, however, our expectations need to be greatly modified. “Ever desireless,” the Tao Te Ching tells us, “one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.”2 That which constitutes the parts, or sum of the parts, of the analytical process would be the manifestations, whereas that which exceeds the sum of the parts, the analytical whole, would be the mystery. We can indeed tell others about the manifestations of the analytical process, but so often what we really desire to tell is the mystery, yet this is something one can never do. The first case to which we will now turn involves an individual for whom the problem of containment formed the core of her analysis. When the analysis began, this individual had virtually no capacity whatsoever to restrain her urge to collapse emotionally. Emotional collapse invariably followed any deepening of relations with others. Intimacy, her complex had

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wrongly convinced her, was about collapse. Intimacy, to put it into the specific terminology with which we are working here, was about dissipation. As the analysis unfolded, ground was steadily gained with this problem. Through the careful differentiation of certain ego dynamics, the analysand became increasingly aware of the nature and extent of her psychic leakage, especially when it was a question of the leakage of arrested or destructive emotion. What the analysand had yet to get into consciousness, though, was the fact that the leakage of good or positive emotion could be as damaging as the leakage of arrested emotion. Although she was well on her way in recognizing and addressing the dissipation of energy through the leakage of arrested emotion, she had not yet begun to learn about the dissipation of energy through the leakage of that which in every respect was genuinely positive emotion. The right opportunity had yet to present itself for her to do so. What was needed, I now retrospectively understand, was a significantly positive experience that she would have at her disposal to invest wrongly. A breakthrough in her analysis provided her with just that. In light of what we have just learned about therapeutic containment, we should readily appreciate the implications of an individual highly predisposed to collapse placing before a friend, immediately following an analytical session, what was perhaps the most important development in her analysis. The analysand described to her friend a breakthrough experience in her intimate relations with men. The psychic backlash of this altogether premature disclosure was immediate, even though the extent of its full impact would not be brought to consciousness before our analytical session the following week. Indeed as much as my analysand clearly felt out of sorts for days prior to our analytical session, she in no way directly connected her experience of malaise to the exchange that had taken place the week before with her friend. This, I would point out, is not uncommon. People seldom link the two. It is as if there is this need to believe that the “positive” exchange truly was energizing, even though the opposite was more accurately the case. Under such circumstances, then, we can only turn to self-organizing nature for that objective picture of exactly what has transpired. The analysand’s dreams provided us with the following. On the very evening in which she spoke to her friend about her progress in her relations with men—which was, of course, directly related to her progress with emotional containment—the analysand dreamed she was in her car masturbating. She then got out of her car and went into her place of work before realizing her underwear was still around her ankles. It was at this point she

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learned to her further distress that an individual for whom she had no respect was leading her business group. Masturbation, it needs to be explained, was something to which the analysand had in her past turned when containment invariably gave way to psychic leakage or dissipation. Several years prior to her analysis with me, for instance, she attended a series of group therapy sessions that provided nothing in the way of containment for her introverted nature. I actually learned by way of her first association to the dream in question that while attending these therapeutic sessions the analysand had actually masturbated before each session to discharge her psychic tension. Given this association and given, moreover, the compulsive nature of her sexual activity in the dream following her encounter with her friend, it was obvious that psychic energy meant to go forward had taken a wrong turn and slipped into regression. This, it was now clear, had been the direct outcome of the analysand wrongly looking to her friend to contain that which she herself could only contain. Through what at the time had seemed to be nothing more than a harmless sharing of her analytical progress, the analysand had succumbed to a regressive pull of a complex—a complex in which intimacy was synonymous, not with containment, but with emotional collapse and eroticized arrest. Now it was certainly useful for the analysand to understand for the first time that when it comes to the problem of psychic leakage and collapse the needy expression of positive feeling can do as much damage to one’s holding of containment as the careless discharging of negative feeling. Through its referencing of the analysand’s past masturbatory pattern, the unconscious left nothing to the imagination in this regard. The dream’s compensatory directive, however, did not stop there, for if we look at its symbolism more closely we realize that beyond showing the analysand the level to which she had regressed, it no less indicated, perhaps even more importantly, where she was capable of going. This is a critical compensatory point to grasp as regards the teleological workings of the psyche and nature. The unconscious did not simply shame the analysand for her failure, but rather no less sought to provoke her to move forward. Quite specifically, the unconscious knew that the analysand knew in her deepest self that she, not the less competent individual in her dream, was the one more qualified to lead and contain her group at work. Accordingly, when it showed in the dream the less competent individual doing so, the unconscious was in effect provoking the analysand to step up and assume her rightful place in her life, which is to say, a place commensurate with her level of consciousness.

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The second case I wish to present involves an exchange that took place between an analysand and her employer at the time. The analysand had chosen a career path that would take her to a different company. Her employer, however, a woman older than herself, was not pleased and left no doubt that she felt betrayed by this decision. The analysand, as a consequence, was heavily burdened with psychic tension. That night she dreamed she was about to change her clothes when she realized to her surprise that another individual was in the room with her. Quickly she slipped behind a curtain to conceal herself, but as soon as her clothes were removed, she felt a strong urge to masturbate and did so. Having now at our disposal an understanding of the dynamics of eroticized arrest, it is not difficult to make sense of the above. The changing of clothes would be symbolical of the analysand’s decision to change jobs. And as with the job change itself, the analysand would have to negotiate that clothing change in the presence of someone else. Significantly, however, when it came to the moment of the naked truth in the dream— the revealing of the analysand’s natural being—the analysand was as modest in the presence of the other individual in the room as she had been with her employer. Just as she had not revealed to her employer her true reasons for wanting to change jobs, in the dream the analysand concealed her natural being behind the curtain. The free and natural expression of her feeling with a woman in authority was after all, the analysand’s mother complex had long ago convinced her, something to distrust and even fear. Being a “good girl,” her mother complex would thus have her understand in no uncertain terms, entailed the concealing of her natural being. Of course this advice was not without its own price. For when the analysand chose in life to conceal the truth of her natural being in deference to her mother complex, when the analysand slipped behind that curtain at the time of her discussion with her employer to conceal her nakedness, that which had up to that point been about a forward moving transition from the old to the new, suddenly and entirely reversed direction. At that critical point, self-organizing nature wanted the analysand to see, the true lifegiving feeling of her natural being succumbed to neurotic feeling and eroticized arrest, cultivation succumbed to sexual dissipation. The dark world of complexed or arrested sexuality into which we have been given but a glimpse through the above two cases is by no standards a loving world. It is a world of power and suffering. It is a world in which Reality is devoured by delusion, and that the sexual lives of the vast majority of people dwell within this world does nothing to alter that fact. This is the dark world of eroticized arrest, and it is in this very world that

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we encounter that with which Freud became especially familiar—the sadomasochistic tendencies of human sexuality. I will now offer some reflections on the positions held by the Freudian and Syndetic Paradigms on this important problem. For Freud sadomasochism constitutes a sexual force in its own right. Indeed, according to Freudian theory, it actually is a “component instinct of sexuality” which has its origins in the coming together of the sexual instinct with the death instinct. Somewhat more specifically, we would say that if the sexual impulse that has been created through this coming together of the sexual and death instincts were to be directed outwardly, that is, toward another individual, the result would be sadism. Where, on the other hand, if this same sexual impulse were to be directed toward oneself, the result would be masochism. “In sadism,” Freud thus reflects, “long since known to us as a component instinct of sexuality, we should have before us a particularly strong alloy of this kind between trends of love and the destructive instinct; while its counterpart, masochism, would be a union between destructiveness directed inwards and sexuality.”3 Rather than viewing the death and sexual instincts, as the Freudian Paradigm is inclined to do, as the driving forces behind sadism and masochism, the Syndetic Paradigm holds that any deathlike, sexualized components associated with sadomasochism reflect the energies of psychic arrest itself. Sadistic and masochistic behavior, the Syndetic Paradigm thus suggests in contrast to the Freudian position, can be theoretically accounted for in terms of the sexualization of arrested psychic energy, that is to say, in terms of the physiological discharge through sexuality of the destructive tension attending psychic arrest itself. Returning to the two above cases, we should recall how the women’s compulsion to masturbate was a direct consequence of their respective experiences of belittlement. The sexualization of their experiences of psychic suffering would quite rightly be interpreted from a Freudian perspective, and most other clinical perspectives for that matter, as a form of masochism. Yet far from being produced by a coming together of the death and sexual instincts, as the Freudian Paradigm contends, these masochistic behaviors, the Syndetic Paradigm maintains, have their origins in the women’s complex-driven experiences of psychic arrest. They have their origins in complex-derived tensions seeking secondary sexual discharge. We do not, therefore, do any justice to our theoretical or clinical treatment of these masochistic behaviors to import to them Freud’s notions of the death and sexual instincts, which, in effect, curiously enough, would only wrongly impose on this case material an entirely unwarranted transpersonal di-

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mension of meaning. Arrested psychic energy having been secondarily eroticized is masochistic enough. Whereas for centuries Western culture, largely under Christian influences, marginalized the problem of human sexuality within its collective consciousness, the indisputable accomplishment of the Freudian Paradigm was that it conducted human sexuality to the center-stage position it had always deserved. Where we once stood as a culture in our relationship to the problem of human sexuality, compared to where we now stand under Freudian influences, seems, accordingly, to be worlds apart. Now although in certain respects these worlds truly are altogether different, in one important respect they are not. For what we realize when we look beneath the more immediately apparent differences is that these seemingly altogether different positions are in fact both cut, as it were, from the same cloth. What we discover is that both positions have their origins in the very same erroneous model of human sexuality. Both, we specifically learn, have been derived from a model in which the sexual instinct in its own right is not differentiated from sexuality in its complexed or arrested forms. What we discover, in other words, is that for both their fundamental assumptions about human sexuality have been based strictly on the observation of the sexual instinct in its pathologic form. Viewed from this perspective, Freud’s research into human sexuality is tantamount to an incredibly detailed account of all of those dark, arrested dimensions of human sexuality that the Christian world had already concluded, albeit for different reasons, could at best simply be contained. Indeed in the form of his theoretical concept of sublimation, Freud, to all intents and purposes, implemented a containment model of his own making. Without knowledge of the compensatory workings of self-organizing nature and thus without a true line of advance through these problems, what more could Freud possibly have done? With the exception, therefore, of procreation, which, of course, plays only a very small role in the sexual lives of individuals, for both the Freudian and Christian worldviews, the absolute bottom line on human sexuality is that nothing intrinsically good is to be expected to issue directly from the sexual instinct and its attendant psychic energies. For both worldviews, any degree of progress in life—spiritually in the case of the Christian worldview, and culturally in the case of the Freudian worldview—is ultimately dependent on the converting or sublimating of instinctual, sexual energy into nonsexual channels. Now because the Syndetic Paradigm distinguishes noncomplexed from complexed expressions of sexuality, it has come to an understanding on the basis of its own clinical observations that is very much in contrast

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to that of the Christian and Freudian worldviews. Firstly, the Syndetic Paradigm holds that human sexual experience does indeed exist beyond the complexes, that is to say, that there is a nonpathologic, fully functioning sexual instinct existing in its own right. Secondly, it has observed that nature works unceasingly, through its self-regulatory activities, to promote relationship to this instinct. The unalterable ambition of nature is for each individual to know the sexual instinct as it exists untouched by the complexes. Thirdly, and in extreme contrast to the above stated conclusions of the Christian and Freudian worldviews, the Syndetic Paradigm holds that our psychological/spiritual progress is dependent on the strength of our direct and conscious relationship to the sexual instinct. More specifically, it holds that our psychological/spiritual progress is dependent on the shifting of our sexual energy from a course culminating in sexual dissipation, that is to say, complex-driven discharge, and placing it on a track whose outcome is that of sexual cultivation, that is to say, a track which, by way of the sexual instinct, directly leads to the heightening of our conscious relationship to the life force of Reality itself. As unfamiliar as much of this may be to the Western mind, it is the case that within China and India certain philosophical and spiritual traditions have for centuries been concerned with the study of human sexuality in terms of these specific dynamics. Taoist treatises of this nature, which first appeared in China during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE),4 predate, Joseph Needham tells us, the strikingly parallel teachings that later emerged in India under tantrism.5 The discussion that follows will for the most part focus on the Taoist treatment of this problem. Now it is perhaps becoming apparent at this point that the Syndetic Paradigm regards the problem of human sexuality as possibly the most challenging of human problems. Challenging because of its complexity. Complex because human sexuality has no less the capacity to devour and destroy life than it does to preserve and further it. Complex because where we ultimately end up with it, whether it ends up destroying or furthering us psychologically and spiritually is very much a question of what we do with it. And here there are no absolutes; there are no formulaic solutions. “Abstinence,” Schipper writes with reference to the Taoist understanding of the complexities of human sexuality, “as much as excess leads to the death of the body. The sexual act is necessary, but also dangerous. Hence one must know the appropriate techniques.”6 Delineating even more precisely this fine line between sexual dissipation and cultivation, the Indian treatise, the Jnanasiddhi states: “by the same actions which send certain men to burn in hell for aeons of time, the yogin obtains his eternal salvation.”7

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For most individuals, I will again emphasize, sexuality is largely about the ultimately unproductive discharging of psychic tension. The dissipative pattern is as follows: (1) psychic tension is produced through the triggering of complexes (2) that entirely unconscious psychic tension seeks and achieves physiological release through a sexual act often involving orgasm—compulsive bodily discharge (3) this release of tension creates a momentary experience of physical pleasure and calm (4) before culminating in an experience of physical and psychic depletion. With the exception of my inclusion of the complexes in this formula, the traditional Chinese description of sexual dissipation is essentially the same. Indeed, in the Fang-nei (Records of the Bedchamber),8 which is itself, according to R. H. Van Gulik, a compilation of “quotations relating to the Art of the Bedchamber culled from a number of ancient Chinese texts”9 dating back to at least the Han Dynasty,10 the legendary, grand master of the Chinese sexual arts, Peng-tsu, puts it no differently. In his own quite graphic description of the dissipative current into which the energies of the vast majority of individuals are propelled through sexual intercourse, Pengtsu relates, with specific reference to the male experience: “Indeed after the emission the man’s body is tired, his ears are buzzing, his eyes are heavy with sleep, his throat is parched and his limbs inert. Although he has experienced a brief moment of joy, it is not really a pleasurable feeling.”11 Echoing this same understanding, in the Taoist nei-tan (inner alchemy) treatise, the T’ai I Chin Hua Tsung Chih (The Secret of the Golden Flower), it is said about the ill-effects of dissipative sexual encounters: “But every man who unites bodily with a woman feels pleasure first and then bitterness; when the seed has flowed out, the body is tired and the spirit weary.”12 Clearly the above characterizations of sexual intercourse portray a very sorry state. So we experience no small sense of gratitude to learn that the Chinese also believed that such an outcome, such an utter depletion of one’s energy was not a consequence of sexual intercourse to which humanity must be resigned. The above, to be sure, depicts a dissipative pattern, yet to the traditional Chinese mind a different result altogether awaited the man or woman who could exchange this more commonly followed outward-flowing sexual dynamic for the backward-flowing technique of the Taoists, thereby transmuting the otherwise invariable outcome of sexual dissipation into that of sexual cultivation. “It is quite different,” The Secret of the Golden Flower goes on to explain about the cultivative, backward-flowing sexual act, “when the adept lets spirit and energy unite. That brings first purity and then freshness; when the seed is transformed, the body is healthy and free.”13

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Now it is of importance to understand at this point that in contrast to more concrete Western understandings of “right and wrong,” in the traditional Chinese worldview such absolutism gives way to relativism. To the traditional Chinese mind in this regard, the achievement of the favored or moral outcome in any given situation hinges not so much on what one concretely does, but rather, on how one does it. “When the right man (white magician),” we are counseled by The Secret of the Golden Flower, “makes use of wrong means, the wrong means work in the right way. . . . But if the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way.”14 Everything is dependent on the method. Accordingly, the “right” or cultivative orientation to sexuality would not, for instance, simply be a matter of not having sexual relations outside of one’s marriage. For the Taoists, the how is far more important than the with whom. Similarly, lust would not simply be treated as something pertaining to infidelity that is to be overcome accordingly. Nor would the solution to the problem of lust be sought in the suppression of the sexual instinct altogether. For the Taoists, lust would most certainly exist as a significant spiritual obstacle, yet the Taoist solution to the problem it presents, it should be emphasized, would not be found in the more concrete what we do with whom, but rather, in the how we do it. The solution would have to do with a way of being. It would have to do with a cultivative state of mind. Specifically, it would be for the Taoists the backward-flowing method. “The fool,” the text explains, “wastes the most precious jewel of his body in uncontrolled lust, and does not know how to conserve his seed-energy. When it is finished, the body perishes. The holy and wise men have no other way of cultivating their lives except by destroying lusts and safeguarding the seed. The accumulated seed is transformed into energy, and the energy, when there is enough of it, makes the creatively strong body. The differences shown by ordinary people depends only upon how they apply the downwardflowing way or the backward-flowing way.”15 Now if we are to gain ground in our understanding of this vital Chinese notion of the backward-flowing method, we need to have at our disposal some knowledge of not only the specific Taoist sexual techniques of fang-chung shu (arts of the inner chamber), but also of the larger context within which fang-chung shu operates, that is to say, some knowledge of the Taoist techniques of nei-tan (inner alchemy). Fang-chung shu constitutes a subcategory of nei-tan to the extent that its functionality, as a method of cultivation, ultimately involves the assumptions and techniques of the latter. By contrast, nei-tan is a complete system of cultivation in its own right. We will first inquire into the Taoist sexual arts of the bedchamber, before

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turning our attention to that which constitutes its spiritual backdrop, the inner alchemy. Certainly the starting point of any venture into the Taoist sexual arts would be the Taoist notion of ching, the sexual life essence. Whereas in men, ching is quite straightforwardly associated with seminal fluid, in women, its specific biological form is somewhat less certain. All things taken into consideration, however, I would agree with Schipper in associating it biologically with vaginal fluid.16 The Taoist sexual cultivative technique can be conceived of in terms of three stages: (1) the heightening of ching; (2) the harvesting or gathering of ching; (3) the prevention of the loss of ching. “The purpose of the Taoist techniques,” as Needham concisely puts it, “was to increase the amount of life-giving ching as much as possible by sexual stimulus, but at the same time to avoid as far as possible the loss of it.”17 The increasing or heightening of ching was largely achieved by the Taoists through the use of multiple partners of the opposite sex, and/or special techniques to advance orgasm in the partner with whom one was having intercourse. Concerning the accumulation or harvesting of ching, it should be understood the Taoists believed that the penis and vagina were as capable of absorbing sexual essences as they were of discharging them.18 Not unrelated to the above was the critical issue of the quality of the ching which one was making the effort to absorb. The emphasis on one’s sexual partner being a member of the opposite sex was, of course, very much in keeping with the yin and yang principles of Chinese cosmology, which necessitated the correct balancing and creative interplay of feminine and masculine principles. The Taoist adept required, Ingrid FischerSchreiber continues with reference to these same principles, “the energy of a sexual partner of the opposite sex, because a man can strengthen his yang only with the help of the feminine yin and vice versa.”19 Certainly the strength and healthiness of the ching of the individual or individuals with whom one would sexually couple was of no less importance to the Taoists. Yet as Needham himself could only conclude following his exhaustive investigation into the problem of partner selection: “many (and conflicting) directions for their choice appear.”20 There clearly did exist for the Taoists, however, the equivalent of safe bets when it came to the problem of partner selection. Youthfulness was favored because of its relative purity. So too were the strength of numbers, for the Taoists believed that even the most heightened sexual encounter with one individual could never approach the ching to be harvested from encounters with multiple sexual partners. Accordingly, we find in Taoists texts no shortage of the most remarkable

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accounts of men and women whose youthfulness and lives were extended exponentially by serial sexual encounters of this nature. Turning now to explore the Taoist methods of preventing the loss of ching, our discussion will need to proceed in two stages. Firstly, we will examine the actual physical techniques employed by Taoists to minimize sexual leakage. Secondly, we will investigate the role of consciousness in the higher forms of these Taoist techniques. It is here that we will also take into consideration the relevant teachings and practices of the Taoist inner alchemy, nei-tan. There can be no question that the physical conservation of ching in men came to be an issue of far greater concern to Taoist practitioners of fangchung shu than did the conservation of its physical equivalent in women. Perhaps this development had to do with the fact that male ejaculation and orgasm physically deplete a man in a manner that the comparable physical experience in a woman does not. If such physical depletion is not evidenced in the inability to maintain an erection and continue intercourse after ejaculation and orgasm, it certainly is evidenced in the inability to produce successive ejaculations of the same volume. Whatever the specific reason, it nevertheless proved to be the case that whereas the Taoists gave almost no attention to the problem of the physical conservation of ching in women, a great deal was written about the conservation of ching in men. For male practitioners of fang-chung shu the goal was to limit, if not altogether stop, seminal fluid flowing out of the penis. Celibacy, it would seem, would have been the simpler solution to this problem, but for the Taoists, as Needham explains, it “was considered not only impossible, but improper, as contrary to the great rhythm of Nature.”21 The limiting or altogether stopping of seminal discharge came down, then, to two techniques. On the one hand, men were encouraged to limit the loss of ching by not ejaculating during every sexual encounter. Several sexual encounters were to occur for every one ejaculation in order to allow the individual to gather as much ching as possible from others before releasing some of it himself. Alternatively, practitioners learned to stop the outward release of ching altogether by way of an actual physical rerouting of the ejaculate. No doubt this technique was somewhat more appealing as it enabled the practitioner to prevent the outward discharge of seminal essence while placing no restrictions whatsoever on ejaculation and orgasm. Describing the specific Taoist technique of “making the ching return,” Needham writes: [It] consisted of an interesting technique which has been found among other peoples in use as a contraceptive device, and still appears sporadically among European populations. At the moment of

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ejaculation, pressure was exerted on the urethra between the scrotum and the anus, thus diverting the seminal secretion into the bladder, whence it would later be voided with the excreted urine. This, however, the Taoists did not know; they thought that the seminal essence could thus be made to ascend and rejuvenate or revivify the upper parts of the body—hence the principle was termed huan ching pu nao, making the ching return to restore the brain.22 If indeed it was the case that the technique of making the ching return amounted to nothing other than the rerouting of actual semen to the brain, our discussion would pretty much come to an end at this point, simply because, as Needham explained above, such a channeling of semen is a physical impossibility. The physical technique of causing the ching to return affords us no insight, therefore, into the true alchemy of Taoist sexuality. It affords us no insight into practices which for centuries have been purported to increase health and even lengthen life by taking an otherwise dissipative sexual act and turning it into a cultivative one. So if it was simply a case of the physical mechanics described above we would be at a loss. But this, as we are about to discover, was not what making the ching return truly entailed. Whether we are talking about the accumulation of ching through its harvest in sexual encounters with others, or the minimizing or preventing altogether of its discharge, we are not talking so much about the dynamics of physical substances, but rather, above all else, about the dynamics of subtle essences. We are talking about essences, it should now be indicated, whose accumulation and transmutation is ultimately dependent, not on physical mechanics, but on consciousness. Physical techniques such as the above may keep semen from flowing out of the penis, but they certainly cannot in themselves make the ching return. Stopping semen from actually flowing out of the penis is one thing; making the ching return is quite another. To make ching return what is required is consciousness or, as the Taoist teachings specifically put it, energy of thought. “When the desires are stirred,” we read in The Secret of the Golden Flower, “it [ching] runs downward, is directed outward, and creates children. If, in the moment of release, [orgasm and ejaculation] it is not allowed to flow outward, but is led back by the energy of thought [consciousness] so that it penetrates the crucible of the Creative, and refreshes heart and body and nourishes them, that also is the backward-flowing method. Therefore it is said, The Way of the Elixir of Life depends entirely on the backward-flowing method.”23 The cultivative consciousness of the backward-flowing method is a consciousness that is in no way stirred by desire. Desire-tainted con-

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sciousness, the text emphasizes, causes ching to flow outward; to make it return, on the other hand, ching must be directed by a consciousness that is altogether untouched by desire. Now in order for us to understand better the nature of this plane of consciousness, as well as to learn exactly how the Taoists conceptualized its attainment, we will have to venture further into the teachings of the inner alchemy, nei-tan. According to nei-tan teachings, our existence in our physical bodies is brought about through the coming together of that which Taoists describe as the two souls, p’o and hun, but what we could equally describe as two comprehensive modes of consciousness. Whereas the p’o soul is regarded by Taoists as the body or earthly soul, the hun soul is variously characterized as the breath, spirit, or heavenly soul.24 “The life and health of a person,” Fischer-Schreiber tells us, “depend on the harmonious interplay of these two souls, or energies. When hun and p’o separate, death ensues.”25 And at that moment, we should further explain, there are four possibilities as to what will follow. With regard to the first two of these four possibilities, both of which notably encompass the afterlife experiences of the majority of individuals, they are distinguished from each other not by differences as to where their occupants ultimately end up, but rather, by how long it takes their occupants to get there. What is common to both is that at death p’o, the inferior, dark yin-soul “sinks to the earth and decays,” while hun, the superior, light yang-soul “rises in the air, where at first,” as Wilhelm explains, “it is still active for a time and then evaporates in ethereal space, or flows back into the common reservoir of life.”26 Now according to Taoist thinking, the responsibility for this less than propitious turn of events following death is largely attributable to p’o. Since p’o is “especially linked with the bodily processes,”27 it is the soul that will most often precipitate the downward-flowing movement of ching. “As a rule,” Wilhelm relates, “it will be [p’o], the undiscriminating will, which, goaded by passions, forces [hun] . . . into its service.” To the degree that hun falls under its spell, and it almost habitually tends to do so, both souls fall into ruin, and “life consumes itself.” At the critical moment of death, Taoists believe, hun’s great vulnerability is its susceptibility to externalization. To the extent that it can keep from succumbing to externalization, it can withstand the downward pull of p’o. To the extent that it cannot, it “sinks into the dull misery of death.” Outlining these two potential outcomes in greater detail, Wilhelm writes: If the [personality] has acquiesced in the “externalization,” it follows the downward pull and sinks into the dull misery of death, only

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poorly nourished by the illusory images of life by which it is still attracted without being able to participate in anything actively (hells, hungry souls). But if the [personality] has made an effort to strive upward in spite of the process of “externalization,” it maintains for a time . . . a relatively happy life [after death]. . . . In both cases, the personal element retreats and there ensues an involution corresponding to the “externalization.” The being then becomes an impotent phantom because it lacks the energies of life and its fate comes to an end. It now partakes of the fruits of its good or bad deeds in heavens or hells, which, however, are not external, but purely inner states. The more a being penetrates these states, the more involution progresses till finally he disappears from the plane of existence . . . supplied by his previous imaginings. This condition is the state of the demon, the spirit, the departed one, the one who withdraws. The Chinese word for this state of being is kuei (often wrongly translated by “devil”).28 If, in contrast to the above, hun has consistently strengthened itself by resisting in this life the ongoing downward influences of p’o, at the time of death, rather than succumbing to p’o, it will set in motion “the ‘backward-flowing,’ rising movement of life-energies.” As a direct consequence of this “inner, ascending circulation of the energies,” the personality at the time of death will transcend the first two afterlife potentials and directly enter the third, which is the realization of shen. I will quote at length Wilhelm’s description of this third consciousness state: A liberation from external things takes place. They are recognized but not desired. Thus illusion is robbed of its energy. An inner, ascending circulation of the energies takes place. The [personality] withdraws from its entanglement in the world, and after death remains alive because “interiorization” has prevented the wasting of the lifeenergies in the outer world. Instead of these being dissipated they have created within the inner rotation of the monad a life-centre which is independent of bodily existence. Such [a personality] is a god, deus, shen. The character for shen means to extend, to create; in a word, it is the opposite of kuei. In the oldest Chinese script it is represented by a double meander pattern, which can also mean thunder, lightning, electrical stimulation. Such a being survives as long as the inner rotation continues. It can, even though invisible, still influence men and inspire them to great thoughts and noble deeds. The saints and sages of ancient times are beings like these, who for thousands of years have stimulated and educated humanity.29

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Now as wondrous as the above described consciousness state clearly is, it, of course, constitutes for the Taoists merely the penultimate stage of enlightenment. For what is described above does not amount to immortality “any more,” we are told, “than heaven and earth are eternal.” Certainly those who have attained the status of shen are very evolved beings indeed, but they themselves are not without spiritual vulnerability. Most notably, they are still attached to the experience of a personal identity. As a consequence, they continue to be attached to things, which in turn causes them to be subjected to the limitations of space- and time-bound reality.30 The ultimate goal of the inner alchemy, by contrast, is to transcend personal identity and unite with the totality. It is, accordingly, by way of the cultivative interplay of p’o and hun that the sacred embryo comes into being thus providing the means of one’s absolute unification with the Tao. This, we are told, is the moment of the opening of the Golden Flower. What, we rightly ask, are its signs? When “the fragile body of the flesh” becomes the indestructible diamond body “[fearing] neither storm nor frost,”31 when “the ‘traces’ left by experience” remain associated with the personality, yet the individual is no longer in any way confined by them, when the personality is “no longer limited to the monad, but . . . returns to the undivided, One.”32 This is the Golden Flower. This is the Taoist experience of immortality. It is a curious fact about Jung’s commentary on the Secret of the Golden Flower that not only is no mention made of the text’s foundational fangchung shu teachings, but no mention is made of sexuality at all. Perhaps Jung didn’t fully comprehend the stated dynamics of Taoist sexual channeling. It is more probable, however, that Jung simply chose to treat all Taoist references to sexuality symbolically, which is to say, as if they were not really about sexuality at all. In contradistinction to this limitation of the Jungian Paradigm, the Syndetic Paradigm, as already noted, regards sexuality as a core human problem in its own right and as such deserving of substantial clinical and theoretical space. To the extent that sexuality is not afforded the space it deserves, our quest for self-knowledge will be proportionately inhibited. This we must bear in mind in our approach to the carefully distilled Taoist insights pertaining to the energy dynamics of human sexuality. Any attempt to bring into relationship the nomenclature of two worldviews is never easy, even two relatively sympathetic worldviews. Within the terminology of one worldview, for instance, there may very well be a single term for an experience that in the more nuanced understanding of another worldview is subdivided into several terms. In moving between worldviews, therefore, we have to concern ourselves not so

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much with the aligning of terminology, but rather, with the approximate paralleling of ideas themselves. And the ideas with which we are here concerned, as they constitute the critical concepts upon which the transition from dissipative to cultivative sexuality hinges, are, of course, the Chinese terms p’o and hun. It will be recalled that whereas p’o was characterized as the bodily or earthly soul, hun was characterized as the breath, spirit, or heavenly soul. Both, it was further suggested, could equally be conceived of as forms of consciousness. Writing along this line in his authoritative A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Wing-Tsit Chan states: “As generally understood, hun is the spirit of man’s vital force which is expressed in man’s intelligence and power of breathing, whereas p’o is the spirit of man’s physical nature which is expressed in bodily movements.”33 When we are talking about p’o, therefore, it should be understood that we are talking about the spirit of, the soul of, or the consciousness of our physical natures; when we are talking about hun, on the other hand, it should be understood we are talking about the spirit of, the soul of, or the consciousness of our intellectual or analytical faculties. Now in searching for depth-psychological equivalents to p’o and hun what immediately comes to my mind is the Jungian theoretical juxtaposing of instinct and spirit within the psychoid archetype. Instinct, it should be recalled, is associated with innate patterns of behavior, whereas spirit is associated with innate patterns of meaning. At a glance, compatibility between these Taoist and Jungian constructs seems to exist. Closer scrutiny, however, leads us to an altogether different conclusion. The dissimilarities of the two are subtle, but nonetheless very important to understand. In the Jungian model, in contrast to the Taoist one, no consciousness is apportioned to the instinct as such. The instinct is not regarded as a soul in its own right, as p’o in contrast to this is. Within the Jungian Paradigm, therefore, even though instinct and spirit somewhat approximate the Taoist notions of p’o and hun, respectively, the crucial fact is that within the Jungian model consciousness is understood to be only associated with the spirit pole of the archetype.34 That the instincts, and by extension of the instincts the body itself, have consciousness is an understanding to which the Syndetic Paradigm unequivocally subscribes. As an entity in its own right, the sexual instinct amounts to far more than a mere behavioral factor. Indeed, on the basis of its own clinical experience, the Syndetic Paradigm has come to conclude that the sexual instinct is deserving of the same sensitivity shown any consciousness form. And when, moreover, it comes to the question of such an encounter with the spirit of, soul of, or consciousness of the body in general,

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or the sexual instinct in specific, the Syndetic Paradigm, I would suggest, having at its disposal a depth-psychological understanding that Taoism does not, offers an altogether unique point of access to the problem presented by p’o. From the point of view of the Syndetic Paradigm, there exists in the Taoist treatment of p’o a not insignificant inconsistency. On the one hand, we are told that in order for spiritual progress to occur hun must subordinate p’o to itself. On the other hand, we are told that the production of the Golden Flower very much depends on the coming together of p’o and hun—the implication being that each intrinsically functions as a complement to the other. Which is it then? Given the negative portrayal of p’o by Taoist writers, coupled with the call for the absolute subordination of p’o by hun, we are truly at a loss to understand how things are to progress. Given the negative portrayal of p’o, we are truly at a loss to understand how p’o could in any way be conceived of as a complement to hun. It is more than conceivable to the Syndetic Paradigm that one of the central problems of the work of the inner alchemy has to do, not with the systematic eradication of p’o, but with the genuine transmutation of p’o from that of an inferior to superior consciousness form. And it is equally conceivable to the Syndetic Paradigm that the Taoists themselves may not have known how to describe that process, other than wrongly characterizing it in terms of the complete replacement of a yin consciousness with that of a yang one, that is to say, the absolute replacement of p’o with hun. The following quotation from The Secret of the Golden Flower illustrates not only the nature of the problem that p’o presents, but also, Taoist confusion about what is to be done to resolve it, that is to say, confusion about whether p’o is to be refined or altogether replaced: “The [ p’o] partakes of the nature of the dark. It is the energy of the heavy and the turbid; it is bound to the bodily fleshy heart. The [hun] loves life. The [p’o] seeks death. All sensuous desires and impulses of anger are effects of the [p’o]. . . . But the pupil understands how to distil the dark [p’o] completely so that it transforms itself into pure light (yang).”35 In its inferior form, there can be no question that p’o is not a pretty picture. It is outward flowing and completely desire based. As such, it is a shameless dissipator capable of literally draining the life not only out of itself, but out of hun as well. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that this is not the consciousness or soul of the body in its true form, nor is it the authentic consciousness or soul of the sexual instinct. This is not, in other words, the true form of p’o. Rather, this is a portrayal of the consciousness of the body and sexual instinct gripped by pathology. And the source of this pathology, clinical experience has led us to conclude, is the complexes.

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As has already been demonstrated above, the body is that to which the tension associated with activated complexes adheres seeking physiological discharge. So we can readily imagine that the consciousness or soul of the body and sexual instinct would be pursued and corrupted similarly. And indeed the descriptions of p’o with which we are presented support this assumption, for everything that is said in Taoist texts about the inferiority of p’o is an exact depiction of the consciousness of the instincts and body swirling downward into the destructive vortex of compulsive discharge. When it is said, then, by the Taoists that hun must subordinate the inferior, desire-based p’o to itself, the Syndetic Paradigm, drawing on its own understanding and constructs, would say that the consciousness of the body and sexual instinct—now contaminated by the complexes and trapped within the destructive pattern of compulsive discharge—must be, not so much subordinated, but liberated by hun acting under the direction of the higher consciousness of self-organizing nature, what the Taoists themselves would call the Tao. Only through this inner alchemy, we would emphasize, will p’o and hun be differentiated to the extent that their coming together will be complementary. Only through the complementary coming together of these two differentiated consciousness forms will the emergence of the Golden Flower occur. I would offer as something of a footnote to the above that it was only under Buddhist influences that the production of the Golden Flower came to be strictly attributed to hun, that is to say once again, to the yang side only. In contrast to this alteration, as Cary F. Baynes tells us, “in undiluted Chinese teaching, the creation of the Golden Flower depends on the equal interplay of both the yang and yin forces.”36 For the Taoist practitioners of fang-chung shu, as well as for the Syndetic Paradigm, I would like to say by way of concluding this section, that the backward-flowing method of the inner alchemy through which otherwise dissipative sexual acts are transmuted into cultivative ones is not so much about the reversal of physical leakage in sexual intercourse, but rather, about the reversal of psychic leakage. It is about the cultivation and gathering of ching through a direct and conscious encounter with the sexual instinct in its own right. It is about the coming together of consciousness and sexuality in a numinous union untouched by the complexes and compulsion. It can be observed clinically that with the differentiation of the complexes the inexorable drive of nature to establish a direct and conscious link to the sexual instinct in its own right comes fully to bear on the individual. In fact, it does so to the extent that any failure on the part of the individual to honor its demands will result in the developmental arrest of

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the personality. Remarkably, this is as true of a seventy- or eighty-year-old as it is of a very sexually active twenty- or thirty-year-old. The case of a woman in her seventies with no sexual history especially comes to mind. I will examine two of her related dreams in detail. The first dream was a simple but nonetheless graphic image of two mice mating. What especially concerned the analysand about this dream was the fact that the female mouse clearly was in a great deal of pain. The analysand actually described the female mouse as “screaming.” In the dream that immediately followed this one, the analysand had to return to university to pick up a degree she had never collected. While at the university, the analysand had to hold open three doors at the same time—one of which was barely large enough to move through. The hinges on all the doors, the analysand noted, were short. As a consequence, they were quick to close thus making it all the more difficult to hold the three of them open at once. After much struggle and conscious effort, however, the analysand managed to hold all three open, at which time a woman, notably, passed through them. Turning first to the university dream, we see that the archetypal, compensatory theme underpinning the dream is the motif of the return. The idea of the return, it should be understood, is not about coming back to an old place as such; rather, it is about coming to an entirely new place by way of an old place. The return is about a necessary circling back in order to find one’s way forward. It is, in this regard, about renewal and rebirth. It is certainly not insignificant that the analysand had to return to the very place of what to all intents and purposes had been an incomplete initiatory experience. Indeed many years before when she had actually completed her university studies, she had not only failed to collect her university degree—the symbol of her successful initiatory passage—but she had wrongly imagined, as the analysand herself explained, that she could simply walk away without it, never having to return to get it. Yet now she was being led back by self-organizing nature to recover what she had left behind. Now she was being led back to recover from the past that without which her rebirth in the present would not be possible. If there was one thing of which this analysand could not be accused it would be of thinking herself special. Accordingly, that the analysand had avoided during those years obtaining any formal acknowledgment of her university work was not entirely surprising. Such humility of course has both its strengths and weaknesses. Concerning the latter, if, for instance, during times of psychological and spiritual adversity one were not to allow oneself to feel special, at least to some degree, one would not feel empowered, or perhaps better, even justified to hold consciousness fully on

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one’s true need, as well as the critical work at hand. The analysand, selforganizing nature would have her understand, needed to believe in herself. She needed to believe in herself to a degree she had never done before. She needed to acknowledge and receive herself to the extent that she would have both the direction and resolve to fight her way forward, much as she had met nature’s challenge to fight her way through that almost impassably tight rebirth canal symbolized by the three university doors. The place to which the analysand had returned by way of selforganizing nature was exactly the place from which she had to go forward. By way of her analytical work and self-organizing nature, the analysand most certainly had arrived in the realm of higher learning, which is to say analytically, beyond the realm of the complexes. In order to continue with her journey, however, in order to move toward and consciously descend into the sexual instinct, she would have to accept her arrival, her experience as she had never given herself permission to do in the past. If a woman cannot fully receive herself, if she cannot fully receive the experience that comes to her through her natural being, she will certainly not be able to receive life through the consciousness associated with the feminine sexual instinct. In the absence of such feminine principle receptivity, all experiences of penetration by life that circumvent the ego’s tendencies toward control, no matter how gentle or benevolent, will ultimately be experienced, it should be understood, as violations. With regard to sexual intercourse itself, an individual’s experience will be that of rape, hence the highly traumatized mating mouse in the analysand’s dream. By contrast, when the consciousness associated with the feminine sexual instinct is fully functioning the very opposite will be true. Rather than experiencing at every turn that life is forcing itself upon one, a door that has been firmly closed to life, or one whose hinges have been far too tight, will open freely to receive life. When in her dream, after considerable struggle, the analysand managed to hold open the three doors so as to allow the feminine instinct, symbolized by the woman, to pass through them, the analysand consciously opened herself to life in a manner she had never before done. Remarkably, after a lifetime of celibacy, decades after the time in which sexuality could serve any procreative purpose, the analysand had begun her descent into the realm of the consciousness of the sexual instinct. It is certainly no easy theoretical task to establish for practical clinical purposes how we are to understand the relationship between what we term the psyche, on the one hand, and the consciousness of the body, on the other. The latter, I have no doubt, is ultimately a component of the allencompassing field of the psyche. Yet this does nothing to assist us in theoretically accounting for the somewhat paradoxical fact that the con-

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sciousness of the body at times needs to be encountered as an entity in its own right. We could perhaps say that if the psyche were a house, the consciousness of the body would be a floor in that house under its own separate key. Because this floor contains its own unique secrets about our deepest selves, our entrance into it, although not easily obtained, is necessary. Here we would be given greater insight into things already known to us. Here we would be given the means to investigate altogether untouched aspects of our psyches—aspects of ourselves to which we would otherwise not have access. Here we would most directly engage the wisdom of the instincts, especially the sexual instinct. And it is also here that we would encounter psychic and physical traumata—traumata, we must understand, that fled to this otherwise secured area with the expectation of never again being touched by ego-consciousness. Much as water seeks the ground’s lowest point, psychic and physical traumata, consistent with the ego’s mechanisms of defense, seek those low places within the psyche that are least likely to be accessed by egoconsciousness. When we consider how inaccessible the consciousness of the body typically is to ego-consciousness, when we consider the cultural and religious taboos, which, not only subtly, but forcefully at times direct ego-consciousness away from it, it should not be hard to imagine that when it comes to the workings of the ego and its defenses the body constitutes the lowest of the low psychic ground. Now although dreams are not our only means of accessing the consciousness of the body, they are nevertheless the most reliable one. Dreams prompt us as to the presence of traumata within the consciousness of the body, but such promptings often go unrecognized by analysts. My own clinical experience has been that dreams often address problems pertaining to somatic consciousness, especially dreams in which there is an emphasis on the whole body coming into play. The case of an analysand who had spent much of her life tormented by sexual drives she desperately sought to control will help to illustrate my point. After several years of analysis, at a time in which sexual suppression was gradually moving toward sexual acceptance, the analysand dreamed of her sister getting into bed with her elderly mother to support and comfort her. To fully appreciate what was being modeled by her sister’s placement of her whole body in support of their mother, there is something we first need to understand. During the early years of her childhood, the analysand’s mother had been an alcoholic. The analysand, it is important to realize, never could admit her mother’s alcoholism during those years, nor was she subsequently

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able to forgive her mother’s behavior. During her childhood, and in the decades to follow, the analysand went into an avoidance mode and sought refuge from this seemingly unbearable circumstance in the otherworldliness of the Church. From the time of her childhood well into her adult years, the analysand used the ideals of the Church as a means of rising above and even condemning this imperfection of her family life. Now we should also know she did exactly the same thing with what she came to regard as the equally unbearable imperfections of her own natural being, her unruly sexual being to be specific. Yet here, however, in contrast to the analysand’s largely unchallenged reproach of her mother, the imposing of otherworldly perfectionism on her sexuality met with direct resistance. Her sexual instinct violently rebelled. There can be no doubt about the traumatic impact on the consciousness of the body of such a long-standing battle between an idealistically based will and the sexual instinct. And there can equally be no doubt that the problem of such traumatization must first be resolved in order for a reconciliation of the sexual instinct and the consciousness of the body to occur. What unfolded in the analysand’s dream with her sister and mother was an actual experiential prelude to such healing. Because the religious ideals used by the analysand to shut out her mother’s alcoholism were the same ideals to which she resorted in her battle with her sexual instinct, I suspected that within the mind of the analysand, and within the consciousness of the body itself, it came to be held that any failure on the part of the analysand to subdue the sexual instinct would retroactively compromise the ethicality of her use of those same religious ideals to purge her life of her mother’s alcoholism. If, to put it differently, the religious ideals to which she turned lacked the requisite authority and power to subdue her sexual energies, how, from an ethical standpoint, could she justify having turned them against her mother, especially with the aloofness with which she had. The consciousness of the body, it thus seemed to me, being caught in the middle of this battle between the will and the sexual instinct, became enlisted by way of its own traumatization to conspire with the will against the sexual instinct. This being the case, the consciousness of the body, I further believed, would never be reconciled to the sexual instinct until it was convinced the ego’s enmity toward the mother had been settled. The somatic consciousness had to be convinced, beyond any doubt, that it was now safe to open itself, not just to the sexual instinct, but to that problem against which the analysand’s religious ideals had in the first place been neurotically employed—the problem presented by her mother.

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While the more obvious called-for surrender would have been to the analysand’s sexual instinct, far less obvious, and even hidden from the analysand and myself, was the surrender to the mother that had to happen through the consciousness of the body as a prelude to reconciliation with the sexual instinct. Through the compensatory modeling of the analysand’s sister, the consciousness of the body was led by self-organizing nature to know experientially just that. Two subsequent dreams were to carry things further still. Following the dream about the analysand’s sister and mother, the analysand dreamed she was with a man handling his pistol, an obvious symbolic reference to his penis. The composure and self-confidence emanating from this dream image was, we can just say, unprecedented. Sexual suppression was most certainly giving way to sexual receptivity. Even more striking, however, was the symbolism within her next dream. Immediately following the pistol dream, and prior to having had any commentary from me whatsoever about the meaning of the dream involving her mother and sister, the analysand dreamed she was supporting with her own body, her whole body, an elderly woman as they slowly descended a flight of stairs. In addition to the presentation in dreams of the above-described whole-body activity, a no less significant indicator of the referencing to the consciousness of the body by self-organizing nature is the appearance in dreams of rhythmic activity. Notably, as a result of my clinical observation of such phenomenon I have been led to value more deeply the dynamics underlying the use of rhythm in rituals, particularly healing rituals—be it rhythmic sound as produced, for instance, by drums or rattles, or rhythmic movement as produced, for instance, by group or individual dancing. Rhythm, I have come to conclude, is perhaps the most direct medium through which the consciousness of the body not only communicates, but also is communicated to. Accordingly, all dreams and outward compensatory patterns of self-organizing nature in which rhythmic sound or rhythmic movement brings the whole body into play should be thoroughly examined for compensatory directives pertaining to somatic consciousness. The following case example will illustrate this point. The following dreams presented at a time in which the analysand in question had just begun to hold her own with others. Despite increasing pressure from both family and friends to be her previous compliant self, the analysand continued to stand her ground. Probably not unrelated to her newfound strength, she had become far more present in her body and sexuality. In the midst of these developments, she had the following dream. She dreamed she and a friend were at the beach attempting to surf.

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The water, however, was too shallow to allow them to do so. Her friend as a result decided to leave, even though they had both been advised the tide was about to change. In looking at this dream one could imagine that it was no more than a recounting of the analysand’s recent progress in differentiating herself out from the positions of others. After all, when her friend left, the analysand made her own decision to stay. But was there more to the dream than simply this? What I have learned about somatic consciousness led me to suspect there was. Rhythm is the language of the consciousness of the body. Dreams in which rhythmic activity and whole-body movement come into play are, therefore, especially deserving of attention. There are of course many ways in which rhythm and whole-body movement might come together in a dream, but one of the more powerful symbols of such union is that of an individual being rhythmically carried by the wave activity of water. It was the presence of this symbol, or perhaps more accurately its absence, that especially caught my attention. The women, as we know from the analysand’s account, were wanting to surf, but the water was too shallow for them to do so. Could these two compensatory facts alone be telling us something? My sense was that they most certainly were. Based on my previous observation of related symbolism, my immediate concern was that for both women relationship to the depth energies of the consciousness of the body had become altogether blocked. When it came to the consciousness of the body and its rhythms, both women were stuck, so to speak, in shallow water. Both were without access to those depth energies to support and carry them in their lives. I then turned to yet another piece of the compensatory puzzle. I asked about her friend. My analysand’s immediate association to this individual was that she had put her child up for adoption. Knowing this had not been the experience of my own analysand, I wondered what she might have experienced of comparable significance to her. I asked if she had ever had an abortion. She had had one years ago. It was at this point that I outlined to my analysand the possible reference in her dream to the existence of trauma within her somatic consciousness. She then read her next dream. The analysand was staying in a dormitory with a number of women. A woman whose eyes were noticeably not straight was serving them food. The analysand was eating with the others, but what suddenly shocked her to the extent she became physically ill was the realization that not only

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was she eating food she normally would not eat, but the food itself was actually leftovers taken from the plates of others. At this moment she noticed the bamboo shoot she was about to eat was shaped like a bullet. After having read this second dream aloud, with my questions about somatic consciousness and abortion still very much in her mind, this final dream image about the bamboo shoot bullet required no interpretation from me. There was no doubt in the mind of my analysand as to what it referred. Her abortion, my analysand told me, had been brought about using an herbal mixture. It had been brought about, in other words, by way of a bamboo shoot bullet she had ingested. For a psychic wound to be healed, it must first be identified as a wound in need of healing. There was at least one important reason why this particular wound was not. Much as the server’s eyes in the dream were not straight, the analysand’s own vision at the time of the abortion was skewed. The fact that an herbal remedy rather than a formal medical procedure was used to terminate her pregnancy caused the analysand not to look directly at exactly what she was doing. As the analysand herself put it, “I tricked myself.” Yes, the analysand had tricked herself, but she had done so not only through her use of the herbal remedy, but also through her reliance on the opinion of others in making the decision to abort, hence the reference in the dream to eating from the plates of others, food she normally would not eat. The degree to which she was swayed in this regard was no doubt reflected in the fact that when she again became pregnant only months later, she chose not to terminate her pregnancy. Much as repression had for years obstructed healing within the analysand’s somatic consciousness, there certainly were now factors at work by way of self-organizing nature seeking to carry things forward. At a time in which this analysand was becoming far more straightforward in both thought and action, at a time in which she was holding her position with others as she had never done before, at a time in which relationship to the sexual instinct in its own right was awakening, at a time in which the depth energies of somatic consciousness were standing by to rise up and carry her in her life as the tide itself was about to do in her dream provided she held her position, it is not surprising that it was indeed time for that which in the consciousness of her body had been her unhealing wound to be healed. Physical and/or psychological traumata, I would offer in concluding this first stage of our discussion of somatic consciousness, can only be entirely healed by way of a therapeutic intervention that reaches into the consciousness of the body itself. Only when such traumata are encountered directly in the space they inhabit, will they give up their secrets. Heal-

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ing may involve physical contact, but it does not always require it. Physical contact typically activates the consciousness of the body, but if one is unable to identify and correctly interpret the distinct energy and consciousness dynamics thus activated, engagement, to all intents and purposes, has not occurred. This brings us to the potential shortcomings of what is generally referred to today as energy work. Although individuals doing such work with others often have a general understanding of these principles, the sobering truth is that working therapeutically with the consciousness of the body calls for no less of a knowledge of the unconscious and its dynamics than is required to produce an in-depth analysis of dreams themselves. We will now turn to the second and final stage of our discussion. Very much in contrast to the standards of spiritual and depth meaning that have served humanity in centuries past, today, in accordance with the evolving unfoldment of self-organizing nature, it is incumbent on us to encounter consciously the sexual instinct in its own right. Regardless of whether people choose to accept this directive, or even know of its existence, it nevertheless remains, by way of self-organizing nature, an ethical imperative with which we must all come to terms. It is the case, accordingly, today, and most probably from this time forward, that no spiritual experience, no experience of depth meaning will be complete in the absence of its attainment. Now to the extent that this places unprecedented demands on the individual, it too places unprecedented demands on relationships of sexual intimacy, especially marital relationships. In its traditional, collective form the institution of marriage has done little more than act as a container for concrete social and religious mores. Never has it been concerned with the problem of cultivative sexuality, not to speak of self-actualization. Yet today, whether people are cognizant of the fact or not, they nevertheless hold within themselves by way of self-organizing nature expectations of such psychological and spiritual growth through marriage. And they do so, I would add, even though marriage as an institution today is no better equipped to meet these expectations than it was hundreds of years ago. In the present day, marriage is failing because the consciousness demands placed upon it by self-organizing nature grossly exceed the consciousness capabilities of its traditional form. This gap, the ever-increasing divorce rate tells us, is of the greatest social, psychological, and spiritual consequence. It is a gap that has remained unaddressed for too long. The discussion of sexuality to follow will proceed by way of an examination of two splits that exist as unhealing wounds within the collective consciousness of our culture. Firstly, we will turn to the problem of the

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split that exists between strictly physical sexuality, on the one hand, and the psychological and emotional experiences of love on the other. Secondly, we will address the problem of the cultural split by which personal and transpersonal dimensions of human sexuality wrongly assume the form of incommensurables. As has already been discussed in some detail, the accumulation and interpretation of clinical facts is a scientific endeavor that is highly conditioned by paradigmatic biases. Accordingly, when we start with the widely acknowledged clinical fact that in intimate relationship we often observe a partitioning of physical sexual intimacy from experiences of emotional love, we should not be surprised to learn that the Freudian and Syndetic Paradigms reach different conclusions as to the theoretical significance of this fact. On the Freudian side, this fact would most certainly be interpreted in terms of one of that paradigm’s core theoretical assumptions which holds that the sexual drive, on the one hand, and emotional love on the other, are not only irreconcilables, but can only exist, moreover, to the proportionate detriment of the other. “A man,” Freud explains with reference to this paradigmatic assumption, “will show a sentimental enthusiasm for women whom he deeply respects but who do not excite him to sexual activities, and he will only be potent with other women whom he does not ‘love’ and thinks little of or even despises.”37 Now no less consistent with its own paradigmatic assumptions, the Syndetic Paradigm, by contrast, would regard the presence of such tension between sexuality and love, not as the consequence of an irreconcilable division of the two, but rather, as the consequence of one’s experiential access to the sexual instinct having been blocked, since it is the case for the Syndetic Paradigm that the sexual drive and love exist within the consciousness of the sexual instinct undivided. Whereas the Freudian Paradigm would attribute the fact of this split between sexuality and love to the way things must necessarily be in one’s relationship to nature and the sexual instinct specifically, the Syndetic Paradigm, by contrast, would attribute the existence of this same clinical fact to one’s disconnection from the consciousness of the sexual instinct—a disconnection often due to the imposition on the personality, by way of the collective consciousness, of highly idealized, and thus instinctually alienating, conceptions of love. What it is paramount for us to appreciate in assessing the Freudian Paradigm’s understanding of intimate relationship and marriage is that within that paradigm marriage is, first and foremost, a social institution whose primary function, like that of all other social institutions according to Freud, is to defend us against nature. For the Freudian Paradigm, we

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should be reminded yet again, life is an unremitting battle being waged between the forces of nature and culture. Concerning life’s deeper meaning, there really exists none, other than perhaps the challenge of keeping these two great irreconcilables from killing each other off altogether. “Freudian man in culture,” Peter Gay writes with reference to this very problem in his monumental work Freud: A Life for Our Time, . . . is man beset by his unconscious needs, with his incurable ambivalence, his primitive, passionate loves and hates, barely kept in check by external constraints and intimate feelings of guilt. Social institutions are many things for Freud, but above all they are dams against murder, rape and incest. Freud’s theory of civilization, then, views life in society as an imposed compromise and hence as an essentially insoluble predicament. The very institutions that work to protect mankind’s survival also produce its discontents. . . . Hence Freud found the predicament of civilized humanity easy to state: men cannot live without civilization, but they cannot live happily within it. . . . This is what Freud meant when he said that happiness is not in the plan of creation.38 Now what we especially need to understand about the Freudian worldview is that the destructive instincts from which the social institution of marriage is supposed to protect us exist as much inside that institution as they do outside it. For Freud, the dark, insatiable forces of nature, in the form of our instinctual drives, threaten not only those in society to whom we have no familial or emotional ties, but equally threaten those to whom we do have such ties. If the instincts were to have their way, Freud believed, they would be as destructive toward those whom we love as they would be toward those for whom we have no such feelings. And this for Freud, it is important to realize, is the only thing that the instincts would strive to do. Accordingly, when it comes to the Freudian understanding of the instincts and nature it is not, as we might be inclined to imagine, a question of the instincts partially opposing the formation of emotional intimacy; rather, the instincts categorically oppose it. In great contrast, then, to the Syndetic Paradigm wherein intimacy is enhanced by way of descent into the sexual instinct, for the Freudian Paradigm, intimacy only exists to the extent that the sexual instinct has been sacrificed. Emotional ties, marriage, and culture exist for Freud only to the extent that the gratification of the instincts is renounced, sublimated or, to put it more technically, aim inhibited. “The depth to which anyone is in love,” Freud writes in his es-

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say Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, “as contrasted with his purely sensual desire, may be measured by the size of the share taken by the aim-inhibited instincts of affection.”39 There thus should be no doubt that within the Freudian Paradigm the sexual instinct and emotional intimacy can in no way coexist. The absolute condition of Freudian theory is that when the switch is in the on position for one, it is in the off position for the other. This, to Freud’s mind, is the inescapable predicament of sexuality and love. This, Freud would go so far as to suggest consistent with the strictly mechanistic-causal dynamics of his worldview, is a predicament whose origin is to be found in an event of prehistory, the alleged prehistoric killing of the father by the primal horde. In 1912 in his essay Totem and Taboo, drawing on some of the more speculative work of Charles Darwin, Freud took it upon himself to fashion a piece of prehistory as a means of demonstrating, as he relates, “that the beginnings of religion, morals, society and art converge in the Oedipus complex.”40 His thesis runs as follows. At some point in prehistory, there existed a primal horde dominated by “a violent and jealous father” whose will was to drive mature sons away and keep for himself all the females of the group. “One day,” however, as Freud explains, “the brothers who had been driven out came together, killed and devoured their father and so made an end of the patriarchal horde. . . . Cannibal savages as they were, it goes without saying that they devoured their victim as well as killing him.”41 Now no sooner had the brothers of the primal horde realized their murderous goal than they were struck with remorse and wished to make amends. They sought to do so, according to Freud, in two specific ways. Firstly, they denied themselves incestuous access to the women of the hoard. Secondly, they held as taboo anything that even approximated the killing of the father. In other words, according to Freud, they committed themselves to the relinquishing of the two secret desires associated with the Oedipus complex. “They revoked their deed,” Freud himself carefully explains, “by forbidding the killing of the totem, the substitute for their father; and they renounced its fruits by resigning their claim to the women who had now been set free. Thus they created out of their filial sense of guilt the two fundamental taboos of totemism, [the forbidding of the killing of the totem and the institution of totemic exogamy] which for that very reason inevitably corresponded to the two repressed wishes of the Oedipus complex.”42 When a science is operating strictly within mechanistic-causal parameters, as the Freudian Paradigm most certainly was, it is the case that

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the narrower and more concretely the causal chains are calibrated, the greater the credibility they will accrue within that paradigm as explanatory principles. Accordingly, the fact aside that the renunciation of the characteristic Oedipal instinctual drives following the murder and devouring of the primal father was no more than utter conjecture on Freud’s part, Freud’s “discovery” of this first great cause was for him comparable to nothing less than direct knowledge of life’s original cause, nothing less than direct knowledge of God. And of course Freud couldn’t restrain himself from saying as much. “I think that in this case before us,” Freud thus wrote in his concluding sentence for Totem and Taboo, “it may safely be assumed that ‘in the beginning was the Deed.’”43 It is a curious fact indeed that this very essay would mark the point at which Freud and Jung would part ways, both theoretically and personally. No less remarkable is the additional fact that this essay marked the theoretical ground upon which Freudians took their stand as they viciously attacked Jung’s own psychological theories as unscientific. For his part Jung never returned fire. After all, how could he? With the problem of human sexuality being virtually nonexistent in Jung’s own theoretical writings, there could be no question of him convincingly answering, not to speak of refining and extending, the Freudian position, which of course was based entirely upon Freud’s sexual theory. But Jung to his credit did get one important thing right. Jung realized that if culture amounted to nothing more than repressed or aim-inhibited sexuality, it didn’t in itself amount to much. The same could be said about intimacy and love. “Above all,” Jung reflects in his autobiography, Freud’s attitude toward the spirit seemed to me highly questionable. Wherever, in a person or in a work of art, an expression of spirituality (in the intellectual, not the supernatural sense) came to light, he suspected it, and insinuated that it was repressed sexuality. Anything that could not be directly interpreted as sexuality he referred to as “psychosexuality.” I protested that this hypothesis, carried to its logical conclusion, would lead to an annihilating judgment upon culture. Culture would then appear as a mere farce, the morbid consequence of repressed sexuality. “Yes,” he assented, “so it is, and that is just a curse of fate against which we are powerless to contend.” I was by no means disposed to agree, or to let it go at that, but still I did not feel competent to argue it out with him.44 For the Freudian Paradigm, I will say in summation, sexuality and emotional intimacy are not only irreconcilables, but neither can exist but

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to the proportionate detriment of the other. Long ago, as Freud would have us understand, we had to directly face this “curse of fate against which we are powerless to contend.” Long ago, we had to choose between survival and happiness since it is not in the plan of life for us to have both. When the members of the primal horde finally renounced incest as a means of ending the internal battles for the women of the tribe, they no less relinquished, Freud astonishingly concludes, their only hope for truly intimate and loving sexual experiences. “One of the reactions to the parricide,” Freud wrote some nine years after Totem and Taboo in his essay Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, “was after all the institution of totemic exogamy, the prohibition of any sexual relation with those women of the family who have been tenderly loved since childhood. In this way a wedge was driven in between a man’s affectionate and sensual feelings, one still firmly fixed in his erotic life to-day. As a result of this exogamy the sensual needs of men had to be satisfied with strange and unloved women.”45 Now I know we have come a very long way from the starting point of our clinical fact, but this we have had to do in order to appreciate fully the workings of paradigmatic theoretical biases. We took as our starting point the clinical fact that in intimate relationships it is not uncommon for there to be a division between sexual and emotional intimacy. For his part, Freud, as we have seen, viewed this split as a direct consequence of the renunciation of incest and as such something to be simply endured as a condition of life. The Syndetic Paradigm, by contrast, as we will now more fully understand, views this split as a consequence of a disruption of the flow of life through the sexual instinct, often attributable to the intrusion of collectively imposed, highly idealized conceptions of love and sexuality. That the sexual instinct, when viewed from the vantage point of the collective consciousness, has no more moral legitimacy than that conferred upon it through its containment within the institution of marriage, speaks volumes of the split with which we are concerned. That one should have to enter into marriage to confer upon the sexual instinct a goodness that it otherwise lacks is anathema to the Syndetic Paradigm’s understanding of the sexual instinct’s intrinsic morality. Whereas we are called upon by the Syndetic Paradigm to engage and descend into the consciousness of the sexual instinct, the call of the collective consciousness, not unlike that of Freud himself, is for us to contain and ascend, that is to say, to remove ourselves by way of sublimation from the direct influences of the sexual instinct and find our escape in the higher realms of collectively sanctioned ideals. Unfortunately, however, such collectively driven initiatives make of the marital bed an inescapable bear cage—a trap in

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which the sexual instincts of its occupants are inescapably confined. And because, moreover, its victims have no knowledge as to how they found their way into this trap in the first place, they certainly have no idea how to get themselves out of it. Trapped within the strict confines of marriage and love as interpreted by collective ideals, the sexual instincts of these individuals have little room to move, if they can move at all. Now even under such circumstances in which the movement of the sexual instinct into life has been arrested by collective constraints, something we need to know is that the sexual instinct itself is far from dead. In spite of all suppressive efforts to the contrary, it is alive and well, and still very much seeks to be released into life. Accordingly, as soon as it has a chance to circumvent the confinement of the idealized marital situation, as soon as a small opening presents itself, it will move into life through that opening with a vengeance. It is for this reason that a man who has experienced no sexual drive whatsoever in his marriage in recent years travels to a different city with his wife only to discover in the intimate setting of their hotel room that that which he had assumed to be nonexistent or even “broken” is now fully functioning. Yet this leap notwithstanding, what we also observe in these situations is that as soon as the couple returns home the apparent magic of their time away is taken from them with the same speed and force with which it was given. This is because the actual physical and psychic space of the marital home has become encoded with the problem in question. It has become a living symbol of the couple’s instinctual arrest, and as such their mere reentry into its collectively determined rather than instinctually determined space is all that it takes to put their sexual instincts directly back into the bear cage. Now in light of what has been explained above we are well positioned to appreciate the opening that an extramarital affair offers to an otherwise restricted sexual instinct. The attraction of an affair is that it provides the instinct with the opportunity to circumvent what in the marriage has acquired the status of unsolvable. In an extramarital affair, the sexual instinct is provided with an opening through which it can channel into life, without, I would emphasize, having to engage and resolve the problem of the split that has come to afflict the marital bed as an unhealing wound. Here what has been altogether arrested in the marriage is given a chance to move. But movement through such an opening, I would caution, is not to be confused with genuine progress in terms of one’s relationship to the consciousness of the instinct itself. For once novelty gives way to familiarity, as it will invariably do, and the affair begins to assume the form of a more complete relationship, the problem of the intimacy split that has been so bypassed will reappear and confront one much as it did before.

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When it comes, therefore, to the problem of actually healing the intimacy split, as opposed simply to securing a respite, progress is dependent on nothing less than direct and conscious engagement with the problem itself. Progress is dependent on nothing less than one’s direct and conscious engagement with the sexual instinct by way of self-organizing nature, which alone has the ambition, determination, and consciousness to move things through such an impasse. Two case examples come to mind. The first case involves an analysand who had become pregnant with her second child less than two years after the birth of her first one. Not surprisingly, the sudden descent into the responsibilities of parenthood proved to be more of a challenge than either she or her husband had anticipated. From the very outset, whether it was in the form of prenatal classes, the hospital stay, the new mothers’ group, street encounters with both supportive and not so supportive strangers, daycare workers and babysitters, or the politics of extended family members, to name only a few such influences, collective values quickly took hold. What had once been a relatively personal and private life was now discernibly collective and public. Instinct and intimacy, as a consequence, were succumbing to the pull of the upward moving vortex of the ungrounded ideals of the collective consciousness. Clearly the analysand and her husband were struggling. The only thing of which we were not certain was to what extent. We thus turned to her dreams. Now although the dreams in question were not lengthy, their compensatory meanings would be lost on someone not familiar with the split with which we are here concerned. The dreams can be summarized as follows. In the first dream a close female friend of the analysand gave birth to a snake. The second dream depicted a mysterious relationship between her husband and a fictitious woman at his place of work. In this dream her husband and the other woman were either having an extramarital affair or about to have one. The analysand was not only hurt by this development, but also very angry. She thus took it upon herself in the dream to challenge what was unfolding. In the third and final dream, a couple with whom she and her husband were close entered their bedroom. What then happened took the analysand completely by surprise. Their male friend opened a club soda, and quite deliberately began pouring it into a glass without stopping, even as it exceeded the brim of the glass and spilled onto the hardwood floor. Now we can quite easily imagine how each of the above dreams disturbed the analysand. And we can also imagine why the analysand’s initial feeling about the meaning of these dreams was that they denoted noth-

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ing more than the chaos overtaking her life. Such an assumption on the part of the analysand was entirely understandable. There was, however, something far more instructive and positive occurring through this compensatory symbolism. Turning first to the second dream, the dream in which her husband was pursuing the affair with a woman from work, we can see that its unique compensatory impact resides in its ability to elicit, far more acutely than the other dreams, a feeling-level response to that which had not been occurring between the analysand and her husband in their sexual relationship. An affair is certainly hurtful enough, but it is especially painful when the marital relationship itself has, either deliberately or inadvertently, been denied that which is now being shared with another. Suddenly all that the abandoned spouse had up to that point resigned himself or herself to live without rushes into consciousness. In the case of the analysand, this would have been her instinctual desire for sexual relatedness—a desire which not only she but her husband as well, to put it back into the objective framework, had become convinced by the circumstances of their life would perhaps be better forgotten altogether. The frank and disturbing compensatory tack of the dream was thus a powerful wake-up call, especially for the analysand’s emotional self. The analysand was hurt as a consequence, but most importantly she was led to feel anger. Not arrested or destructive anger, I would emphasize, but rather, a clean-burning or constructive anger, which often makes its appearance in the earliest stages of transformation. Whereas the affair dream pushed the analysand at the feeling level directly into the problem of their marriage, the first and third dreams spoke to the solution. This being said, the compensatory symbolisms of the first and third dreams were far more difficult to access than the relatively straightforward symbolic content of the second dream. The compensatory symbolism of a woman giving birth to a snake is, unlike the affair dream, completely outside the realm of everyday experience and understanding, and as such inaccessible to most. Through the study of archetypal symbolism, by contrast, we know that the presence of a snake in a dream is often connected with the movement of new consciousness and new psychic energy. What we might, therefore, take from the snake/birth symbolism is an attempt on the part of self-organizing nature to deepen and extend the analysand’s expectations of childbirth and parenting. Childbirth and parenting, self-organizing nature would have the analysand understand, need not necessarily be about the depletion of energy under collective influences, but rather, has the potential to be dynamic, creative, and cultivative. Childbirth and parenting, self-organizing

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nature would even more specifically wish to convey, will be dynamic, creative, and cultivative, provided one is able to see and follow that snake that issues from one at the time of childbirth. Now in that the associations of the dreamer are often of the utmost importance in establishing the precise compensatory meaning of dream symbolism, we would not be inclined to treat as insignificant the fact that the individual giving birth to the snake was someone with whom the analysand associated considerable sexual energy. And if anything, the significance of this particular, additional compensatory layer would only be further heightened by the knowledge that the analysand believed the same to be true of the couple appearing in the third dream. If we were, therefore, to take these two important associations and connect them to our above discussion we would now, even more precisely, interpret the compensatory dream image of the birthing of the snake as symbolically indicating how the awakening to life that attends conscious parenting is necessarily paralleled by the awakening, or perhaps more accurately, reawakening of the sexual instinct itself. I will now turn to the third dream whose remarkable compensatory tack appears to be nothing less than shamanistic. As previously explained, the actual physical and psychic space of the marital home can become encoded, as it were, with the very problems which the couple occupying that space have been unable to resolve themselves. In order, therefore, for energy dynamics to change between the couple, it may be necessary for the energy dynamics of the home environment itself to be first altered. In keeping with this, what we saw unfold in the compensatory dynamics of the third dream was the deliberate, shamanistic movement of an actively sexual couple into the sexual energy field, specifically the bedroom, of a sexually arrested couple. What then occurred was even more extraordinary. In an act of high shamanistic drama, the man in the dream took a club soda and poured it into a glass without stopping, even as it foamed over the brim of the glass onto the floor. Club soda, I notably later learned through the analysand’s associations to this dream, was a drink that had been kept in the couple’s fridge for some time unused, much as was no less true of their sexual instincts. The compensatory meaning of this shamanistic gesture is layered. Two points, however, especially come to mind with regard to the altering of the energy field within the couple’s home. What should perhaps first be noted about this symbolism is how, through such a simple gesture, the experience of the overcoming of confinement is so fully exemplified. The glass is a symbol of the seemingly insurmountable confinement of the

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marital problem, and by extension the marital home itself. The pouring of the held-in-reserve soda until it spilled over the brim of the glass and onto the floor would, then, constitute a simple, yet graphic shamanistic act, the ultimate intention of which would be to provoke a parallel release of energy in the encoded home environment. Now because this intervention, I should further note, would be experienced by the analysand from the perspective of her containment within the problem, it would necessarily be experienced by her as an act of violation, hence the violation and insult of the soiling of the recently refinished, clean hardwood floor. Of course we would be committing a serious oversight if we failed to bring to consciousness the sexual import of this specific symbolism. In light of the affair dream, in light of the analysand’s associations to the woman as well as to the couple who were placed by nature in her bedroom, we would indeed be entering into a denial of our own making not to see in the overflowing of the contents of the drink a presentation of the energic release of orgasm itself. Clearly if any one thing was needing to happen in that environment to promote its healing that was most certainly it. Nature, therefore, symbolically entering the psychic/physical space of the marital home, drew its sacred circle, and made it so. Even under the best of circumstances, overcoming the detrimental influences of collective ideals on love, marriage, and sexuality is never easy. It is, however, even more difficult when such intrusions are reinforced from within the personality by already established tendencies to use the ideal as a defense against life. There are certainly many factors that would cause an individual to deploy from the time of his or her childhood the ideal as a virtual firewall between the ego and life. Often it emerges, as we have already seen, as a defensive response to familial dysfunction or specific experiences of traumatization, either within the home or outside of it. On the other hand, if the child’s parents themselves were inclined to function this way, rather than having been begun by the individual, the defense may have been acquired, either in part or in whole, by way of the dynamics of the home environment itself. Concerning the case to which we will now turn, the defense in question was both learned and developed. With regard to the latter, we know that the ideal would have been that behind which the analysand hid during the years of her childhood to escape from the alcoholism of both her parents. The ideal, in this respect, became, through the will of the analysand, a carefully honed defense mechanism. Concerning the former, we know that ungrounded idealism permeated the home environment. No

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less a defense mechanism in its own right, this familial modus vivendi would have been both consciously learned and unconsciously absorbed by the analysand from the very beginning. Now to the extent that the ideal truly becomes a firewall between ego-consciousness and life, not only will relationships of intimacy with others be compromised, but so too will one’s self-relationship. Along this line, I never cease to be taken aback by the clinical experience of hearing a relatively happily married analysand express in the most sober-minded manner possible a complete disinterest in sexual relations with her husband and any other individual for that matter, including herself, only to discover, in turning to examine that same analysand’s dreams, that just below the threshold of consciousness sexual disinterest is anything but the case. What has been going on in the deeper, instinctual personality is certainly not what has been registering in consciousness. The analysand with whom we are concerned was no exception to this. Whereas consciously, the analysand remained asexual and largely identified with her role as mother to her children, within the unconscious, in spite of all assertions to the contrary, her sexual instinct was very much alive and active. In one dream, for example, she was sexually active with a guy with whom she associated wife swapping. In another, she was naked with a man and his wife in a kitchen. In yet another, she was playing strip poker with a group of friends. Later, in the same dream, she was on a swing—swinging—with the wife of the man who had initiated the game of strip poker. The analysand’s dreams were undeniably sexually active, but this notwithstanding, it was also the case that in not one of these sexually active dreams did the analysand come close to what we would describe as sexual fulfillment. This is because the analysand’s sexual instinct had become developmentally impaired, so to speak, as a result of its long-term estrangement from the conscious life of the analysand. The conscious life of an individual is the space into which the sexual instinct unfolds. If that space is not open and receptive to the instinct, its development will at best be restricted, at worse it will become completely arrested. And there can be no doubt that through her systematic deployment of the ideal as a firewall, the analysand had attained, much to her own detriment, a very high degree of control over that developmental space. Indeed the degree of control exercised by the analysand was such that in one dream it was likened by the unconscious to the existence of an actual on and off switch for Niagara Falls. Now symbolic references to Niagara Falls—a most outstanding example of nature’s energic force—often relate to problems pertaining to one’s

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emotional life. Given, however, the already identified compensatory needs of this particular analysand, and in light of the physiology of female sexual response, I suspected that something more was implied by all of this. Several months later a very important dream confirmed that suspicion. At the time of the dream I had been looking for ways to shake things up between the analysand and her husband. Specifically, I had been attempting to disrupt the above-described restrictions on the conscious life movement of their instincts so as to provoke a more direct encounter between their respective sexual energies. One suggestion I had made to this end was that they might directly share with each other sexual fantasies. On the first evening in which they did this, the unconscious provided the analysand with an incredibly informative dream. The analysand dreamed that she was in the possession of a clitoral shield, a device given to her years ago by her mother. Curiously enough, moreover, it was not until her mother asked for its return that the analysand realized she was actually wearing it. The analysand removed it, washed it in the sink, and mentally noted its slipperiness as she did so. In the next scene of the dream a couple with whom she was familiar was having intercourse. The scene again shifted. The analysand and her husband were going to be married, yet at the moment this became apparent it also came to consciousness that she and her husband were lying in her parents’ bed, while her parents were lying in the marital bed of the analysand and her husband. The analysand then could see her father crying as he read a book. He spoke to her of its potential to become a good film. He then proceeded to explain how the revenues from the bar would cover the costs of her wedding ceremony. I imagine that many of the symbolic meanings of this important dream are already apparent to my reader. The ideal as firewall presents three times. Firstly, it presents in the symbol of the clitoral shield. Secondly, in the symbolism of the analysand and her husband switching marital beds with her parents. And thirdly, in the exchange that occurred between the analysand and her father. The couple’s symbolic placement in the bed of her parents is above all else indicative of the assimilation of the analysand and her husband to the consciousness of its normal occupants. The couple’s placement in the parental bed has, in this regard, far more to do with succumbing to the restrictive influences of the idealism of her parents than its has to do with the honoring of the couple’s own sexual instincts. The direction of the parental environment, we are quite plainly told in this dream much as the analysand had at other times told me, was upward. The parental directive was to ascend, that is to say, to flee the sexual instinct and grounded emo-

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tion through upward movement into the lofty realms of the ideal and spirit. Admittedly, the analysand’s father showed emotion in the dream, but it must be recalled that he did so, not as a consequence of a direct life encounter with another human being, but rather as he read a book. And from there, it should be additionally understood, rather than that same emotion gently descending into life, it ascended further still with his hope of the book’s story being turned into a good film. Even the couple’s marital union—their sacred coniunctio as man and woman—was to be financed by proceeds from the bar, that is to say in symbolic terms, solely supported by energy accrued from the ideal or spirit[s]. Now the absolutely quintessential symbol of the instinctual firewall would have to be the clitoral shield, which, it should not be forgotten, the analysand had come to possess by way of her mother. This shield, no doubt, constituted a symbolic equivalent to the astonishing off switch of the Niagara Falls dream. It too was the failsafe off switch of her sexual response, or perhaps more accurately, the off switch to her consciousness of her sexual response, for when the clitoral shield was being worn by the analysand, it was not as if she did not experience sexual arousal, but rather, she simply had no knowledge of her arousal. Indeed only when the clitoral shield was removed could the analysand consciously learn from its slipperiness the reality of her sexual response. It undoubtedly is the case that children can become “good” in the most collectively idealized sense of that word as compensations for the dysfunction, or, better still, “badness” of their parents. And since, moreover, sexuality is perhaps the most difficult of behaviors to harness it will pretty much be guaranteed special attention. When things are out of control at home even with one parent, it is typically the case that at least one of the children within the family will attempt to bring stability to the situation through idealistically determined acts of self-control. Now if we were then to add to all of this the responsibility of having to assuage any further familial chaos stemming from the unexpected pregnancy of a teenage sibling—a chaos that the analysand no doubt also believed would exacerbate her parents’ alcoholism, especially her mother’s alcoholism if left unanswered by her own good behavior, we would begin to approximate the import of the maternal legacy of the clitoral shield. To the extent that the sexual instinct is split from the conscious life of an individual it loses its status as an agent of life. Accordingly, although young and attractive, the sad and shocking truth about the analysand was that when it came to her everyday life her body energy was that of an old lady. It was in fact the body of her mother in later life. I could see this so clearly in just looking at her, and the self-portraits that she sketched and

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brought with her to session said as much, if not more. Gradually, however, as consciousness for the first time interfaced instinct and life, it all began to shift dramatically. One dream in particular marked this transition, that is to say specifically, marked the turning of the analysand’s sexual consciousness from the off to the on position. Although clearly part of the more comprehensive changes unfolding within the analysand, the dream, it should be noted, took place immediately after an intensive session of bodywork with her husband. It should also be noted that prior to this dream I had not yet spoken to the analysand about her Niagara Falls dream as a depiction of sexual repression as such, but rather in the more general terms of the repression of nature and one’s natural being. This particular dream, however, finally made it necessary to do so. The analysand dreamed she was with a woman who, as the analysand herself put it, was “dressed as a man” in shirt and tie. This woman, it was further explained, was petite, blonde, and small breasted, much as the analysand herself. Now since the scourge of this analysand’s sexuality was its entrapment within the masculine ideal or spirit after having been driven from its own feminine ground, the placement of the feminine within masculine clothing was a symbolism consistent with the analysand’s unique problem. What then unfolded in the dream was highly significant. The two women undressed and covered their whole bodies with body oil— a whole-body gesture of the type that pertains, as has been explained, to direct engagement with the consciousness of the body itself. The analysand then “kissed” the genitals of the other woman, and as she did so a huge volume of fluid “gushed” out of the woman’s vagina into the mouth of the analysand filling it completely. The on switch had indeed been found. The sexual encounter in the dream between the two women was about, above all else, the analysand’s direct sexual encounter with herself—her direct sexual encounter with the consciousness of her sexual instinct. That that encounter involved a woman instead of a man is not an uncommon compensatory strategy of the unconscious, which seeks under such circumstances to focus a woman’s attention exclusively on female, genital sexual response. When a penis is not present in the sex act, or at least not the focal point of the sex act, a heterosexual woman accustomed to using male ejaculation as a measure of her own sexual response will be forced to engage directly her own genital experience. Such dreams take many forms. For instance, a woman may dream she is engaged in intercourse with a man when suddenly a woman is on top of her. A somewhat more subtle form of the same thing would be a dream in which a woman is sexually approached and engaged by another woman and once the sex-

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ual encounter intensifies to the point of orgasm the woman partner assumes the form of a man. The way of nature, I will say in closing this case, is the way of conscious descent into nature, conscious descent into one’s natural being. By way of self-organizing nature the analysand indeed descended beyond the death grip of the unrelated masculine spirit and ideals toward a direct encounter with the consciousness of her sexual instinct. Through her dreams, through the sharing of her emotional and sexual self with her husband and through conscious body work, that which had awaited its awakening in utter silence emerged. Now something we especially need to know further to the above is that as much as that which comes forth through the encounter with the consciousness of the sexual instinct pertains directly to the problem of human sexuality, it no less provides gender-specific depth insight into the workings of the masculine and feminine principles in everyday life. As Jungian psychology discovered, masculine and feminine principles are innately present within both men and women and thus intrapsychically accessible to both genders. What has not been appreciated, however, is the degree to which the gender-specific, instinctual accessing of these principles provides a depth experience of them that no other approach can quite match. For the Syndetic Paradigm, accordingly, one of the more critical shifts in consciousness attending one’s descent into the sexual instinct has to do with the depth of one’s gender-specific knowing of one of these two principles. I will speak about both. The transformed masculine consciousness is a consciousness that is decisive and strong. It occupies space through its very presence, and moves within that space, not through the wielding of unrelated power, but rather, with the strength and authority of a grounded and related consciousness. It influences life, yet it has no ambition whatsoever to control it. The transformed feminine consciousness, by contrast, has the immovable calm to hold consciousness on life as it exists. It has the endurance and wisdom to receive life fully as it exists, unfiltered by control, without any fear whatsoever of being overwhelmed by it, or lost to it. It is a consciousness, in other words, that receives and contains life without fear of violation. It is virginal, to use Marion Woodman’s46 term, not because it is untouched by life, but because it is in no way defiled by having been so touched. Turning first to the experiences of women analysands, one of the first indicators of such transformation by way of the consciousness of the sexual instinct will be the deepening capacity to receive life. Here an experience of equanimity will appear that previously had been completely outside the range of the analysand’s experience—an experience of equanimity

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within the consciousness of the body itself issuing from the deepest levels of the instinct. Whereas before even the slightest of comments circumventing the controlling tendencies of the ego would have precipitated complete emotional and psychic collapse, the analysand is now able to take it, so to speak, in her relationship to life and others. Of course the fact of this transformation brings no small relief to what at times would have been an almost unbearably trying working relationship between analyst and analysand. This developmental step thus constitutes a glorious advance for both. No one likes having to walk on eggshells with another, and no one, equally, enjoys feeling like an eggshell being walked upon. In keeping once again with a conceptualization put forward by Woodman,47 we would say that in the untransformed psyches of these women, in the untransformed consciousness of their bodies, these women, much as we saw above in the case involving the two mice, would be unable to distinguish ravishment from rape. Most probably intrapsychic dynamics and abusive life experiences have led them to be all too familiar with the latter, but when it comes to knowledge of the former, ravishment, they typically have nothing experientially to fall back on. Much as was true of our above case example involving the clitoral shield, for these women protection and comfort typically would be sought through control over themselves and their environments by way of alignment with the ideal. Accordingly, their level of security and comfort would be measured in terms of their success or lack of it in shutting life out. Yet if we have learned anything from cases such as these, we have learned that to the extent we attempt to protect ourselves from life by shutting it out—to the extent that we turn to control and the ideal to protect us in this manner—we are doomed to a state of ceaseless violation and torment. The core shift, therefore, that attends a woman’s descent into the consciousness of the sexual instinct often takes the form of her surrendering the false protection of the ideal and trusting herself to life. It takes the form of her directly engaging life through her natural being. It takes the form of her exchanging false protection and false comfort for genuine meaning, intimacy, and love. It takes the form of an experience of surrender whose ultimate guarantor is the unfailing and inalienable meaning and love of self-organizing nature.48 Related to this, when it comes to the practice of psychotherapy with either men or women, it is of the utmost importance to the efficacy of the therapeutic process that a therapist knows the difference between false comfort and love. The therapist who hides behind the therapeutic persona will certainly neither discern nor embody the difference, since he or she will be altogether incapable of experiencing and showing genuine love.

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Nor will the therapist who seeks to substitute physical comfort or the fleeting comfort of idealism, ideology, and/or even archetypalism, to name but a few possibilities, for the hard work that an analysand is called upon to do by self-organizing nature. Knowing the difference between false comfort and genuine healing, transformation and love is that upon which deep therapeutic effect hinges. When I was undergoing a clinical internship following my Ph.D., my supervisor at the time once spoke to me about how struck she was with my seeming fearlessness in addressing those difficult things needing to be addressed in the people with whom I was working. I remember thinking about her observation for sometime before understanding why this was so. It came to me that my “fearlessness” was attributable to nothing other than the fact that I feared more the therapeutic consequence of not saying what needed to be said than I feared the consequence of saying it. This was the reality of my connection to self-organizing nature through my healing instinct, and it has continued to this day. If one were to ask analysands with whom I have worked for a period of time if I provide comfort as a therapist, they would certainly smile, if not laugh outright. On the other hand, if they were asked if they find me to be genuinely engaging and caring, their responses would be in the affirmative. Shamanistic work requires absolute straightforwardness. The demands of unfolding Reality are as unremittingly exacting as they are unremittingly loving. There is no simplistic or easy path when it comes to the soul journey. “If one is filled with 10,000 devils,” von Franz explains with reference to this very problem, one can only be burnt up in them until they quiet down and are still, and the infantile demand on the analyst or anybody else, that he should redeem one with some kind of comforting trick, does not help. If an analyst pretends he can do that, then he is just a quack, because there is no such thing, and anyway it would be meaningless. If he tries to get analysands out of the suffering it means he takes away from them what is most valuable; cheap comforting is wrong, for by that you get people away from the heat, the place where the process of individuation takes place.49 Returning again to the specific problem of the transformation of consciousness in women by way of the sexual instinct, it should be understood that although the movement from comfort to consciousness, from fleeing life to being able to take it marks an absolutely critical point of therapeutic progression, it is a progression that may be announced by the unconscious

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through the most down-to-earth of dream symbolisms. The transitional dream of an analysand with whom I had been working for approximately two years was rather like this. As a backdrop to this dream, it is important to understand about the analysand that her upbringing had been darkened by experiences of both sexual and emotional abuse. When I began working with her, she was in her mid-fifties. Now there can be no doubt that analysis was difficult for her in the sense outlined above. Given the experiences of her childhood, she was very vulnerable emotionally. When working with a woman who is so deeply wounded, it is always amazing to encounter in that relationship a response that comes forth not out of the old wound, but rather, out of her newly emerging position of strength. And it is no less of a pleasure to witness those same shifts being acknowledged within the unconscious itself. Concerning the outward dynamics of our analytical relationship, whereas at the outset of our work self-reflections on the part of the analysand would have come only in response to specific questions, they would now be freely offered. Emotional hypersensitivity gradually gave way to emotional stability, thus allowing for the establishment of genuine rapport for the first time in our analytical relationship. Concerning the unconscious, one simple dream in particular marked the turning point. The analysand dreamed she and I were eating a meal at the table in her kitchen. We were then washing the dishes, and as we did so we were joking, laughing, and playfully pushing each other with our bodies. Certainly the depth of engagement between the analysand and myself is indicated by the numerous ways in this dream in which energy is being shared. Firstly, there is the sharing of a meal together. Secondly, there is the shared task of washing dishes. Thirdly, there is the shared playfulness with which the task is being undertaken. Fourthly, there is the noteworthy development that this shared playfulness takes the form of a wholebody encounter. That these tasks, no doubt symbolical of our analytical work together, should be undertaken with positive energy and even fun marks a huge shift in the perception of the analysand. It is no small shift when an analysand of such a background would outwardly come to experience the analytical process no longer as an experience of being judged, but rather, as an experience of being helped. It is no small shift, moreover, when an analysand of such a background would have progressed to the place where she would receive and interact with life by way of her whole body. Such symbolic activity pertains to depth transformation within the consciousness of the body itself—a transformation, I would again emphasize in con-

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cluding this case, whose foundational ground is the consciousness of the sexual instinct. The inexorable demand of nature is for life to be known and engaged through the consciousness of the sexual instinct. Accordingly, in the dreams of women we find that dream symbolisms return again and again to the theme of taking it, of unconditionally receiving life as it is. These are not dreams, it should again be emphasized, that have anything at all to do with weakness or allowing oneself to be exploited or taken advantage of. Rather, they have to do with strength. They are about the strength of engaging life through one’s natural being. They are about the strength of aligning oneself with the life-affirming consciousness of the sexual instinct. They are about a consciousness in which there is no place for the complexes, abuse, or shame to enter. They are about a consciousness in which there is “no place,” as the Tao Te Ching would put it, “for death to enter.” As yet another example, I could take the dream of an analysand who had spent much of her life preoccupied with how others viewed her. Of course to the instinctual self such a concern is tantamount to psychic suicide. Fortunately, however, she began to find herself. It was around this time that she had a curious dream. She dreamed that nude photographs of her had been placed in the relatively public mailbox area of her place of work. Had all of this occurred in a dream even a year before, there would be no question that she would have gone into shock at the very moment of their discovery. Here, however, she did not, and for very good reason. Rather than moving into the experiences of others and externalizing, the analysand descended into the consciousness of her natural being. Rather than externalizing, the analysand remained within the consciousness of the sexual instinct and received what was happening to her without shame. In her dream, the analysand was, as a consequence, completely without any experience of violation whatsoever. Not long after this dream, I would further note, when the analysand found herself being harassed by a woman at work—a woman who during previous encounters had left the analysand feeling hurt and inferior—the analysand engaged this individual with the same strength and equanimity shown in the dream. For the very first time, the analysand was able to walk away from an encounter with this individual with no feelings whatsoever of having been violated. The next case contributes to our discussion in that it illustrates how existing wounds to the consciousness of the body become focal points in the ongoing transformation of body consciousness. These wounds, as we shall see, are that through which the full healing power of the consciousness of the sexual instinct ultimately reveals itself.

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An analysand dreamed that she bought a new wedding dress. Just as she was about to put it on to show her mother, however, she took her old wedding dress that had been hanging behind it and put it on instead. This proved to be no small feat since she had gained some thirty pounds from the time of its use. What then occurred was certainly not expected. Suddenly the dress changed color from white to black, and it was at this very moment, moreover, that the analysand realized, as she looked at herself in the mirror, that in spite of the padded bra she was wearing her nipples were very much showing through the dress. This, the analysand told me, “angered” her. The switching of the new wedding dress for the old one certainly appears at first glance to be an absolute regression. Yet sometimes, as we have already seen, a type of regression or movement into the past is necessary in order for an individual to advance. This, as it was soon to become clear, would be the analysand’s need, for she would never truly be able to wear the new dress in the absence of resolving the problem associated with the old one. But what exactly was that problem? We knew by way of her associations that it had a lot to do with her relationship with her father. The analysand’s father was an individual who wrongly imagined that he could love his daughter entirely by way of his experience of her, rather than through their mutual experience of each other. When an individual is “loved” in this way it is very confusing to say the least, since that which one has been led to believe is happening is truly not happening at all. When a father gives his daughter a gift for no reason other than he himself thinks that gift to be brilliant, in truth, would that gift not be more his gift to himself than his gift to his daughter? Would not that so-called gift, about which the daughter is supposed to be jubilant, be experienced as something imposed? Would she not in fact even be left with an experience of double imposition—firstly, in the sense of being the recipient of another individual’s gift to himself and, secondly, in the sense of having to convince herself of the other individual’s fatherly goodness? I think the latter is especially important because I do believe there is a big difference between the wrong gift being given with the right intentions and the wrong gift being given with the wrong intentions. Unrelated or one-way love is an imposed love that is ultimately unfulfilling and cold, much as with the imposing of an ideal itself. Such love will never lead one to one’s natural being. In fact, it will only do the opposite. A dream in which a wedding dress turns from white to black is a dream of no small significance, since the wedding dress is for a woman one of the highest symbols of the soul’s bodily incarnation into this world. So what are we to make of this turn of events? And what are we to make of

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the analysand’s no less significant expression of intense anger at the very moment her nipples showed through her dress? It was here that I needed to remind my analysand of an experience she once described to me involving her father. Perhaps a year prior to this dream, the analysand told me that when she was a teenager her father had drawn her attention to the fact that her nipples were showing through a sweater she was wearing. The analysand never forgot that experience, and as a result she never ceased to be fearful about the possibility of her nipples showing in public. This shaming which had been delivered by her father to the consciousness of her body had clearly become, her anger told us, a wound of no small significance. But could the intensity of her anger be accounted for strictly in terms of that single experience of shaming? I would think not. Wishing to take nothing away from the damage that such a comment would inflict on a young woman, it seems to me that that single experience of shaming became what it did for the analysand because of its symbolic connection to those countless instances in which her natural being would have no less been shamed by her father’s unrelated love. So often with situations such as this one, people unknowingly side with the violator at the expense of relationship to their instinctual selves, their natural beings. The analysand’s anger with herself in the dream when her nipples showed through her dress more than indicated she had done just that. It was now time, however, her sexual instinct was leading her to understand, for the consciousness of her body to be released from that anger. It was now time for the consciousness of her body to be released from the arresting grip of shame placed upon it by her father. For her soul body to incarnate fully in this life for the first time, for it to find its way into the new wedding dress that she so truly desired to wear, the analysand, the consciousness of her sexual instinct would have her understand, had to find her way to embrace that which her father had rejected and was utterly incapable of loving in her, her natural being. If she truly was going to wear the white wedding dress which by way of self-organizing nature now awaited her, she was going to have to be, although touched and violated, virginal. Whereas for women transformation brought about through descent into the consciousness of the sexual instinct has to do with the opening of conscious receptivity, for men their parallel journey has to do with the energy and consciousness with which they enter and hold space in life. Through nature, men do indeed have a very unique experience of space both psychically and physically. Much as male dogs will continue to mark territory up to the very last drop of urine they are able to squeeze out of their bladders, men are no less instinctually driven to enter and occupy

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space. What men typically fail to figure out in all of this, however, is exactly with what they are going to occupy that space. More often than not, it comes down to a choice between the limited possibilities of presence through overt power drives or presence through covert forms of control. That men are driven by nature to mark territory, which is to say, enter and hold space, is merely the most elementary directive of the sexual instinct. No male misses that one. What is missed, however, is what that same instinct would further tell men about the consciousness and energy with which they are to do this. In moving, then, beyond the elementary to the higher end of masculine consciousness within the sexual instinct, the hallmark of differentiation and advancement when it comes to the entering and holding of space is the progression from power-principle functioning to functioning through consciousness and meaning. As distant from each other as the dysfunctional masculine orientations of presence through overt power and presence through covert power seem to be, it should not be lost on us that they are in fact but two sides of the same coin. Both are the consequence of a misguided substituting of power dynamics and control for the intrinsic meaning and morality of the sexual instinct itself. With both, power has usurped the place of meaning. Now as important as these two problems are to our study in the broadest sense of it, we will not be pursuing their investigation here since two case examples of each have already been presented in some detail above.50 What we will be investigating at this time, however, is how the sexual instinct views this predicament of power-principle functioning and what it does, moreover, to release men from it. Probably the most instinctually wounded of men are those for whom the masculine instinct has remained trapped within the maternal. Indeed if I were to identify a single group of males most lacking in instinctual resiliency this group would be the one. More so than any other group, the experiences of these men, it should be especially understood, take us within the realm of Freud’s most important instinctual theory, the Oedipus complex. It should be understood at this starting point of our discussion that the Syndetic Paradigm does not subscribe to the Freudian belief in the universality of the Oedipus complex. It does not, in other words, regard this phenomenon as the central experience of all men. Nor does the Syndetic Paradigm, as has already been explained, view the renunciation of its fulfillment as the cause of the seemingly interminable split between emotional and sexual love, as Freud himself did. What the Syndetic Paradigm does concede, however, on the basis of its observation of the behaviors and intrapsychic dynamics of these men, is the existence of a body of clinical

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facts that no doubt spurred Freud’s thinking about the Oedipal complex in the first place. There most certainly are men for whom the attraction to the comfort of maternallike containment has entirely consumed their wills, thus putting them at odds with the nature-driven task of incarnating in this life. Maternal containment may take many forms. It may be sought in the comfort of the unconditional love or, perhaps more accurately still, the unconditional approval of a woman. It may be sought in the comfort of alcohol or in the abuse of other substances. It may be sought in the comfort of the approval of the collective consciousness, or it may be sought in the comfort of one’s complete, almost traceless disappearance into the inner world. It may be sought in the ultimate facelessness that a carefully cultivated persona affords. Whatever specific form it takes, the common experience of these men is that their passion for the comfort of a womblike place of hiding from the world exceeds their passion to incarnate, that is to say, to enter and hold space in this life in the fullness of their personalities. Oedipal men are tourists in their own lives. They do not engage life through their relationships, but rather, they live beside them. There is always a safety net, a comfort zone, a measured protective distance between them and genuine commitment. They may embrace certain values, but seldom will they put anything on the line for them. More often than not, however, these values, their so-called religious and life convictions, are nothing more than a convenient facade, the means by which they deceive others and indeed themselves, and thereby fall into the comfort of not only the undeserved approval of others but also that of their own misguided self-righteousness. No doubt the greatest challenge of doing analysis with these men is finding how to build a foundation on ground that is the psychic equivalent of quicksand. Certainly a great deal of insight work may be accomplished in an analysis, but getting it to take hold in the psyches of men of this type, getting it to hold firmly so that it can be further built upon and extended into their lives is quite a different matter. Although not impossible, it certainly is close to it. To proceed into the brutal depths of this work, both analyst and analysand must not only be assured that this is the way of nature, but they must no less be assured that it is necessary to go in this direction at this specific time. Progress will depend on depth emotional relationship. In this regard, the analyst must be prepared to endure the analysand’s flip-flops, which at times will hurt. If they don’t, it is more than likely the analyst is not sufficiently engaged emotionally to produce a proper therapeutic effect. Emotional shock treatment, after all, which

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most certainly will be called for, can only be delivered by way of the real emotion of the therapist. Now something very important to understand about the Oedipal man is that he is not the picture of happiness that Freudian psychology would have us imagine him to be. Based on Freud’s theorizing about the sexual instinct, one would quite rightly presume about such an individual that as a consequence of heading in the direction of incest and thus toward his only hope for an undivided experience of emotional and physical love, he would feel somewhat cheerier about his life than most. Yet in reality, this is certainly not the case. In fact, it seems fair to say that he is indeed more vulnerable than most to bouts of depression. Of course Freudians would counter that he is unhappy because of his guilt, but it goes far deeper than that. The Oedipal man is not a happy man because very much in contrast to Freudian assumptions he is a man at odds with his own sexual instinct. From the all-encompassing perspective of self-organizing nature, the Oedipal man is portrayed as a man whose sexual instinct is split, whose penis, as it were, operates with a forked tongue. And along this line, it is not an uncommon compensatory construction in a dream for such an individual to be represented as actually having two penises—one for the purpose of the nature-driven task of incarnating in life, and the other for the purpose of the pursuit of the unrelinquished desire for maternal comfort. I could use as an example of this type of symbolism the dream of an analysand whose desire for the comforts of the inner world exceeded his desire to put himself into the picture of his life. Following an encounter with his daughter and her boyfriend, an encounter, which, it is important to understand, provoked within him strong feelings of jealousy, the analysand dreamed that he was mounted and “screwed” by a large cat with two penises. I have certainly conveyed to more than one analysand my observation that when the strong get going, the weak get jealous. The weak, of course, refers to those individuals who are bereft of ego development due to their consistent avoidance of the challenges held out to them by life. Jealousy, in this respect, is a projected anger, a temper tantrum, a last-ditch effort on the part of the controlling tendencies of the ego to avoid facing one’s own self-neglect and the anger attending it. Sometimes one gets away with that tactic in everyday life, but one never does when it comes to self-organizing nature. Accordingly, in the compensatory image of the analysand being “screwed” by the large cat with two penises, the analysand was quite directly being confronted with the actuality of how, through his functionally split instinct, through his mindless placing of his mascu-

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line instinct in service of the false maternal, symbolized in the dream by the large cat, he was in fact ultimately “screwing” himself. Now although our next example does not present in its symbolism the double-penis theme, it no less provides us with insight into the problem of the split instinct in Oedipal-type men. At the time of the following dream series, I should begin by noting, the analysand was in a very buoyant state as a result of his successful completion of a series of examinations. The central themes of his dreams were as follows. In the first dream, the analysand was attending a school reunion. In the second dream, the analysand was leaving for Florida with his wife and her mother. In the third dream, he was crying on the shoulder of a woman he described as “a motherly therapist.” This was followed by him visiting a place where drugs had once been used, but now no longer were. Discovering this new state of affairs, the analysand was both pleased and disappointed. He then dreamed that he was having intercourse with an older “motherly” woman from work. In the final dream of the series, the analysand was driving a red Corvette. What then followed was very disturbing. When he tried to wash the car, no matter what he did he could not get it clean. And later, when he went to park it, the analysand was prevented from doing so because the car began to act as if “it had a mind of its own.” To his great shock, it was moving independently of him and even resisting his direction. The problem of instinctual split permeates this whole dream series. Specifically, instinctual split presents in the way in which the analysand exchanges, or seeks to exchange, the primary instinctual energy of the successful completion of his examinations for the false comfort of the maternal. Whether in the regressive form of the physical and sexual comfort of “motherly” women, the false comfort of drugs, about which he clearly was of two minds, or the false approval of the collective consciousness, as his school reunion would offer ample opportunity to accrue, the primary energy of the analysand’s success, rather than continuing with its forward momentum into life, was channeled by way of his split instinct into the service of the false maternal. Success in itself, I would somewhat tangentially reflect, is never a problem; the problem, rather, always has to do with where people run with success. Now if any doubts whatsoever remained about the reality of the analysand’s instinctual split they were certainly put to rest in his final dream about the red Corvette—a dream in which the normal relationship between intention and outcome blatantly collapses. More specifically, although the analysand’s clear intention was to wash his car, he could not get it clean, in spite of all his efforts in this regard. The analysand thus could not, I would emphasize by way of analytical interpretation, find his

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way beyond the psychic quicksand, mentioned above, with which the analytical process must contend when it comes to the analysis of the instinctual split within Oedipal men. Finally, the supreme symbol of the split with which we are here concerned would have to be the mind-boggling unruliness of the red Corvette itself, which, as we know, actually prevented the analysand from parking it. In this specific compensatory context, the red Corvette, I would suggest, was not only the puer aeternus, collective prestige car par excellence, but its maternal basis was confirmed by the dreamer’s association to a 1960s television show about a car with a “mind of its own,” My Mother the Car. It is hopefully becoming apparent that the instinctual predicament of Oedipal men cannot in any way be conceived of as a happy state, for just as the above dreams assure us, the instinctual lives of these men know little peace. That the energies and events in the analysand’s dream were so out of control is indicative of a problem and nothing less. It is indicative of the regressive chaos that attends the disruption of the unfoldment of nature’s instinctual pattern—the regressive chaos that attends the disruption of the movement into this life of the consciousness of the sexual instinct. It is no easy task, as noted in my preliminary comments, to find one’s way to a therapeutic turning point in all of this. Progress, if it is to happen at all will largely depend, as also noted, on the provoking of a depth emotional response in the analysand. Progress, somewhat more specifically, will depend on the activation and linking of the analysand’s true emotion with all that has been jettisoned by the split instinct. Our next case will shed further light on this problem, as well as advance our understanding of the meaning of the symbolism of the double penis. The three dreams I wish to examine are those of a middle-aged man. They unfolded over a period of approximately one month. The central image of the first dream is that of a fish trying to escape its tank. In the next dream, the analysand is in the vicinity of his mother’s home. He then realizes as he sits in a car with two women, one of whom is his mother, that he has two penises—one is anatomically correct, the other extends from his abdominal area. In the third dream, the analysand is in a funeral home. It is apparent his mother has died. He then realizes he needs to have a bowel movement and attempts without success to utilize a “toilet” that looks rather like an old well that has been placed in the middle of the room. It is at this point that a woman enters the room and begins to question him about the smell. Not wanting to admit having just defecated, not to speak of having missed the “toilet,” he attempts to direct the woman’s attention away from his feces by telling her he vomited. He himself is astonished to see that his feces consist largely of undigested grapes.

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Through the compensatory symbols of the analysand’s dreams, we are given a comprehensive picture of his instinctual woundedness. The first image of a fish trying to escape its tank portrays the nature of the dilemma gripping the analysand, hence his instinctual paralysis. On the one hand, the analysand would be compelled by his instincts to escape the confinement of the tank, that is to say, escape the amniotic container of the maternal. On the other hand, however, as would be true of the fish itself, the analysand would know it to be imprudent not to have concerns about his survival were he to succeed in doing so. Indeed given his history of dependence on the maternal, learning to survive beyond the amniotic container would constitute no small challenge. Whereas in the first dream the problem of the functionally split instinct largely remains in the background, in the second dream it moves directly to the foreground. The analysand, we are told, is in a car with two women, one of whom is his mother. Of course this is not a grouping about which one would be especially concerned analytically had it not also been the case that the analysand, while in the presence of these two women, was equipped with two penises. And in that it is further indicated that the second penis is attached to his abdomen, we are given through this additional fact not only a critical piece of information to help us better understand this particular analysand, but no less a piece of information that is of the greatest import to our understanding of the workings of the double penis motif in Oedipal men in general. Up to this point we have held that the double penis image relates to the two-directional movement of the energies of the sexual instinct in the Oedipal man: one being the authentic directional path of the instinct through which the incarnational movement of sexual and life energies would be supported, the other being a degenerative path by which sexual and life energies would collapse into a regressive equivalent of the womblike container of the maternal and therein lose their life potential. Now if anything, the above compensatory construction in the analysand’s dream only serves to give further credence to this understanding of the Syndetic Paradigm. Specifically, the above dream suggests that the symbolic second penis, which in the dreams of Oedipal men is linked to the regressive movement of sexual and life energy in the direction of the maternal, is not, as Freud would certainly have us believe, a penis as such, which is to say, it is not primarily derived from the sexual instinct. Rather, in light of its anatomical placement, we would have to say that that symbolic second penis, more accurately, constitutes a type of umbilical cord, an umbilical cord whose degraded purpose, we might add, is the diametrical opposite of that of the authentic umbilical cord. Indeed, in contrast to the latter

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whose function is to support that which is coming into this world, the phallic umbilical cord of the Oedipal man can do no more than support the movement of energy out of it. Turning then to the third and final dream, it should be recalled that it was explained above that if transformation is to occur within the personality of the Oedipal man such progress will be dependent on the linking of his true emotion with that which has wrongly been split off from his life. In this third dream, accordingly, it is the case that the analysand is being led into the darkest depths of his negligence in that regard in expectation of transformation and healing. The dream begins with the overwhelming news of his mother’s death. What this symbolically means to the analysand is that that which he himself could not cut off in this life, that is, the phallic umbilical connection between him and his mother, has now been forcibly severed. What occurs next is of the greatest psychological import to the analysand. Having thus been denied access to the regressive maternal relationship, the regressive energy pattern reverses, which is to say, everything that the split instinct had caused to be overlooked and dismissed in the analysand’s life now storms forward with a vengeance seeking to be acknowledged. Indeed it is when the analysand is alone in the room of the funeral home that his real instinctual self suddenly kicks in. He must have a bowel movement. What follows is highly significant. Firstly, he misses the toilet/old well when he attempts to defecate in it. Secondly, a woman enters the room and begins to question him about the foul smell. Thirdly, attempting to conceal what he has done, he tells her that he has vomited. Fourthly, he realizes that his feces have the appearance of what he himself describes as undigested grapes. As a source of clean, drinkable water the well is a powerful symbol of that which sustains life. Accordingly, for one to defecate in a well would be for one to compromise altogether the well’s functionality, much as happens when the sexual instinct itself splits. Had the analysand, therefore, not been symbolically prevented, as he was in the dream by self-organizing nature, from defecating in the well, he would have been permitted to replay, at that critical moment in which his true instinctual self finally emerged and he was meant to go forward, that which, in characteristic Oedipal fashion, he had been living out his entire life. Had the analysand not been stopped from defecating in the well when everything was aligning to lead him forward, he would have yet again used the otherwise lifegiving maternal umbilical connection as a dissipative conduit. Rather than being permitted to continue with one of the unhealthiest life practices imaginable, rather than being permitted to continue with

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a lifelong pattern of regression wherein the otherwise life-giving becomes but a dumping ground for the unlived, the analysand was forced by selforganizing nature to face that which the split instinct would normally be so very good at making disappear. It was at this point that the analysand could plainly see that of which his unprocessed waste consisted, that is to say more specifically, that which was at the core of his unprocessed or unlived life. Grapes, as we know from the analysis of the unconscious, typically symbolize deep feeling and suffering. Accordingly, it was through this very symbol of the undigested grapes that were his feces that the analysand saw, for the first time, the unprocessed feeling and indeed unprocessed suffering of a man whose true passions had been denied life. The above dream series marked an important turning point in the life of the analysand in question. What had been up to this time largely unconscious was now very much conscious and as such potentially subject to change in the analysand’s actual life. The soul of this analysand was now engaged in a conscious struggle to incarnate as it had never been before. It was, therefore, very much in keeping with this that approximately one year after these dreams, this particular analysand would enter into, by way of self-organizing nature through another of his dreams, the sacred circle drawn around the birth of a child. I am referring to the dream described in the first section and attributed to one of my analysands, which, independently of any direct knowledge of what objectively was unfolding, depicted me speaking to the two mothers [the two potential grandmothers] while a baby, newly born, looked on from the corner of the room.51 That dream—it would benefit us to understand since we are now able to appreciate the link between it and the analysand’s personal psychology— was this analysand’s dream. More specifically, we are able to appreciate how the analysand’s entrance into this sacred circle was as much about his own compensatory need to be led to envision incarnational progression into life beyond the in utero state as it was about connecting to the incarnational passage into this world of a yet unborn child. Perhaps the most important developmental step in the journey of the conscious masculine, not only for the Oedipal man but also for all men, is the point at which the pursuit of false comfort and power gives way to genuine passion and meaning. The instinctually supported masculine is an energy that shows up in life. A man gripped by the sexual instinct has a passion for life and for those in his life. He is a man who is instinctually present to his partner. He is a man, moreover, who expects no less of her. Only a man who is present in the instinctual masculine can take women off the highly idealized pedestal upon which he has placed them. Only a

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man who is present in the instinctual masculine can be passionate about the lives of his children. Only such a man can release himself from his social role, remove his persona, and offer, through his actual being, the love and passion required to help contemplate their latent potentials into life. To align with the masculine in its deepest instinctual form is for one’s life to be gripped by a passion and meaning whose ultimate ground is unfolding Reality. It is to hone a consciousness that is in no way dependent on the approval of others, a consciousness that is firm enough in its resolve to incarnate amid the resistances that everyday life will invariably offer. It is to arrive at that fateful developmental point at which Oedipal heroics come to an end and the authentic heroic journey of self-actualization begins. Not unrelated to this progression was the following dream of an analysand. After having made a poor showing in a competition that the year before he had convincingly won, the analysand dreamed that he was pinned to the ground by a fierce mountain lion sporting an erect penis. As the analysand himself put it, it seemed he was either about to be “eaten” by this animal or “screwed” by him. Now before I explain how things ended, something needs to be said about the specific changes that were occurring in the consciousness of the analysand. At the time of this dream a consciousness shift was very much underway in the analysand. In his pursuit of goal, for example, the strictly unrelated was giving way to the related. Meaning was being held in consciousness as never before and not only in situations like this, but no less in situations involving actual or potential power conflicts with others in his place of work. Accordingly, when the analysand competitively “failed” to the extent he did prior to the dream, although his immediate response was to slip into a power dynamic perspective of his defeat, much as most people would do, something very different did in fact occur within him at the same time. And this is where we need to return to the dream. When in the dream, the analysand was confronted, much as he had been in life, with the reality of being on the “losing end” of things, rather than simply succumbing to what from the perspective of the power dynamic would be his inevitable termination, the analysand was able to hold space consciously and see through to that which resided beyond that ultimately false construction of the ego. Looking at the mountain lion, which from the perspective of power dynamics had him completely at its mercy, he could see that at the end of the animal’s erect penis there was a contraption, the presence of which, it was now obvious, was causing the cat great pain. Showing no hesitation, the analysand reached out and re-

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moved it. The response of the animal was no less immediate. As soon as the device was taken off the mountain lion’s erect penis, the animal withdrew from the analysand and no longer posed a threat. When the masculine instinct, self-organizing nature would have us understand, entrusts itself exclusively to the win/lose polarity of the power dynamic it will indeed be subjected to the type of confinement that was the experience of the mountain lion in the dream. The sexual instinct functioning entirely out of the power dynamic is an instinct in arrest. It is an instinct, moreover, that at some level is in excruciating pain. Accordingly, when the analysand, still in the throes of his own experience of losing, was able to surpass the limitations of that ultimately false, win/lose polarity, what he experienced in the figure of the animal standing menacingly over him, was not overwhelming power as such, but rather, the presence of a wound. And what the analysand then did to the mountain lion was exactly what he was able to do to himself in coming to terms with his own experience of loss. The analysand was able to remove from the masculine instinct that which was obstructing its proper functioning. He was, more specifically, able to free the consciousness of the masculine sexual instinct from its unnatural confinement and arrest in the win/lose polarity of the power dynamic. Untouched by power dynamics, it enters and holds space without encumbrance. The final stage of our discussion of human sexuality to which we will now turn is concerned with, it should be recalled from above, the cultural split by which personal and transpersonal dimensions of human sexuality wrongly assume the form of incommensurables. The personal dimension of human sexuality, it could be briefly explained at this starting point, has to do with the degree to which one’s sexual energies are directed, often with the intention of exclusivity, toward a particular individual. Now if we were to take one further step to assure greater technical accuracy in this definition, we would have to say that it is not simply a question of the directing of one’s sexual energies toward an individual as such, but rather it is a question of the directing of those energies toward the unique personality traits associated with that individual. Whereas the personal dimension of human sexuality is, then, about the assignment of one’s sexual energies to that which is unique to an individual, the transpersonal dimension, on the other hand, has to do with the exact opposite of this, that is to say, it has to do with the assignment of sexual energies to those qualities which an individual holds in common with all members of his or her gender. Somewhat more simply put, it is about the assignment of sexual energies to the man in the man, and the woman in the woman, with whom one is in sexual relationship.

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Now concerning this distinction, something we should not fail to understand about Taoist sexual alchemy, especially since this point was not directly made in the first round of our discussion of it, is the degree to which Taoist cultivative practices are reliant on the activation of transpersonal as opposed to personal dimensions of sexual experience. When Taoists speak of the heightening and harvesting of ching through the exchange of sexual energies with multiple partners, they are not, to be sure, referring to sexual engagement within the realm of the personal dimension of human sexuality. Rather, they are referring to sexual encounters whose basis most certainly would be the transpersonal dimension of human sexuality. Taoist sexual practices, Needham explains, brought “the whole human community” into a unique type of relationship. It was a relationship in which human sexual commonality, what we would call the transpersonal dimensions of human sexuality, superseded all other factors, social, marital, and otherwise. In Taoist sexual practices, marital and class statuses, even the isolationism of asceticism, capitulated to group-activated, transpersonal experiences of sexual love. As Needham relates in the following, which I feel it important to quote at length: All the other Taoist methods for inducing longevity and material immortality by means of psychological alchemy could be carried on in solitude by isolated hermits, but once sexual relationships entered into the picture the whole human community came with them. The adept could no longer be a world unto himself. Moreover in the greatest days of religious Taoism there had been an incorporation of the physical phenomena of sex in numinous group catharsis, free alike from asceticism and class distinctions. The collaboration of men and women through the ages in the formation (as they thought) of a “holy embryo of eternal life” within themselves, rather than in the generation of children “according to the flesh,” meant the exploration of a dimension of human love not easily comprehensible for those brought up, as Westerners are, in a society nominally Christian yet deeply Manichaean. Simply to recall that Taoist sexual unions were accompanied by incense and prayers to the gods and the holy immortals is in itself sufficient to indicate the gulf that separates the Taoists from the European sexuality, a transaction which can never quite escape the feeling of impiety that centuries of ideal “chastity” and asceticism have imposed upon it. Taoist sexuality was neither sensual nor guilt-ridden, neither antinomian nor irreligious; for Taoism as for Tantrism the operations of physical love were a powerful

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The experience of transpersonal sexual love, “one Yang and one Yin,” by which the Taoists sought to access “the divine power within the universe” is indeed an experience of sexual love, as Needham himself suggests, that has been given no place whatsoever in the collective consciousness of Western culture. That spiritually and culturally we might progress as a direct consequence of the unconditional surrender to the energies and consciousness of the sexual instinct, is, to be sure, a way of thinking that is not only outside the assumptions of the Christian worldview, but also, as explained earlier, completely outside the assumptions of the Freudian worldview as well. Yet the untoward actuality that such a notion would not have been incorporated into the Christian and Freudian worldviews simply because they remained trapped within the realm of the pathologized sexual instinct is no reason whatsoever for us to neglect our own collaborating clinical data. Based on the clinical observations of the Syndetic Paradigm, two important conclusions have been drawn. Firstly, as should go without saying at this point, for the Syndetic Paradigm, in contrast to the perspectives of the Christian and Freudian worldviews, the experience of releasing oneself into the consciousness of the sexual instinct is something that is not to be dreaded, but unconditionally pursued. The sexual instinct in this respect is in no way regarded as being exempt from the ethical workings of nature. Secondly, and very much related to this favorable appraisal of descent into the consciousness of the sexual instinct, the Syndetic Paradigm holds that in matters of sexual love, men and women are called upon by nature to know each other as much in terms of the transpersonal dimensions of sexual experience as they are in terms of the personal. If marriage is to be selfactualizing, consciousness, the Syndetic Paradigm would assert, must be held by both partners on finding the right balance between the personal and transpersonal dimensions of sexuality. And it is indeed the failure to incorporate this clinical fact into the dynamics of marriage that would account for, according to the Syndetic Paradigm, numerous instances of marital failure and unhappiness. In contrast, then, to all cultural assumptions and even taboos to the contrary, for the Syndetic Paradigm, the transpersonal dimension of human sexuality is vital to the appearance and continuation of emotional and sexual intimacy. Yet in that it has not been consciously acknowledged, embraced, and protected as such, sadly enough, it is almost always the case in long-term relationships of commitment that the more collectively sanctioned, personal dimension of human sexuality progressively imposes it-

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self upon the relationship until the transpersonal sexual dimension has been altogether eliminated. It is certainly the case that when relationships first get underway and are moving in the direction of emotional and sexual intimacy, they are weighted heavily toward the transpersonal. The starting point of all relationship typically is the transpersonal. Man meets woman, woman meets man. Little is known about the other individual at the personal level. As the relationship unfolds, however, especially at the point when the man and woman begin to live together, things move quickly in the other direction. A great deal of personal information is accumulated. A process of mutual microanalysis begins and what comes to light in this manner of course never proves to be entirely pleasing. Gradually over time, therefore, as a consequence of that expanding mental record of the idiosyncrasies of one’s partner, as a consequence of the ever-increasing burden of the couple’s personal life together, such as the added responsibilities of home and children, it is almost uniformly the case that the transpersonal dimension of intimacy succumbs entirely to the personal dimension of intimacy. Now as one probably would imagine on the basis of all that has been said, the path out of this dilemma is not an easy one for most individuals to find, nor is it any easier to follow once found. Having no knowledge whatsoever of the dynamics of the personal and transpersonal dimensions of sexuality, most individuals are at a loss to know even where to begin to look for the way out. And because, moreover, they have been culturally conditioned to view their partners sexually in no way other than through the lens of the personal sexual dimension, they will regard with suspicion and even moral trepidation the very thing upon which the revitalization of their marriage depends. A very simple example illustrates this point. On more than a few occasions couples whose sexual lives have lost momentum and intensity have described the following to me. They will be watching a movie together and one will indicate to the other that he or she is feeling sexually aroused by the film. What will then typically happen is that the recipient of this news will be offended, rather than simply going with this much-longed-for indication of sexual interest. Specifically, he or she will be offended by the fact that their partner would seemingly now have such feelings and desires for them as a result of watching whatever or whomever on television. What they in effect would say to their partner, I would interpretatively offer, is that since your sexual energy does not exist for me alone, that is to say, it is not strictly personal-level sexual energy, your arousal is unacceptable to me and I will have nothing to do with it. And in this manner, an opportunity to refloat the sexual life that has been stuck on the rocks is lost.

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Although this is but a simple example of the problem with which we are concerned, it nevertheless says a great deal, for it not only illustrates how the personal can impose itself, albeit inadvertently, on the transpersonal, but it also shows how, in the absence of a genuine understanding of transpersonal dynamics, emotional insecurities and even moral sensitivities will prohibit progress being made. What most couples would fail to comprehend is that the film is simply offering the otherwise inhibited transpersonal dimension of their sexual life an opportunity to move forward, much as an emotionally moving scene within the same film might release their emotions. If this were to happen, would one partner expect the other not to cry? If, furthermore, that individual utilized that activated emotion to connect with his or her spouse on another emotional issue about which the couple before could not speak, would that initiative be rejected? Would the recipient respond by saying that you are only doing this emotional thing because of whomever or whatever you were watching in the film? No, this typically would not be the case. Rather, the opportunity to engage emotionally through the activation of the transpersonal experience of emotion would be welcomed. Unfortunately, it would only be a couple’s lack of knowledge about the workings of transpersonal sexuality that would prevent them from responding to the sexual instinct in kind. Equally unaware of the nature of the true dynamics unfolding between them, the couple would be without the means to establish the much-needed creative relationship to the transpersonal sexual consciousness to which the film would be giving them access. Of course self-regulatory nature itself has a great deal to offer us as regards this problem. But its compensatory promptings, it must also be understood, are far more complex and demanding than that with which we were presented in this elementary example. It is not infrequently the case, accordingly, that self-organizing nature’s compensatory directives pertaining to transpersonal sexuality fail to be recognized and received, even by otherwise trained professionals. The following dream of an analysand provides us with a more detailed example of such transpersonal compensation. Following years of intimacy deprivation and even outright abandonment within her marriage, yet during a time when powerful changes were underway both psychologically and spiritually within her, the analysand was presented with this dream. She dreamed that two male friends had made an object for her out of clay. She then needed to ford a river by wading across it. Understandably, she was concerned as to how she would safely carry this object with her. It was at this point that the two men gave her a glass jar into which the clay object could be placed. As she waded

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into the river and slowly made her way to the other side, she saw boats carrying others downstream to the same destination toward which she herself was headed. Finally, in coming ashore, she witnessed something she had not anticipated. A woman was being reunited with her lover. The analysand observed the man hand the woman a small bag belonging to him. As the woman in turn examined its contents, she discovered, much to her obvious outrage, a package in which there were condoms, some of which had actually been used, as well as a collection of “sex toys.” That the analysand had arrived at a critical transformative point in her psychological/spiritual journey is confirmed by at least two of the dream’s symbols. Firstly, it presents in the archetypal symbolism of the analysand having to cross over to the other side of the river—a symbolism, it should be noted, which in Buddhism, through the Sanskrit term paramita (literally “that which has reached the other shore”),53 pertains to the idea of liberation through the perfecting of an understanding, that is to say somewhat more specifically, liberation through the complete crossing over to the perspective of the new way of seeing things. Secondly, that the analysand’s symbolic journey to the other shore should take the form of her actually wading across the river, that is to say, that it involved the submersion of her whole body in water, suggests, as noted elsewhere, that that through which this transformative process was being brought about was the consciousness of the body, thus making it of the deepest consequence for the analysand. To symbolically descend into the river with one’s whole body is to submit oneself completely and unconditionally to the transformative influences of self-organizing nature. Yet what was it in the analysand, we would ask, that nature specifically sought to subject to such depth change? I will need to digress somewhat before returning to that question. When people first come together as a couple it is seldom the case that the love they feel for each other as man and woman will be significantly lessened by knowledge of their partner’s past relationships. Because they have yet to fall into the trap of possessiveness, because, most importantly, their love for each other is still far more transpersonal than personal, more often than not they are inclined simply to be with that which exists between them as man and woman in the present and let go of all else. Whereas the personal tends to bestow conditions on relationship and love, the transpersonal tends to bestow on relationship and love unconditionality. Now although the transpersonal sexual is not that through which depth relationship is to be exclusively lived, it is not, on the other hand, something that depth relationship can be without. Depth relationship re-

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quires the presence of both the personal and transpersonal sexual to be dynamic and whole. When, therefore, the transpersonal sexual has been diminished or lost in relationship it must be recovered if that relationship is to do more than merely survive. If, on the other hand, I would further add, its recovery in that relationship is entirely out of the question—and that was certainly the predicament of this analysand—it must at least be healed within the individual. And to do this, I would suggest, it will be necessary for the individual to hold the transpersonal sexual dimension of love in a manner that he or she has never held it before—it will be necessary for the individual to hold the transpersonal sexual dimension of love not simply in consciousness, but in consciousness at the place of its wounding. If one cannot hold consciousness on the transpersonal sexual while standing in the place of its deepest wound one’s relationship to it will not be healed. Yet, as we would now readily appreciate, this is not easily done. The woman in the analysand’s dream could not do it, even in the moment of her otherwise longed-for opportunity to reunite with her lover. Indeed in that critical moment of potential reconciliation, the woman’s personal experience of betrayal by her lover got the better of her, thus leaving her at a complete loss to find her way back to the transpersonal. Of course as we know on the basis of analytical experience, the problem confronting the woman in the analysand’s dream was no less the analysand’s problem. Like the woman in her dream, the analysand was at a critical turning point in her experience of life and love. And no less like the woman in her dream, the analysand’s psychological and spiritual progress would very much depend on her ability to recover and heal within her own natural being the transpersonal dimension of sexuality. Yet to do this, the analysand, in contrast to the woman in her dream, would have to face directly and pass through the almost unbearably deep wound that her personal experience of betrayal had inflicted upon the consciousness of her body. She, in contrast to the woman in her dream, would have to release, into that very powerful river that the unconditional love of the transpersonal sexual most certainly is, all of her tokens of personal betrayal. Through the dramatic archetypal symbolism of the analysand’s arrival on the other shore, self-organizing nature, we should understand, was offering the means not only of depth healing within the consciousness of the body, but the means of depth awakening within the consciousness of the body to that with which life and love is bereft to be without. Through the absolute clarification of the point at which the analysand had arrived, through the absolute clarification of that critical reconciliatory step not taken by the woman in the dream yet now needing to be taken by the analysand, self-organizing nature was holding out to the analysand the

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means not only of her depth healing, but the means of her awakening to the other-shore consciousness of the transpersonal dimension of sexual love. That there resides within the consciousness of the sexual instinct a transpersonal love that is untouched by personal experiences of injury, desire, or possessiveness, that there resides within the consciousness of the sexual instinct a depth sexual love that is untouched by the lustful dissipative drives of the complexes, that there is to be discovered through the sexual instinct an experience of sexual love that is as much about the heart and the consciousness of the body as it is about the genitals, and that by way of our descent into that experience of sexual love we might apprehend “the divine power within the universe” is indeed to speak of an experience of sexual love that surpasses all notions of sexual love widely held in the West. For one to plunge into an experience of surrender of this magnitude is clearly to undergo a type of death. The controlling ego certainly dies to the extent its grip on the personality is broken. And the personality itself, I would emphasize, having wrongly identified with the controlling ego to the degree it typically does, will surely experience the controlling ego’s death as its own. Yet is this truly death? I would think not. Indeed I would think that that which is objectively unfolding, rather than being about death as such, is perhaps far more accurately deemed an experience of sudden freefall into life. What we experience as a type of death is perhaps far more accurately deemed an experience of release into life by way of the sexual instinct. But what, we now need to know, is the significance of this more nuanced understanding of these dynamics to the practice of psychotherapy? It should be recalled that for Freud the sexual and death instincts are very closely aligned, and that the death instinct itself is regarded as the nucleus of sadistic and masochistic behaviors. It should also be recalled that even though the Syndetic Paradigm does not attribute these behaviors to a death instinct as such, it nevertheless appreciates, on the basis of its own clinical observations and subsequent theoretical placement of the complexes at the core of these behaviors, why Freud himself was inclined to do so. Deathlike energies, the Syndetic Paradigm holds in agreement with Freud, are a clinically discernible component of sadistic and masochistic behaviors. However, in contrast to Freud, the Syndetic Paradigm theoretically assigns these energies not to a death instinct, but to the antilife drives of the complexes themselves. Returning then to our above reflections on the deathlike experience attending an encounter with the transpersonal sexual, it seems to me that something further needs to be taken into account in evaluating the dy-

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namics of the destructive energies apparently associated with masochism and sadism. What I wish to propose is that the human attraction to injury and even death, as found in masochism and sadism, may, at times, completely independently of the complexes, be attributable in part to a type of wire crossing, as it were, within the personality itself. What I wish to propose is that, at least in some instances of sadism and masochism, the otherwise genuine and indeed innate desire of the personality to submit to the death delivered to it by self-organizing nature—the death associated with the release of the personality into life from the controlling tendencies of the ego—may in fact have become crossed with the more authentically destructive behaviors associated with these practices. The personality, in other words, rather than seeking its death in the sense of its release from the controlling tendencies of the ego with which it is identified, mistakenly seeks its actual annihilation. The drive toward annihilation and death characteristic of masochism and sadism would thus be, to put it differently still, the consequence of one succumbing to that which is but a parody of the nature-driven experience of unconditional release from ego control into life. I would direct anyone wishing to read a clinical example interpreted along these lines to the case of Ingrid in my previous book.54 In concluding this discussion on the transpersonal sexual dimension of love I wish to offer as my final reflection the somewhat paradoxical truth that it is only by way of the transpersonal that we genuinely acquire the capacity to love personally. Contrary to conventional assumptions, one thing that clinical experience teaches us is that when sexuality is confined exclusively to the personal dimension, more often than not, rather than serving depth relationship, it becomes a clandestine instrument of the ego’s tendency to control. Much as religious ideals may become that behind which the most intractable of neurotic behaviors are concealed, we find that under the guise of collectively idealized notions of personal fidelity, pathologic tendencies within the personality toward control are given refuge and nurtured. Almost imperceptibly, that which would otherwise be an opportunity for genuine experiential encounter with love and unfolding Reality is concretized and turned into a thing. And just as is true with the similar concretization of religious ideals themselves, this thing, rather than being the means of one’s descent into love and Reality, secretly becomes, through the controlling tendencies of the ego, the means of one’s neurotic flight from them. When, for instance, the concrete fact of being married is of far greater consequence to one’s experience of “love” than the measure of authentic intimacy in the marriage itself, it is the case that one is married not so much to another human being, but rather to a collectively elevated ideal.

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The collective ideal of love—here concretized in the form of the legalism of marriage—is employed by the ego, not as a means of genuinely engaging life and another individual, but as a neurotic means of controlling and possessing them. Similarly, when the concrete fact of the physical act of sexual intercourse alone makes one feel secure and loved even in spite of the emotional indifference shown one during the act of “lovemaking,” one is not operating within the realm of love as such, but rather within the realm of power and concretism. Clearly such lovemaking has nothing at all to do with genuine love, but everything to do with power, control, and possession. Under the dark influences of the controlling tendencies within the ego, the concretized personal becomes, therefore, not the means of relating one to life and love, but rather the neurotic means of attempting to control and take possession of the two. Rather than being the means of carrying one toward life and love, “personal commitment” and “personal sexual intimacy” thus concretized become the neurotic means of defending one from the direct and genuine encounter with them. The concretized ideal, to be sure, is not a gate; it is an impenetrable wall. It is a wall, moreover, behind the cover of which, I will again emphasize, the most neurotic of tendencies are given license to operate. Genuine sexual love is about submission to life and love by way of the consciousness of the sexual instinct, yet that critical truth will not be protected when one is aligned exclusively with the personal dimension of sexuality by way of the controlling ego. The ego’s neurotic drive to control and the exclusively personal sexual invariably occupy the same space. Accordingly, we observe in the compensatory workings of self-regulatory nature a steadfast ambition to direct sexual love away from its unhealthy, control-based confinement in the personal sexual toward conscious relationship with the transpersonal sexual. The case example to which we will now turn should help illustrate how this particular compensatory initiative presents clinically. Our case involves a female analysand who, along the lines of the above, tended to employ concretistic, collective ideals as walls of defense between her and life. Now although actual material things had been used in this manner, it was an equally true fact that her marriage had been as well. The analysand, to put it specifically, at times used the concretized ideal of being married as a means of suppressing her deeper unhappiness with the lack of intimacy in her actual relationship. The false comfort of the concretized ideal became as a consequence, much as it will become for anyone under such circumstances, a means of avoiding and repressing, rather than engaging life and love. This then was the analysand’s history,

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but of no less importance to this case is the fact that at the time of this dream the analysand by way of her analytical work was beginning to reach beyond this life pattern. Her dream was as follows. The analysand dreamed that she and her husband were being sexually intimate with other individuals, significantly in the presence of each other. This development, to say the least, was not foreseen. Yet perhaps even more surprising still was the fact that everything that she and her husband were experiencing sexually was unfolding in an atmosphere of unconditional acceptance. There were no jealousies, nor was the analysand by any account possessive of her husband, even when her husband’s sexual partner proved to be a woman to whom he had long been attracted. The scene then changed. The analysand was speaking with the woman to whom they had recently sold their house. Both women, it seemed, were losing teeth. This seemed odd enough to the analysand, but things turned stranger still as it became clear that their dental problems were in some way interconnected. In fact the only way of resolving their respective problems was to have their teeth fixed at the same time. In the final scene of the dream, which clearly in no way proved to be anticlimactic, this same female acquaintance and her husband placed their baby in the arms of the analysand, explaining as they did so that it was time for them to put their child up for adoption. The analysand was dumbfounded. She couldn’t begin to imagine how this couple could even consider giving their child to someone else. The analysand chose to accept the baby into her own care. As a rule one cannot truly let go of something until something else has functionally taken its place. Accordingly, if one fundamentally does not trust life, if one has not experientially come to trust it, no matter how deeply one would desire to let go of the neurotic mechanisms operating to defend one from life, it is impossible to do so. Regardless of what form these mechanisms take, whether they take the form of materialism, collective idealism, emotional or sexual possessiveness, until life itself can be trusted, no alternatives to these inferior ways of functioning will be relied upon by the personality. Progress, however, gradually does occur if one does the right type of work with the right level of commitment. Gradually under the influence of the compensatory workings of self-organizing nature, critical shifts in consciousness take place. Curiously enough, there existed within the analysand, in spite of all of her above-described tendencies to the contrary, a marvelous, yet largely latent capacity to receive life. Indeed beneath the surface of her neurotic way of being, there existed a greater than usual capacity to

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embrace nature and its laws. Her dream, as I will now explain, was yet another compensatory step in the direction of accessing that potential. Concerning the dream’s symbolism, we see that the problem of loss was a theme to which the dream returned at several points. The analysand encountered a woman connected to the loss of the analysand’s “dream home,” both women, furthermore, were in the process of losing their teeth, there was the possibility of the loss of the analysand’s husband to another woman, as well as the heart-wrenching experience of the loss of a child. Clearly in this dream the problem of loss was multilayered. Yet not insignificantly, something no less present in this dream was the theme of love. And it is the specific interlinking of these two themes, I would suggest, that causes us to question if these experiences of loss are truly about loss in the strict sense of that word. As difficult as our own deeply ingrained proclivities to control make it for us to see, the experience of loss as represented in this dream is not a depiction of loss as it is commonly experienced and understood. Rather, the dream is about how by way of loss one comes to emotional and sexual love in its fullness. The loss of the analysand’s dream home, the loss of her husband sexually to a woman for whom he felt love, the sexual surrendering of herself to another man, the loss of a child to adoption, even the simultaneous loss of teeth as experienced by the two women are all experiences, I would offer, whose ultimate compensatory function is to point the analysand in the direction of life and love as they exist in Reality on the other side of the illusion of personal possession and control. As we inch along under the direction of self-organizing nature beyond exclusivity and personal possessiveness, we slowly but steadily find ourselves being conducted into an experiential knowledge of not only the interconnectedness of all of life, but the interdependence of all of it as well. To love another individual, the consciousness of the sexual instinct would have us understand, has nothing to do with personal possession; rather it is about submission, one’s submission to life. To love another individual is to love through that individual all of humanity. To love a child is to love through that child all children. If, by contrast, one can only “love” one’s own child, one’s love for one’s child will most certainly be incomplete. Similarly, if one can only “love” one’s spouse, one’s love for one’s spouse will be less than whole. To release one’s child into the loving arms of another is certainly no betrayal of parental guardianship. To release one’s partner from the confinement of the personal sexual into the embrace of the transpersonal sexual is certainly no betrayal of love.

IV

THE EMPTY MANDALA Sixth Principle of the Jungian Paradigm A significant spiritual or religious experience is fundamental to the healing of the personality, especially for those in the second half of life, and in the absence of such an experience the personality remains divided and neurotic. Sixth Principle of the Syndetic Paradigm The Syndetic Paradigm holds that all of life, that is to say, nature in its entirety is bound together in a highly complex whole through an ongoing process of spontaneous self-organization. The Syndetic Paradigm asserts, moreover, that the true point of conscious entry into this self-organizing totality—the sacred circle of nature—is the developmental edge of the differentiating ego. In this respect, the particular becomes the means of one’s direct engagement with unfolding Reality. Accordingly, very much in contrast to the Jungian Paradigm in which the psychological and spiritual are given separate theoretical statuses, and even conceived of as incommensurables, especially through their relegation to the inner and outer worlds, respectively, the Syndetic Paradigm makes no such distinction between them. Indeed, the Syndetic Paradigm goes so far as to assert that to disjoin the psychological and spiritual in this manner ultimately has the opposite effect of the above-described intended objective of the sixth principle of the Jungian Paradigm; that is to say, it serves to split the personality and divide it against itself and Reality. It serves, in short, to promote psychoneurosis rather than subdue and end it. The 1930s marked Jung’s most prolific period of writing on the psychology of religion. Indeed it was out of the essays of that decade that that which would come to constitute the core of Jung’s theorizing about the psychology of religion emerged in the form of four salient themes. Those themes, presented in no particular order, are as follows. Firstly, would be Jung’s observation that organized religion, given the limitations of its fixed and largely unchanging structure, was failing to 195

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meet the spiritual needs of ever-increasing numbers of individuals. “I have found,” Jung reflected in his lecture to the Alsatian Pastoral Conference at Strasbourg in 1932, “that modern man has an ineradicable aversion for traditional opinions and inherited ideas. He is a Bolshevist for whom all the spiritual standards and forms of the past have somehow lost their validity. . . . Confronted with this attitude, every ecclesiastical system finds itself in an awkward situation, be it Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, or Confucianist.”1 Secondly, would be Jung’s correlating of this particular shortcoming of organized religion with the apparent increase of neurosis within society in general. As Jung himself put it: “It seems to me that, side by side with the decline of religious life, the neuroses grow noticeably more frequent. . . . We are living undeniably in a period of the greatest restlessness, nervous tension, confusion, and disorientation of outlook.”2 Thirdly, and certainly not unrelated to this spiritual/psychological dilemma, would be Jung’s much-quoted conclusion, derived it should be noted from his own clinical observation of the workings of the psyche, that in the absence of a truly functional spiritual outlook the personality will remain divided and incomplete, that is to say in clinical terms, interminably neurotic. As Jung explained to his Strasbourg audience: “Among all my patients in the second half of life—that is to say, over thirty-five— there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook. This of course has nothing whatsoever to do with a particular creed or membership of a church.”3 Now it seems to me the important point Jung wished to convey to his Strasbourg audience, yet potentially fell short of clarifying, was that the “religious outlook” of which he spoke must necessarily be acquired not only to heal the neuroses that have emerged in its absence, but it must also be acquired, and this is the absolutely crucial point needing emphasizing, to bring about the healing of all neuroses present in the second half of life. This is because, in keeping with Jung’s groundbreaking thesis, all neuroses associated with the second half of life necessarily and irreversibly lead an individual into the more comprehensive problem of the meaning of life itself, and it is only, accordingly, through the resolving of the latter spiritual problem that one is irrevocably released from the former. Fourthly and finally, would be Jung’s very explicit declaration that Analytical Psychology had found the key by which this unprecedented

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spiritual crisis gripping modernity would be resolved. “The fact that many clergymen,” Jung chastised the pastors at the Strasbourg conference, “seek support or practical help from Freud’s theory of sexuality or Adler’s theory of power is astonishing, inasmuch as both these theories are, at bottom, hostile to spiritual values, being, as I have said, psychology without the psyche [soul].”4 Whereas Freud and Adler, Jung would have wanted his audience to understand, abandoned the pursuit of the most fundamental and original objective of psychological inquiry—that is to say, knowledge of the soul— Analytical Psychology, by contrast, pursued this problem with vigor. Whereas institutionalized religion, Jung would have further wished his audience to know, was without the freedom even to question, not to speak of revise, the now invalid “spiritual standards and forms of the past,” Analytical Psychology, by contrast, was prepared and equipped to address these problems uncensored. In very great contrast, then, to the restrictions and limitations plaguing institutionalized religion, Analytical Psychology, Jung wished to convey, was to be uniquely distinguished by its concern with “original religious experience quite apart from what the creeds have made of it.”5 Analytical psychology was to be distinguished, in other words, by its concern with the study and cultivation of religious experience in its essence. “What is ordinarily called ‘religion,’” Jung would thus tell his Yale University audience some five years later in 1937 as the guest speaker of the prestigious Terry Lectures, “is a substitute to such an amazing degree that I ask myself seriously whether this kind of ‘religion,’ which I prefer to call a creed, may not after all have an important function in human society. The substitution has the obvious purpose of replacing immediate experience by a choice of suitable symbols tricked out with an organized dogma and ritual.”6 Not operating under the paradigmatic restrictions of the Freudian and Adlerian models, not subject to the limitations and restrictions of the dogma and creeds characterizing the worldviews of institutionalized religion, Analytical Psychology, Jung believed, had found the key that eluded all others. It had found the key by which the spiritual crisis gripping modernity would be resolved. By 1937, Jung was of the clear conviction that that spiritual crisis—a crisis that weighs more heavily upon us today than it did in Jung’s time—would find its ultimate resolution in that which he had come to term immediate religious experience. Now in order to understand exactly what Jung had in mind in speaking of immediate religious experience, we must make our way back to that period in his autobiography he describes as the time of his “Confrontation with the Unconscious,” the time of Jung’s creative illness.

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Creative illness, it should be recalled, refers to the nonnegotiable demand placed upon an individual by nature to progress beyond the confines of a no longer tenable consciousness level and way of life into the open space of a consciousness and life orientation that is psychologically/spiritually congruent with one’s developmental needs. Creative illness, successfully traversed, is about the progression from psychological/ spiritual death to psychological/spiritual life. It is about a life understanding, a worldview, a paradigmatic model, which to all intents and purposes has become nothing less than a death canal to the incarnating soul, being supplanted by that which would be, on the basis of its congruency with the developmental needs of the individual, an authentic birth canal. Creative illness, successfully traversed, is where meaningless suffering gives way to meaningful suffering. Now although the spiritual crisis of mid-life identified above by Jung would certainly constitute an incredibly challenging form of creative illness in its own right, we should also understand that there is an altogether more demanding category of creative illness. The most demanding of creative illnesses, I would offer, are those whose purpose is not primarily to resolve the problem of a single individual, but rather whose purpose is to address the psychological/spiritual needs of a whole culture. The unique difficulty associated with creative illnesses of this sort resides in the fact of them having to be undertaken in the absence of any form of containment whatsoever. Freud and Jung’s creative illnesses, of course, were journeys of this intensity and magnitude. Concerning Jung’s experience in this regard, we see how the interlinking of individual and collective journey presented symbolically in the notable paralleling of Jung’s own creative illness with World War I that darkened Europe from 1914 to 1918. “Toward the autumn of 1913,” Jung reflects in his autobiography with reference to his first inkling that his inner turmoil encompassed far more than simply his experience, “the pressure which I had felt was in me seemed to be moving outward, as though there was something in the air. The atmosphere actually seemed to me darker than it had been. It was as though the sense of oppression no longer sprang exclusively from a psychic situation, but from concrete reality. This feeling grew more and more intense.”7 Several disturbing dreams and visions were to follow, each one of which, it should be noted, occurred before Jung himself had knowledge of the imminence of war. While traveling alone in October, for instance, Jung found himself gripped by a horrific vision of death and devastation in which he saw not only the destruction of complete countries but also thousands upon thousands of bodies filling a great sea of blood that spread to most of Europe.

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Several weeks later the vision returned, yet this time the ocean of blood seemed to be all the more pronounced. “‘Look at it well,’” an inner voice directed Jung, “‘ it is wholly real and it will be so.’”8 In the following spring and summer of 1914, Jung had what he termed “a thrice-repeated dream.” In April and May of that year, he dreamed “that in the middle of summer an Arctic cold wave descended and froze the land to ice. I saw, for example,” Jung continues, “the whole of Lorraine and its canals frozen and the entire region totally deserted by human beings. All living things were killed by frost.” The third dream, which occurred in June, once again depicted the Arctic freeze turning Europe into a virtual wasteland. The dream’s ending, however, as Jung himself took great care to point out, was very much unlike that of the other two. At the end of the third dream, there appeared, amid the devastation brought about by the cold, a tangible sign of hope—an image of healing in which Jung himself played a vital role. “There stood a leaf-bearing tree,” Jung explains in his memoirs, “but without fruit (my tree of life, I thought), whose leaves had been transformed by the effects of the frost into sweet grapes full of healing juices. I plucked the grapes and gave them to a large, waiting crowd.”9 In late July 1914, Jung, still unaware of the cultural dimension of his dreams and visions, left for Aberdeen where he was to deliver a scheduled lecture to the British Medical Association. In Jung’s own retrospective estimation, his designated topic seemed almost fateful in light of his suspicion that he himself might be on the verge of a psychotic break. His lecture was ominously titled: “On the Importance of the Unconscious in Psychopathology.” “In my state of mind just then,” Jung would write some four decades later about this ordeal and its ultimate significance, with the fears that were pursuing me, it seemed fateful to me that I should have to talk on the importance of the unconscious at such a time! On August 1 the world war broke out. Now my task was clear: I had to try to understand what had happened and to what extent my own experience coincided with that of mankind in general. Therefore my first obligation was to probe the depths of my own psyche. I made a beginning by writing down the fantasies which had come to me during my building game [with stones by the lake]. This work took precedence over everything else.10 With the outbreak of war in 1914 Jung could finally understand that the dreams, visions, and fantasies that had so forcefully and violently taken

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hold of him pertained to a journey, a creative illness, whose significance far exceeded his individual concerns. In 1914 it had become clear to Jung that out of the suffering of his own creative illness would potentially emerge a spiritual solution to a problem gripping a whole culture. With Europe sinking into absolute chaos and Jung himself on the verge of complete psychological/spiritual meltdown, Jung, therefore, in the form of an unconditional submission to the compensatory directives of the unconscious, took the critical step of trusting his life and the needs of a culture completely to the process he would later term immediate religious experience. In the years that immediately followed, through his dreams, inner dialogues, visions, and fantasies, Jung actively descended into the darkness of largely uncharted psychological/spiritual realms of the unconscious. “I stood helpless before an alien world,” Jung explains with reference to the ordeal of his creative illness, “everything in it seemed difficult and incomprehensible. I was living in a constant state of tension; often I felt as if gigantic blocks of stone were tumbling down upon me. . . . My enduring these storms was a question of brute strength. Others have been shattered by them. . . . But there was a demonic strength in me, and from the beginning there was no doubt in my mind that I must find the meaning of what I was experiencing in these fantasies. When I endured these assaults of the unconscious I had an unswerving conviction that I was obeying a higher will, and that feeling continued to uphold me until I had mastered the task.”11 Finally in 1918, just as Europe itself, not insignificantly, was emerging from the darkness of the Great War, Jung began to inch his own way out of the darkness of his creative illness. In 1918, after four years of intrapsychic battle, Jung for the first time was moving toward that which would constitute his breakthrough understanding of the unconscious. Curiously, Jung’s most important clue to this end came during the time of his own compulsory military service in the latter years of the war. Between 1916 and 1918, in his capacity as an officer in the Swiss medical corps, Jung served intermittently as a commander of a training facility for British troops at Châteaux d’Oex in the lower Alps.12 During the periods in which he was stationed at Châteaux d’Oex, Jung, who was of course still very much in the grip of his creative illness, undertook a daily ritual in which he would sketch circular drawings in a notebook. The drawings, Jung tells us, were his “precious pearls” and he “guarded”13 them as such, even though, I would emphasize, they were yet to be known to him as mandala symbols. By simply holding these circular drawings in consciousness Jung found himself provided with a much-needed experience

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of focus and stability. Through his study of their changing patterns, Jung further discovered that he could observe transformations occurring within his own psyche.14 Daily, accordingly, these spontaneous drawings came to function as a type of barometer of Jung’s own psychic integrity. But how, Jung began to ask himself, could this be so? Could there possibly be, Jung wondered, something else at work behind these symbolic representations? By 1920, after having drawn and studied countless variations of these mandalas, Jung concluded there indeed was. Writing with reference to his breakthrough understanding of the unconscious during those years, Jung reflects in his memoirs: I no longer know how many mandalas I drew at this time. There were a great many. While I was working on them, the question arose repeatedly: What is this process leading to? Where is its goal? From my own experience, I knew by now that I could not presume to choose a goal which would seem trustworthy to me. It had been proved to me that I had to abandon the idea of the superordinate position of the ego. . . . I had to let myself be carried along by the current, without a notion of where it would lead me. When I began drawing the mandalas, however, I saw that everything, all the paths I had been following, all the steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point—namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation. During those years, between 1918 and 1920, I began to understand that the goal of psychic development is the self. . . . This insight gave me stability, and gradually my inner peace returned. I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate.15 Through the ordeal of his creative illness, more specifically through his depth experience of the mandala and self, Jung had indeed arrived at that which would constitute the ultimate form of his psychological/ spiritual model—the ultimate form of what he would term immediate religious experience. For close to a decade, however, Jung would keep these findings largely to himself as he awaited further confirmation. Finally in 1927, by way of a powerful dream, and with the arrival in 1928 of an esoteric Eastern text whose content would be received by Jung as the first objective verification of his own findings, all remaining doubts about his concepts of the mandala, self, and immediate religious experience were completely put to rest.

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In the dream in question, Jung was in the harbor district of a “dirty, sooty city” he later recognized to be Liverpool. Shrouded by the blackness and cold drizzle of a winter’s night, Jung, along with a small group of Swiss compatriots, cautiously made his way up a cliff from the harbor to a plateau on which the city center was situated. Jung’s immediate geographical association was to the Totengässchen [“Alley of the Dead”] in Basel. The city itself, Jung and his compatriots found as they walked its dark streets, was divided into quarters that in turn were organized radially around a large square. Each of the quarters had its respective central point of reference. They were, in this regard, mandalalike in their own right. Yet it was here that the comparison of the greater and secondary centers stopped, for as further investigation was to reveal, the focal points of these secondary centers consisted merely of common street lamps and as such were but parodies of the focal point of the great square situated at the center of the entire city. At the center of this square, Jung tells us, “was a round pool, and in the middle of it a small island. While everything round about was obscured by rain, fog, smoke, and dimly lit darkness, the little island blazed with sunlight. On it stood a single tree, a magnolia, in a shower of reddish blossoms. It was as though the tree stood in the sunlight and were at the same time the source of light.” As Jung stood before it, virtually slain by its glorious radiance, he was suddenly struck with an aftershocklike realization. As he listened to his fellow Swiss who continued to speak only of the “abominable weather,” Jung suddenly realized that they saw nothing of the magnificence upon which his gaze was so completely fixed.16 The most demanding of creative illnesses, as previously explained, are those that are undertaken in the absence of any form of containment whatsoever. It is, therefore, against this backdrop that we are to understand the discrepancy between the experiences of the other Swiss and Jung’s own experience of the radiant magnolia occupying the center position of the city-mandala. Much as the journey of Jung’s creative illness would be incomprehensible to his fellow Swiss, not to speak of humanity as a whole, no less incomprehensible to others, we can readily imagine, would be his experience of arrival. Writing in his memoirs with reference to his own experience of that much awaited moment, Jung reflects: “This dream brought with it a sense of finality. I saw that here the goal had been revealed. One could not go beyond the center. The center is the goal, and everything is directed toward that center. Through this dream I understood that the self is the principle and archetype of orientation and meaning. Therein lies its healing function. For me, this insight signified an approach to the center and therefore to the goal.”17

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Immediately following the Liverpool dream, Jung represented the “essence” of his experience in an elaborate mandala he titled “Window on Eternity.” Consistent with his dream, “Window on Eternity” portrayed a number of secondary precincts encircling a primary one. At the center of each of these secondary precincts, furthermore, were minor starlike representations, whereas at the center of the primary precinct of the entire mandala was a major starlike symbol. In contrast to the decidedly weaker lights of the secondary precinct, the stronger light of the primary precinct radiated outwardly into the mandala as a whole.18 The following year Jung painted a second mandala that he quite rightly titled “The Castle.” In his memoirs, Jung describes how he was particularly struck as he worked on this mandala by its distinctively Chinese form and colors. Still, when it came to the critical question as to what specifically was striving to present itself through so Chinese a work, Jung remained perplexed. Indeed, as much as Jung struggled with that question, the true answer to it would not be made available to him until he held an additional piece of the compensatory puzzle that had yet to reveal itself. With the completion of “The Castle,” in the unexpected form of what Jung himself described as a synchronistic occurrence; the missing compensatory piece was finally within his grasp. No sooner had he finished his elaborate “Chinese” mandala depicting “the golden, well-fortified castle,” when the German sinologist Richard Wilhelm placed within Jung’s hands “the thousand-year-old Chinese text on the yellow castle, the germ of the immortal body,” namely, the Taoist-alchemical text The Secret of the Golden Flower. “I devoured the manuscript at once,” Jung writes, “for the text gave me undreamed-of confirmation of my ideas about the mandala and the circumambulation of the centre. That was the first event which broke through my isolation. I became aware of an affinity; I could establish ties with something and someone.”19 Whereas Jung would derive from the Liverpool dream subjective confirmation of that which he had come to learn about the mandala and self through the ordeal of his creative illness, he would acquire from his reading of The Secret of the Golden Flower a much needed objective confirmation of these same concepts. Supported inwardly in the form of the powerful vision of the Liverpool dream and outwardly through the synchronistic linking of his theoretical ideas about the mandala and self to a thousandyear-old Chinese text, Jung was now ready to deliver to the “waiting crowd” that which would not only constitute the ultimate form of his psychological/spiritual model, but that which Jung had, moreover, unquestionably come to regard as the foundational form of all spiritual ex-

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perience. Through his concept of immediate religious experience, Jung importantly believed, he could now offer to the “waiting crowd” of humanity so fully in the grip of an unprecedented spiritual crisis, the unprecedented means to a new dimension of spiritual understanding altogether. Jung’s critically important yet virtually unacknowledged appraisal of immediate religious experience in this regard was his belief that it might very well become—being directly connected as it was to the foundational basis of all spiritual experience—a spiritual understanding supplanting all others. In his most straightforward and honest statement to this effect, Jung thus wrote beneath his mandalic painting of “the golden, well-fortified castle”: “‘ecclesia catholica et protestantes et seclusi in secreto. aeon finitus.’ (The Catholic church and the Protestants and those hidden in the secret. The age is ended.)”20 Now although in previous sections of this work we have said a great deal about Jung’s concept of the self, something we have yet to examine is Jung’s theoretical treatment of the self as a spiritual factor. It should be clear from the above that through his notion of immediate religious experience—the ultimate theoretical and experiential goal of which is the self—Jung believed he had found his way to an unsurpassed point of spiritual understanding. It should be equally clear, moreover, Jung believed, as most Jungians do today, that only through the implementation of this psychological/spiritual understanding would the healing of the otherwise unhealing spiritual wound afflicting our age be brought about. With the discovery of the self and its subsequent theoretical placement within the Jungian Paradigm, there should be no doubt, therefore, that in the minds of Jung and Jungians the foundation of spiritual revolution had indeed been laid. Yet this assumption of the Jungian collective notwithstanding, some seventy years later we find ourselves quite rightly asking if Jung’s theoretical construct of the self has in fact assumed its much anticipated role as a catalyst of spiritual revolution? What, if anything, we should perhaps more honestly ask in defiance of Jungian sensitivities, has come of all of this? Now if, as I will venture to say at this somewhat early stage of our discussion, we were to answer this question as we must in terms of the abovedescribed high expectations of Jung and Jungians, we would have to conclude that not a great deal has. Jung’s theoretical construct of the self certainly has not ushered in a new age of spiritual understanding, nor, I would add, is it about to do so. Even when it comes to the most faithful of Jungians, we can safely say that if Jung’s theorizing about the self as a spiritual dynamism has had any impact whatsoever on their thinking, it has been at best minimal. But why, we need now ask, has this been so?

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To answer this question, we must first find our way back to those foundational paradigmatic assumptions by which Jung’s study of the psychological and spiritual was governed. Two assumptions come to mind. Firstly, would be Jung’s assumption that all that humanity has come to regard as the spiritual has its ultimate origin in the unconscious. Secondly, would be Jung’s assumption that nothing beyond the psyche can be validated as real. Meaning in this regard, according to Jung, can only be derived intrapsychically. Not unlike Freud, Jung believed that under the influences of science a despiritualization of nature had occurred. Unlike Freud, however, who took it upon himself to continue that initiative of science by proceeding with the despiritualization of the psyche, Jung, in keeping with his own belief system, embraced the inner world of the psyche as humanity’s last line of defense against utter spiritual annihilation. And Jung, we should add, did so with a vengeance. For what was to follow was more than simply a question of the positive evaluation of the inner world, as Jung and Jungians would have us believe. Rather, what truly spun out of this impassioned withdrawal into the inner world of the psyche was, as I have already explained earlier in this work, a Romantic splitting of the inner and outer worlds—a Romantic splitting of Reality in which not only the inner world wrongly was considered to be preeminent and as such the source of all spiritual experiences occurring in the outer world, but one in which the critical distinction between mere subjectivism and Reality, as it presents inwardly and outwardly, became blurred, if not lost altogether. For Jung and Jungians, it was certainly not the case that the gods/God had simply retreated to the psyche as a consequence of the despiritualization of nature, rather it was the case that through the despiritualization of nature their true and exclusive place of dwelling and origin within the psyche had been revealed—their one and only place of origin. “Through the withdrawal of projections,” Jung thus explained to his Yale University audience in 1937, conscious knowledge slowly developed. Science, curiously enough, began with the discovery of astronomical laws, and hence with the withdrawal, so to speak, of the most distant projections. This was the first stage in the despiritualization of the world. One step followed another: already in antiquity the gods were withdrawn from mountains and rivers, from trees and animals. . . . If the historical process of world despiritualization continues as hitherto, then everything of a divine or daemonic character outside us must return to the psyche, to the inside of the unknown man, whence it apparently originated.21

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As remarkable and even shocking as the above may be to some, it should be understood that far from being an isolated statement or simply an idea taken out of context, this is an idea that presents as a persistent theme throughout Jung’s work. For instance, in his 1939 essay on “The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation,” Jung similarly calls for a restoring of the outward spiritual to its ultimate place of origin within the psyche, that is to say specifically, the archetypal unconscious: Psychology accordingly treats all metaphysical claims and assertions as mental phenomena, and regards them as statements about the mind and its structure that derive ultimately from certain unconscious dispositions [namely the archetypes]. . . . I admit it is something of a sacrifice, inasmuch as we bid farewell to that miraculous world in which mind-created things and beings move and live. This is the world of the primitive, where even inanimate objects are endowed with a living, healing, magic power, through which they participate in us and we in them. Sooner or later we had to understand that their potency was really ours, and that their significance was our projection. The theory of knowledge is only the last step out of humanity’s childhood, out of a world where mind-created figures populated a metaphysical heaven and hell.22 For one exclusively to focus one’s investigation of the spiritual on an individual’s subjective, psychological experience of the spiritual, that is to say, on its phenomenology, is certainly one thing. When, however, one takes the further step of theorizing about the ultimate origins of the spiritual phenomena one is investigating, as Jung himself does, this is something altogether different. Indeed when Jung takes that further step, as he most certainly does, his science is no longer a science of mere phenomena, as he would claim it to be, rather his science and scientific theorizing pertain to the nature of Reality itself. And concerning Jung’s theorizing about the nature of Reality, despite the shell game that Jung and Jungians enter into concerning this question, the unadulterated position of the Jungian Paradigm is that all that exists outwardly is ultimately a projection of the inner world. The outward spiritual, we are told repeatedly, “derive[s] ultimately from certain unconscious dispositions.” Now this particular theory of Jung’s concerning the nature of Reality has not been lost on Jung’s followers, as it echoes to this day throughout the ever-burgeoning Jungian corpus. In his Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, Neumann, for example, in keeping with Jung’s theory about the na-

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ture of Reality writes: “Slowly but surely, the human race is withdrawing the psychological projections by means of which it had peopled the emptiness of the world with hierarchies of gods and spirits, heavens and hells; and now, with amazement, for the first time, it is experiencing the creative fullness of its own primal psychic Ground . . . the same creative Godhead, unformed and manifold, is emerging within the human mind, who previously filled the heavens and spheres of the universe around us.”23 Similarly, in his book A Strategy for a Loss of Faith, Dourley relates: “Jung’s psychology has contributed to this sharpened critique of religion by identifying its generative source in the archetypal power of the unconscious.”24 In an earlier work, The Illness That We Are: A Jungian Critique of Christianity, Dourley, writing again with reference to this same question, explains: “By placing the possibility and necessity of humanity’s religious experience in the processes of archetypal activity within the psyche, Jung identifies the archetypes as humanity’s God-makers and faith-givers.”25 Elsewhere in this same work, Dourley refers to that which he identifies as “Jung’s clearly stated location of the genesis of religious experience—and so of the Christian God as well as all the pagan Gods and Goddesses— within the human psyche.”26 Well it should be nothing less than self-evident at this point exactly why Jung found himself facing the accusation of psychologism, that is to say, the charge of reducing the spiritual strictly to the psychological. And it should be no less readily understood why the accusation of psychologism against Jung was so widespread and persistent. As I summarized in C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity: Homans . . . has identified this “reductive” aspect of Jung’s psychology of religion, as have Spinks, Hostie, Goldbrunner, and Wulff, to name but a few. The latter, we should recall, writes in his extensive survey of research in the psychology of religion that “Jung has . . . been sharply criticized for foreclosing the question of religion’s objective validity.” This same issue, we should note, was very much at the center of the bitter exchange that took place between Buber and Jung. With reference to what he regarded as Jung’s religious reductionism, Buber wrote: “If religion is a relation to psychic events, which cannot mean anything other than to events of one’s own soul, then it is implied by this that it is not a relation to a Being or Reality which, no matter how fully it may from time to time descend to the human soul, always remains transcendent to it. More precisely, it is not the relation of an I to a Thou.”27

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To put the problem raised by Buber somewhat differently, we might ask: If all people of the earth no longer existed would that to which humanity has referred as God or the gods cease to exist? Would spiritual Reality as it has made itself known to humanity cease to exist? In keeping with the assumptions of the Syndetic Paradigm, the answer would be a straightforward “no, they would continue to exist.” From the perspective of the Jungian Paradigm, however, the answer would have to be a straightforward “yes, they would cease to exist.” If indeed the psyche is the “location of the genesis of religious experience,” if indeed the archetypes are “humanity’s God-makers and faith-givers,” if indeed that which has been the spiritual reality of humanity “derive[s] ultimately from certain unconscious dispositions,” how could all that has been known to humanity as the spiritual not cease to exist if there were no longer any psyches remaining to produce the requisite projections? As deeply troubling as Jungian psychologism is to the Reality-line concerns of the Syndetic Paradigm, no less unsettling is the not unrelated Jungian paradigmatic assumption that nothing beyond the psyche can be validated as real. Where, the Syndetic Paradigm would ask, is the objective Reality line to be found in a psychology that is so radically inner-world orientated that it “holds,” as Jung himself relates, “that the mind cannot establish or assert anything beyond itself?”28 Where is it in a psychology that views grieving, as explained earlier in this work, largely, if not exclusively, as a process involving the withdrawing of one’s projections from the deceased? Are we truly nothing other than the projected value of others? Likewise is that to which humanity has referred as God truly, in its essence, nothing other than a projected value? Where is the Reality line to be found in a psychology that assigns such great importance to the psyche that it holds that nothing beyond it is essentially valid and meaningful? “According to the psychological standpoint,” Edinger tells us in his The Creation of Consciousness: Jung’s Myth for Modern Man, “man cannot get outside his own psyche. All experience is therefore psychic experience.”29 Following this same distinctive Jungian line of thinking, but even more disturbingly to the point, Lawrence W. Jaffe reflects in his Celebrating Soul: Preparing for the New Religion: “We cannot do without meaning in our lives. Meaning cannot be established objectively; it arises only through a relationship with the inner, subjective world.”30 Elsewhere in yet another of his books titled Liberating the Heart: Spirituality and Jungian Psychology, Jaffe similarly offers: “The restoration of meaning to our lives is the third essential component of Jung’s message. Meaning cannot be found in the objective world, it is wholly subjective.”31

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From the perspective of the Syndetic Paradigm, the Jungian paradigmatic assumption that nothing beyond the psyche can be validated as real and that meaning, moreover, as a consequence, can only be gleaned from relationship to the psyche itself, is so fundamentally dangerous and misguided it is hard to know where to begin in our response to it. Perhaps more so than with any other Jungian notion, if there is a place where Jungians find themselves on the brink of a full solipsistic split, if not in its midst, this is certainly it. We should not for a moment underestimate, for instance, how readily this Jungian notion becomes a license for pathologic subjectivism. Indeed the vulnerability of both Jung and Jungians in this regard has already been more than established through our above inquiry into their treatment of the story of Job, and the problem of evil more generally. Delusion supplants Reality, it was demonstrated, when under the sway of extreme subjectivistic proclivities as if becomes is. Quite specifically in this regard, the observation “it is as if God is evil,” is converted in the Jungian mind to “God is evil.” Concerning this problem of pathologic subjectivism, Jung and Jungians consistently have taken little care in distinguishing their descriptions of that which might be characterized as Reality-based psychic experiences from those that are entirely delusional. Jung may very much have hoped to establish the authenticity of psychic experience, the manifestations of which it should be noted he quite deliberately referred to as “facts,” but one invites confusion, if not psychosis, when one fails to distinguish carefully a psychic “fact” that is simply real enough to the subject from a psychic fact that is actually Reality based. Writing with reference to this very problem, Glover reflects: “Jung is never tired of emphasizing that a psychic event is an event; but he does not care to add that a true notion differs from a false notion though both exist as psychic events.”32 As misleading and even dangerous as this mind or word game is to play at times, Jungians never seem to tire of it. When Jaffe, for example, walks us through his definition of God, he holds nothing back in this regard. Jaffe begins by telling us: “God is unknown by definition because God is just that which falls outside the bounds of the ego (the conscious mind).” He further explains moving now in a more subjectivistic direction: “We are usually unaware of our highest value, but whatever it is, that is our God.” Jaffe then tells us, seemingly bringing a more Reality-based perspective to bear on things, that this “highest value” may in fact not be a real God, but a false one such as a complex. No sooner, however, is this important distinction made than objectivity, yet again, succumbs to that

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which can only be to the Jungian mind the irresistibly seductive pull of subjectivism. Indeed after having made such an important distinction, Jaffe, throwing objectivity completely to the wind, thinks nothing of following up with assertions such as “God is whatever defines a person’s reality.” “Whatever constructs our reality is our God.”33 Truly in my own work with analysands, I could never imagine making a statement such as this, nor could I imagine, for that matter, it ever being in the therapeutic/spiritual interest of any analysand for any analyst to do so. In my own analytical work, for instance, I have certainly said that complexes play a role in influencing an individual’s experience of God, that is to say, influencing how an individual views God. Complexes, in this respect, construct the filters through which our experiences of God pass, especially initially. But this is not at all to say that that which is so constructed is God. God, to be sure, in spite of what Jaffe would here have us believe to the contrary, should never be conceived of as whatever constructs one’s subjective reality, lest as if fraudulently becomes is. Moving from the dangerous to the misguided in our inquiry into the Jungian assertion that nothing beyond the psyche can be validated as real, it seems to me that if one were to give any serious thought at all to this notion one would be surprised at how quickly it collapses when appraised in terms of the understanding Jungians themselves have of the psyche. When Jaffe suggests, for example, “meaning cannot be found in the objective world since it is wholly subjective,” we could only imagine that “wholly subjective” refers to that which resides strictly within the psyche. Of course by Jungian theoretical standards it is no small backward leap to suggest information that is generated intrapsychically is “wholly subjective.” Yet this to be sure is exactly what Jaffe and other Jungians at times do. According to Jungian theory, as we know, the collective unconscious functions completely autonomously. The archetypes, furthermore, of which the collective unconscious consists, are never directly perceived by consciousness. The archetypes as such remain forever unknowable to the ego. The span, in this regard, separating the ego and the archetypal unconscious is arguably even greater and more unbridgeable than that which separates the ego and the outer world. Now the upshot of all of this is that if we are to concede, as we have no hesitation to do, that the “objective world,” that is to say, the outer world is not “me,” we certainly cannot turn around and describe the intrapsychic world, that is to say, the conscious and unconscious as a whole, as “me” either. And if, as would be true of an encounter with the inner world, it is then strictly not “my” experience, it is the case that the so-called wholly subjective knowledge, of which Jaffe speaks, is no more reliable as a source of meaning than that which is ac-

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quired by an individual through contact with the so-called objective world. The inner objective world, to redefine these terms, is no more directly within the realm of one’s subjective experience, and therefore no more directly knowable, than is the outer objective world. If we can’t get outside the psyche, I would conclude in response to Jaffe, Edinger and Jung, we definitely can’t get into it. Now what was established above will certainly not prove to be irrelevant to the discussion of the self that is to follow. For at the very core of the problem of the self as a spiritual dynamism is firstly the question of psychologistic reductionism, and secondly the question of how, if at all, this theoretical construct relates to Reality beyond the psyche. The word games enacted by Jung and Jungians, I will reiterate for the benefit of my reader, are endless, and the Jungian discussion of the self is no exception. The case in point concerns Jung’s characterization of the archetype of the self as the God-image. Clearly one cannot but conclude that in having selected such an obviously ambiguous phrasing to describe an archetype, Jung aspires to the theoretical equivalent of having his cake and eating it too. I will explain more fully. One of the most carefully drawn lines in Jung’s theoretical presentation was the line that he drew between the archetype as such and the archetypal image. The archetype as such, as was explained earlier in this work, is an innate compensatory factor of the collective unconscious that produces and conducts into the realm of ego-consciousness behaviors and meanings related to specific transpersonal themes. According to Jungian theory, the archetype as such never directly enters consciousness. Rather, the archetype fulfils its compensatory role through the activation of its related images that in turn move into consciousness. The archetypal image, in this respect, becomes a phenomenon within consciousness, whereas the archetype as such is an imperceptible and directly unknowable phenomenon of the collective unconsciousness. “The term ‘archetype,’” Jung writes with reference to this important distinction, “is often misunderstood as meaning a certain definite mythological image or motif. But this would be no more than a conscious representation. . . . The archetype is . . . an inherited tendency of the human mind to form representations of mythological motifs—representations that vary a great deal without losing their basic pattern.”34 Now the self is not an archetypal image, but an archetype. And it is not just any archetype at that. The self is the central ordering archetype around which all other archetypes are “organized and arranged.”35 In this capacity alone, the self is no small player in the Jungian theoretical scheme of things. Yet perhaps more importantly with regard to our specific con-

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cerns, Jung associates the self with the highest expressions of the spiritual or the Divine. And it is in this critical role that the self is clearly not to be conceived of as a single image of God, but rather as that within the collective unconscious that is the ultimate source of the multitudinous images of God. Of course it is at this very point that most individuals tend to ask: “Is then the self that to which others have referred throughout history as God?” In C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, I argued, drawing on Jung’s own theorizing about the self, yet going well beyond that to which Jung himself was inclined to commit, that yes the self as archetype is the equivalent of that to which others have referred as God.36 Yet my answer, I now understand even more fully than I did then, was just that— my answer as deduced from Jung’s writings. So as much as it is a theoretically plausible answer, it nevertheless is not the answer that either Jung or Jungians in the main offer. My answer, therefore, is not the answer of the Jungian Paradigm. What, then, we need to know is the answer of Jung and Jungians to this question, or more accurately, as I feel obliged to warn my reader, their nonanswer? In at least some of his writings on this question, Jung, as he should rightly do in keeping with his theoretical understanding of archetypes, speaks of the self as that out of which the God-images arise. For example in his essay “A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity,” Jung, notably moving along psychologistic lines, writes with reference to the origins of the theological concept of the Holy Ghost, in the first case, and the Trinity in the second: It could equally well owe its existence to a “revelation,” i.e., to an unconscious reflection, and hence to an autonomous functioning of the unconscious, or rather of the self, whose symbols, as we have already said, cannot be distinguished from the God-images. A religious interpretation will therefore insist that this hypostasis was a divine revelation. While it cannot raise any objections to such a notion, psychology must hold fast to the conceptual nature of the hypostasis for in the last analysis the Trinity, too, is an anthropomorphic configuration, gradually taking shape through strenuous mental and spiritual effort, even though already preformed by the timeless archetype.37 Firstly, it should be taken from the above that Jung, in truly psychologistic fashion, would have us understand that the “revelation [s]” of the Holy Ghost and Trinity “owe [their] existence” to an archetype. Secondly, it should be observed that Jung unequivocally identifies the arche-

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type of the self as that to which their existence is owed. Here, to be sure, Jung is not simply saying that the archetype of the self produces images that parallel the God-images, rather he is saying that the archetype of the self is the ultimate place of origin of the God-images. The images of the self, accordingly, as stated above, “cannot be distinguished from the Godimages” because they are one and the same, coming as they do from a common place of origin, namely, the archetype of the self. If, therefore, that which is the place of origin of the images of the self is equally the place of origin of the God-images and, for that matter, all expressions of the highest forms of spirituality and the Divine, if the archetype of the self constitutes, furthermore, according to Jung, the spiritus rector and ultimate goal of the psychological/spiritual journey he terms individuation, does it not seem more than conceivable that this source out of which the ultimate expressions and experiences of life and meaning issue might be the inner equivalent of that to which others have historically referred as God? Jung, it seems, has at the very least an aversion to acknowledging as much. And he certainly does not, moreover, wish to make it at all easy for his reader to do so either. In fact for no reason but that of attempting to conceal from the direct scrutiny of his readership the theoretically incontrovertible and otherwise obvious, Jung, in “answering” this highly critical question, resorts yet again to a terminological shell game. Indeed in complete contradiction of what he had already led us to believe about the archetype of the self, Jung, in the crafty manner of a shell game flurry, will reverse theoretical directions, even in the same essay, and suddenly begin to speak of the archetype of the self as an image, specifically, in terms of it being a or the God-image. Now Jungians might counter as I myself had once hoped to be the case that by this Jung is simply referring to the ancient concept of the imago Dei, that is to say, to a more dynamic spiritual force as opposed to a fixed image. This, however, is clearly not what Jung has in mind, since that to which Jung is now referring as an image is not only a single image, but also an image that directly presents in consciousness, and an archetype proper is neither. The absolute bottom line in all of this is that whenever it is to Jung’s advantage to conceal his theoretical position through reversal, as for example when he wishes to elude the critical God question, he has no reservations whatsoever about playing the shell game. For example, turning once again to Jung’s essay “A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity,” we should recall from the above that Jung speaks of the self as that “whose symbols . . . cannot be distinguished from the God-images.” The vast symbolism of the archetype of the self as such, in other words, includes the God-symbols or God-images. Similarly

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Jung writes in this same essay, “one can never distinguish empirically between a symbol of the self and a God-image.”38 Now no sooner has the vision of his reader become fixed on this particular conceptualization of the self when suddenly, with a deftness that is imperceptible to most, Jung manages to slip the self beneath a different theoretical shell altogether. “This archetypal idea [spiritual perfection] is a reflection,” Jung explains, “of the individual’s wholeness, i.e., of the self, which is present in him as an unconscious image.”39 Within this same essay Jung also writes: “The goal of psychological . . . development is self-realization or individuation. But since man knows himself only as an ego, and the self, as a totality, is indescribable and indistinguishable from a God-image, selfrealization—to put it in religious or metaphysical terms—amounts to God’s incarnation.”40 Now what does it mean for Jung to seek the theoretical equivalent of having one’s cake and eating it too? It means to be able to say whatever one wants to say about objective spirituality and its highest expressions— to be able to say whatever one wants to say about that to which others have throughout history referred as God—without having to claim, nor fully think through, nor possibly defend to religionists and others, what one has in fact said about God, much as we saw with Jung’s own dark treatment of the story of Job itself. How does one “rationalize” this Reality split to oneself and others? One does so through the self-deception, in one’s own case, and the illusion, in the case of others, that one is speaking only about the image—that is, the conscious manifestation of that to which others have referred as God when one is in fact speaking about the source, the place of origin of the God-image itself. It is rationalized through the self-deception and illusion that one is speaking about the phenomenology of humanity’s experience of God when in fact one is speaking about its ontology. Much as Jung himself did, and much as Jungians continue to do to this day, it is rationalized through the enactment of a theoretical shell game. “It would be a regrettable mistake,” Jung explained to an unsuspecting Yale University audience in 1937, “if anybody should take my observations as a kind of proof of the existence of God. They prove only the existence of an archetypal God-image, which to my mind is the most we can assert about God psychologically. But as it is a very important and influential archetype, its relatively frequent occurrence seems to be a noteworthy fact for any theologia naturalis. And since experience of this archetype has the quality of numinosity, often in a very high degree, it comes into the category of religious experiences.”41 Entirely in keeping with the biases of the Jungian collective consciousness, Jaffe, in his work Celebrating Soul: Preparing for the New Religion,

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provides us with an altogether typical Jungian conclusion as to why Jung “failed” in his attempt to bring about spiritual revolution. “Jung,” Jaffe tells us, “failed in his self-appointed task because of the difficulty, in this extraverted society, of retaining in consciousness the reality of the psyche.”42 Nothing, I would hope it is now clear to my reader, could be further from the truth. Jung’s failure to bring about spiritual revolution is certainly not attributable to the inability of culture to accept the authenticity of the psyche and descend into it with him. Jung’s failure, more specifically, is not attributable to the fact that culture could not endure Jung’s carrying of the spiritual into the psyche. Jung’s failure, rather, is entirely attributable to the theoretical shell game that he enacted, thereby precluding the necessary theoretical linking of the psyche to the objective spiritual. Writing with reference to this critical split in Jung’s theorizing about the self and God, Glover quite rightly concludes: Talk of God within means nothing if the idea of God without is not objectively true. Jung cannot perhaps be expected to determine whether it is objectively true or not. But at any rate his fundamental evasion of the issue cuts the ground from under his pretensions to be a spiritual guide. If it is not the psychologist’s business to investigate the objective truth of the existence of God, neither is it his business to build up a pseudo-religion out of primordial religious yearnings and a multitude of myths. It is no reward to seekers after the “meaning of life” to be invited to fill their bellies with the East wind, and like it. . . . the increasing support given to Jungian psychology by clerics can be regarded less as a tribute to Jung’s religiosity than as a reaction to Freud’s view that religion is one of the illusions wherewith man seeks to soften the asperities of life and to stay the fundamental discontents engendered by civilization. It is all the more necessary therefore to point out what is apparently effectively concealed in a mass of Jungian verbiage, that so far from being religious in tendency, Jung’s system is fundamentally irreligious. Nobody is to care whether God exists, Jung least of all. All that is necessary is to “experience” an “attitude” because it “helps one to live.”43 The notion that one might derive comfort from “spiritual” meanings and concepts that are in no way correlated to objective Reality is a notion that could only arise out of, and be sustained by, a mind utterly in the grip of the Romantic subjectivism characteristic of the Jungian Paradigm. It is a notion that is as dangerous as it is misguided, but it is not a notion from which Jungians should be expected to readily move. Paradigmatic leaps, it

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was explained earlier in this work, are not brought about through the linear progression of cumulative knowledge. This is because the assumptions of the paradigm within which knowledge is being processed—its scientific belief system—will invariably preclude the formation of developments that would precipitate such change. One way or another information that could potentially become a catalyst for paradigmatic change is invariably subjugated to the needs of the existing model, even if it results in the complete dismissal of that important information. While paradigmatic models, therefore, have the potential to make us conscious, they no less have the potential to keep us from becoming conscious. Indeed paradigmatic belief systems can knock consciousness out altogether. We can see such paradigmatic enmeshment at work in the following Jungian “explanation” of the God/self problem by Corbett. “An analogy,” Corbett tells us, clarifies the distinction between the metaphysical God and intrapsychic experiences of the Self. We must acknowledge that the taste of a bowl of soup is not the same as the soup itself, since the taste comes to us mediated through our perceptual apparatus and not directly. But we can enjoy and benefit from eating the soup without even knowing the recipe, much less the real nature of the soup. The exact relationship, and the ontological gap, between the soup and its taste is a problem for philosophers. As psychologists we can appreciate the effects of the experience of the divine as mediated through the psyche without needing to know anything about its absolute nature.44 Now something I need to point out right from the beginning is that with typical Jungian cunning—a cunning seemingly built into the Jungian collective consciousness itself—Corbett sets things up in terms of “the distinction between the metaphysical God and intrapsychic experiences of the Self,” thereby leaving out of the discussion and equation one of the most important factors, the archetype of the self as such. I will use Corbett’s own analogy to demonstrate the seriousness of this convenient oversight. I could agree with Corbett that we can enjoy the taste of soup without knowing the exact recipe. I could agree, furthermore, that what we experience as the taste of the soup may not be identical with the soup itself. The former is a tolerable information gap, whereas the latter is a tolerable and expected discrepancy, as with the discrepancy between an archetypal image and the archetype as such. This having been said, however, what we nevertheless do need to know is that that which tastes like soup is in fact soup. We would not be so content, I would suggest, with simply enjoying

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the taste of that which tastes like soup if we didn’t have some reliable assurance that it was in fact soup. Could one imagine the “Today’s Special” in a diner being “It tastes like soup.” “But is it soup?” “Well, we can’t say, but it tastes like soup.” “You can’t say, even though you made it yourself.” “We can’t say.” This is exactly the shell game enacted by Jungians. Yes, they love to tell us that their science is simply about monitoring how the soup tastes to everyone, but when it comes to the critical question of what ingredients have actually been put into that which tastes like soup they are offended that we should be so stupid to expect an answer. Yes, if the soup truly were simply a theological notion of God their offense would be justified. But the fact is that the soup is not that. The soup, rather, is something of their own theoretical making—the soup is the archetype of the self—and since it is of their own theoretical making, if they expect us to eat it, they had better be prepared to tell us what is in it. “It is no reward,” as Glover told us above, “to seekers after the ‘meaning of life’ to be invited to fill their bellies with the East wind, and like it.” Never through such a lame and unpersuasive theoretical initiative as this, I myself would add in having a different ultimate concern with this problem than Glover, could Jung’s vision concerning the healing of the spiritual wound of this age be achieved. In spite of all Jungian mythologizing to the contrary, Jung’s failure in bringing forth a much needed new spiritual consciousness is largely attributable to the fact that while Jung made progress in getting the spiritual into the psyche, he could not get the psyche into the objective spiritual, which is to say, into Reality itself. Returning then to where we began in this section, that is to say, to Jung’s contention that Analytical Psychology would provide the means by which the unprecedented spiritual crisis of modernity would be resolved, we are led to conclude, based not only on the research of this section but on all that has been brought to light in previous sections, that the Jungian Paradigm’s contribution can in no way be conceived of as a solution to this problem. The Jungian Paradigm, it is clear, fell far short of that which Jung had imagined it delivering in this regard. And perhaps even more importantly, especially when it comes to those who are presently seeking a way through this crisis of meaning, there should be no doubt that it falls shorter still of the greatly overstated assessment of its contribution promoted by Jungians today. “The magnitude of Jung’s life and work,” Edinger writes in keeping with the Jungian mythologizing about which I have serious concerns, “has not yet dawned on the world. Even some of his followers are reluctant to acknowledge his true dimensions. He is the carrier of a consciousness so magisterial that it has no peer.”45 Elsewhere Edinger

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reflects: “The epochal man is the first to experience and to articulate fully a new mode of existence. His life thus takes on an objective, impersonal meaning. It becomes a paradigm, the prototypical life of the new age and hence exemplary. Jung was aware of this fact concerning his own life.”46 Now when we are speaking in terms of a solution to the psychological/spiritual problem of this age, what we would have in mind is nothing less than a psychological/spiritual paradigm through which the specific psychological/spiritual challenges of this age can be received, held in consciousness, and productively processed. Edinger, as is obvious enough from the above, held the Jungian Paradigm to be such a container. The Syndetic Paradigm, as we know, believes otherwise, and it is of no small importance to understand exactly why it does. Certainly one of the most erroneous and thus truly unproductive preconceived notions among readers in the area of the psychology of religion has been unconditionally to regard Jung as the sponsor of the spiritual enlightenment of this age while unconditionally condemning Freud as its enemy. In contrast to this almost universally endorsed assessment of the work of these two men, the Syndetic Paradigm holds that even though a discrepancy obviously exists between the Freudian and Jungian Paradigms when it comes to holding in consciousness the spiritual import of the problem under consideration, the two paradigms are pretty much equal in their respective contributions when it comes to the resolving of this problem. The fact that Freud himself did not conceive of his work as being of spiritual import, does not, the Syndetic Paradigm would suggest, necessarily mean that it is not of such import. Perhaps the Syndetic Paradigm could come to this assessment because it is untouched by the darker side of the Freudian/Jungian polemic. Perhaps it is because the Syndetic Paradigm, unlike the Jungian Paradigm, has reached a theoretical understanding that allows it to appreciate and incorporate Freudian fact and theory. Perhaps beyond these two important considerations, it is because the Syndetic Paradigm, in keeping with its core assumption of nature spontaneously self-organizing, seeks all manifestations of that compensatory unfoldment. If humanity is indeed gripped by a spiritual crisis of the proportions it seems to be, is it not utterly inconsistent with the assumption of self-organization to imagine that a work of the gravity of Freud’s would not stand to contribute greatly to the resolving of this problem? A work of the magnitude of Freud’s, which there can be no doubt impressively takes up the problem of meaning in its own way, would never, according to self-organizing dynamics, arise in complete isolation, but rather, would necessarily be woven inextricably into the solution being offered us by unfolding Reality.

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When Jung wrote beneath his mandalic painting of the golden, wellfortified castle “ecclessia catholica et protestantes et seclusi in secreto. Aeon finitus,” he couldn’t have been more right about the spiritual turning point humanity had reached. The spiritual age in which humanity had been living had indeed ended. What Jung, however, did not understand, and what Jungians following after him have failed to understand is that the “solution” to the spiritual problem Jung single-handedly so directly brought to consciousness in our culture was already taking shape in the work of Freud prior to Jung’s own initiative. And what Jung and Jungians further failed to understand, even more importantly, is that no solution would ever come from a paradigm that could not consolidate those essential Freudian pieces in a single theoretical model. Under the auspices of self-organizing nature, in the specific forms of their respective methodologies, both the Freudian and Jungian Paradigms came to hold key pieces of the theoretical puzzle. The insurmountable problem to date, however, has been that neither paradigm is sufficiently progressed to assimilate the critical pieces held by the other. Neither, to put it differently, has been able to provide a table of sufficient size upon which the theoretical pieces of the puzzle held by each of them, not to speak of the pieces which we are now about to add, might be placed and assembled. If indeed a paradigm is to serve as a container for the solution to the spiritual problem of which Jung spoke as early as 1928, it will only do so, as noted above, if it is sufficiently comprehensive to receive, hold in consciousness, and in turn facilitate the creative processing of the unique psychological/spiritual challenges of this new age. But what specifically, we most certainly now need to know, are these unprecedented challenges? In the appraisal of the Syndetic Paradigm, they are as follows: firstly, that the psychological and spiritual be viewed and treated as one and the same; secondly, that a morality that is nature based emerge; thirdly, that the feminine principle of relatedness that exists in its own right as a dynamic in nature be incorporated into that which has been a largely masculine principle-governed worldview; fourthly, that the body and sexuality become mediums of spiritual cultivation; fifthly, that the inner and outer worlds be experienced as the one seamless whole that they are; and sixthly that there be a direct knowing of Reality beyond fixed form. In spite of all pretences on the part of both Jung and Jungians to the contrary, it is more than clear that the Jungian Paradigm has not even come close to realizing the above-described psychological/spiritual container. Certainly it has contributed greatly to its actualization, as the Freudian Paradigm has itself done to a somewhat lesser degree albeit inadvertently, but there can be no question that it has fallen far short of es-

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tablishing, as Edinger and other Jungians would have us imagine, the exemplary model, the definitive paradigm through which the psychological/spiritual challenges of the new age will be processed and resolved. We can discuss this shortcoming of the Jungian Paradigm in terms of each of the six points. Turning first to the problem of desegregating the psychological and spiritual, it is a curious fact that Freud, much more so than Jung, was the one to progress things along these lines. Indeed whereas Freud in his study of the neurotic dimensions of spiritual experience broke through the collective taboo against linking the psychological and the spiritual, Jung’s own theoretical work in this area had very much the opposite effect. If anything, under Jungian theoretical influences the taboo against linking the psychological and spiritual was reinforced. Clearly what purpose could possibly have been served by Jung’s theoretical treatment of the archetype of the self, not to speak of the more general Jungian psychologistic shunning of all discussions of the “objective spiritual,” other than that of segregation? Instead of bringing together the psychological and spiritual, Jung ensured their absolute division. Rather than resolving a problem by which humanity was and is to this day afflicted, Jung actually contributed to it. Rather than progressing humanity in its evolutionary quest for a more inclusive, comprehensive understanding of the spiritual, Jung, by way of his split-off notions of the “spiritual,” divided the personality against itself and Reality, thus providing theoretical license to the very forms of psychopathology that Freud in his own work did so very much to keep in check. Concerning the second component of the psychological/spiritual container with which we are concerned, the emergence of a nature-based morality, it should be recalled that it was carefully established above how Jung in his 50/50 formula about the self produced a model of morality that is disturbingly comparable to that which Freud himself constructed. This connection to Freud’s work has of course been lost on Jungians, being consumed as they are with the novelty of Jung’s formulation rather than its ultimate implications. But if we are to reach beyond the novelty to the ultimate direction of Jung’s theorizing in this regard, there can be no doubt that Jung’s 50/50 formula of the self situates moral direction and authority, not within the self-organizing workings of nature, as the Syndetic Paradigm itself does, but rather within the realm of the ego, as Freud so cogently sought to establish. Accordingly, much as Freud himself would have us understand that we need civilization to defend us against nature; Jung, no less moving toward the same ultimate point, would have us understand that only man—that is to say, ego-based human conscience—can defend

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us against the immorality intrinsic to nature, the self, and indeed God. And it is here in the form of this core paradigmatic assumption that the possibility of any genuine Jungian contribution to this second constituent of our psychological/spiritual container is foreclosed. Now if unconditional credit is due Jung, it is due in connection with his contribution to the third component of our psychological/spiritual container. Specifically, it is due for Jung’s theoretical acknowledgment of the feminine principle. Progressing beyond Freud’s exclusive masculine principle orientation, Jung, in both theory and practice, placed feminine principle functioning in the realm of psychological/spiritual dynamics. Understanding and holding consciously in balance masculine and feminine dynamics is clearly a central concern of the above cultivative model. In advancing our understanding of the presence and workings of these dynamics as he did, Jung’s contribution is singular. Concerning the fourth component of our psychological/spiritual model in which the body and sexuality become mediums of spiritual cultivation, two reflections come to mind, one pertaining to Jung and one to Freud. As much as Jung understood that the spiritual in the new consciousness would not denote an experience of disembodied spirit, as has largely been the case in our culture, but rather, would denote a state of spirit grounded in instinct, as much, moreover, as Jung knew that a type of reanimation or spiritualization of the body was needing to occur to bring this about, the Jungian Paradigm itself would offer little, if anything, to support this psychological/spiritual outcome. In the final analysis, Jung’s contribution to the critical problem would amount to little more than a relatively small collection of generalizations about the body and sexuality. Freud as we know, by contrast, took on the problem of sexuality fully and directly and, in so doing, propelled our culture into a whole new dimension of understanding of this problem. However, as extraordinary as Freud’s efforts were in this regard, and as significant as his contribution has been, Freud, as was carefully explained above, failed to progress in his theorizing about human sexuality beyond the pathologic to the cultivative. As a consequence, Freud’s efforts fell far short of providing humanity with the means to meet the unprecedented psychological/spiritual demands for sexual wholeness that this present age so unequivocally places upon it. Regarding the fifth component of our psychological/spiritual model, it should be recalled that the despiritualization of nature through science was described above as a defining influence on the work of both Freud and Jung. Freud’s reaction to this movement was to extend this process in his own analytical engagement with the psyche. Jung’s response, on the other hand, was to “rescue” the spiritual through its psychologization. Now even

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though this was, in the main, where the works of both Freud and Jung were to be positioned on the question of the spiritual, it was nevertheless true that both men had glimpses of an altogether different path—a path to which neither would find his way given paradigmatic limitations—a path to which their disciples would never find their ways given their dogmatic embracing of these same limitations. Freud’s glimpse, and it was a very clear one I believe, came to him through his study of the problem of telepathy.47 Jung’s, of course, came to him through his work on the problem of synchronicity. What both at least momentarily beheld, yet never would be positioned in their respective theoretical works to follow, was, I would submit, the presence of an objective meaning in extrapsychic Reality. What both momentarily beheld, I would submit, was the presence of the objective spiritual to which humanity’s relationship has been so violently curtailed under the influences and indeed limitations of current scientific trends. Much more so than in the times of Freud and Jung, today, in keeping with the psychological/spiritual demands of the new age that is all the more upon us, we are called to find our way to that path which was merely glimpsed by these two men. No, accordingly, this is not as Jungians have concluded the age of the Psychological Dispensation, for the meaning of which we are in pursuit goes infinitely beyond that which is denoted by such a designation. To be sure, we are in pursuit of a new meaning, but the meaning of which we are in pursuit is certainly not a meaning that is strictly intrapsychic or psychological. Rather, the meaning of which we are in pursuit, in keeping with the psychological/spiritual demands of this new age, is a meaning that exists and presents as much outwardly or extrapsychically as it does inwardly or intrapsychically. No, in the estimation of the Syndetic Paradigm, this is not the age of the Psychological Dispensation. This new spiritual age, rather, is the age of the Consciousness Dispensation, for this is the age in which we are called upon to enter into relationship, not just with the consciousness that presents within us psychologically, but also, with the consciousness that is intrinsic to the spontaneous, self-organizing properties of nature in its entirety. Now although we will be discussing in detail later in this work the sixth and final component of our psychological/spiritual model, I will nevertheless offer at this point some brief reflections. The sixth component of our psychological/spiritual model pertains to the engagement with Reality beyond fixed form. Most probably, this was where Jung himself was being led through his notion of immediate religious experience. Yet it certainly was not, as we know, where Jung ended

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up arriving. Along the way, as explained earlier, Jung became enmeshed in the archetypal realm to the extent that rather than viewing the archetype as an instrument of unfolding Reality he wrongly came to treat it both in theory and in practice as Reality. Rather than turning his gaze toward selforganizing Reality as it moved through archetypal theme, Jung’s gaze fell exclusively upon archetypal theme itself. Rather than concerning himself with the analysis of the archetypal content of unfolding Reality, Jung spoke of its archetypal basis. Now as subtle and even innocuous as such a shift from content to basis may at times seem to be, it is a shift that is not without profound implications for Reality-line functioning. Indeed to the extent that one holds the archetypal to be the basis of Reality, a very brutal reducing and compartmentalizing of unfolding Reality to the archetypal occurs. Among Jungians such compartmentalizing of Reality has tended to take two forms. Firstly, when presented with the compensatory manifestations of selforganizing Reality, archetypal content tends either to be weighed too heavily or, even more seriously, related to exclusively at the loss of all else. Secondly, given the highly Romantic orientation of the Jungian Paradigm, it may well be the case that compensatory dynamics as such will not even enter into the picture and compartmentalization will simply take the form of a characteristically Jungian type of transpersonal or archetypal free association. Clearly if one is sufficiently inclined to do so one can produce, through a type of transpersonal or archetypal free association, an archetypal theme upon which one can hang just about anything. And to most individuals, sadly enough, who have experienced no better in a compensatory way, such an experience of free association to the transpersonal will probably seem to be “meaningful” enough. However, and this is a point of no small importance, there should be no doubt that such a free associative ride on the merry-go-round of archetypal theme in any way approximates that which comes through the transformative power of the meaning attending a direct experience of unfolding Reality. Even though archetypal meaning is very much a dynamism in its own right, once it is compartmentalized in either of the above-described manners, it nevertheless does become separated from the larger more comprehensive context of meaning in which its appearance is in service. It is still an archetypal theme, but it is one, to be sure, without context. As such it is a mere parody of its former state. It remains a dynamism of transpersonal meaning, but it is a dynamism of transpersonal meaning hanging precariously in a state of suspension above the flow of life and Reality. It is in short

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a transpersonal meaning that has lost its status as a compensatory meaning through which self-organizing Reality directly makes itself known to us. Given, therefore, this characteristic Jungian penchant for archetypal compartmentalization, it should come as no surprise that the very essence of immediate religious experience—that is to say, the experience of an engagement with Reality beyond fixed form—would never come to consciousness in the Jungian Paradigm. Whether we are talking about the archetypalization of Reality in general, whether we are talking about the archetypalization of the spiritual process and its ultimate goal in terms of the fixed form of the archetype of the self, or whether we are talking about the archetypalization of already existing fixed religious forms and symbols, which truly were, I would emphasize, that into which the last relics of Jungian immediate religious experience finally digressed, we are talking about the reinforcing of that which compartmentalizes, fixes, and thus separates us from the dynamic flow of unfolding Reality. Transpersonal generalities, separated as they are from the dynamic compensatory flow of unfolding Reality, invariably function as fixed forms. For Jung immediate religious experience was never about a direct encounter with unfolding Reality beyond fixed form; rather it was about an encounter with archetypal meaning. Accordingly, rather than precipitating a true spiritual revolution as he intimated to his Yale audience he was about to do, all that Jung could accomplish was to embellish archetypally, and thus make somewhat more tolerable, the fixed forms and dogmas of the old spiritual paradigm. Rather than liberating a culture from the confines of fixed form and dogma as he told his Yale University audience he would do, all that Jung accomplished was to put those cultural remnants on life support. As much, therefore, as Jung, through a process of archetypalization, made the old paradigmatic notion of the spiritual more real, the objective of the Syndetic Paradigm, by contrast, is to enable Reality itself to appear. If anything is the quintessential problem of the psychological/spiritual paradigm of this new spiritual age, it is just that. It is the unprecedented problem of finding our way beyond fixed form to the meaning that attends a direct and ongoing encounter with self-organizing Reality. Having thus summarized the core attributes of the psychological/ spiritual problem of this age, what we need now to understand, if we are to grasp fully the true complexities of our functional engagement with this problem, is the vital role assigned to the ego and the dynamics of its differentiation by the Syndetic Paradigm. The Syndetic Paradigm, it should be said by way of opening this discussion, is concerned with the differentiation of the ego in a manner in

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which neither the Freudian nor Jungian systems are. Paradigmatic assumptions, as has been emphasized throughout this work, determine therapeutic direction, and the therapeutic expectations of the Freudian, Jungian, and Syndetic Paradigms with respect to the differentiation of the ego are no exception to this rule. Within the Freudian system, the differentiation of the ego occurs against the backdrop of a paradigmatic assumption that holds there to be no meaning other than that which is carried or embodied by the ego. There is no meaning, in other words, that is transcendent to the ego. Living meaningfully is simply a question of the ego’s ability to strike a workable balance between the unlimited and very threatening drives of the instinctual forces of the personality, on the one hand, and the demands for societal adaptation on the other. It is about the ego’s ability to gratify instinctual demands while operating within the confines of societal norms. It is about, more specifically, the successful facilitation on the part of the ego of the movement of instinctual energies from that of pleasure-principle functioning to that of reality-principle functioning. For Freud, the predicament of the ego is indeed that of an island of suffering in a sea of indifference.48 For Freud, meaning comes only in the form of the ego’s ability to endure in isolation the inevitable and ultimately unresolvable tensions of life. Now as we have learned from the preceding sections of this work, the position of the Jungian Paradigm stands very much in contrast to this. Whereas the Freudian Paradigm pursues no meaning beyond that which is generated by the ego, the Jungian Paradigm quite unequivocally does. Transcendent to the ego, there exists within the Jungian Paradigm the altogether objective meaning of the archetypal realm. Accordingly, even though the ego will necessarily undergo suffering in the course of its journey through this life, it will not do so in utter isolation, as Freudians themselves would maintain, since it stands within a greater, objective context of transcendent meaning of which it can potentially become conscious. For the Jungian Paradigm, therefore, unlike its Freudian counterpart, meaning has far less to do with the moral fiber generated by way of the ego’s steadfastness under circumstances of adversity than it has to do with the ego’s ability to bring to consciousness the sacred circle of archetypal meaning within which its experience is contained. Given, then, these not insignificant differences in their respective paradigmatic assumptions about the ego, we can understand how the Freudian and Jungian systems would have come to follow dissimilar paths in their therapeutic approaches to the problem of the ego and its differentiation. For the Freudian Paradigm, more specifically, in that the differentiation and strengthening of the ego was viewed as an end in it-

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self, the ego itself became the object of direct and thorough analysis. For the Jungian Paradigm, in contrast to this, in that the differentiation of the ego was but the means to another end, in that the ego was but a steppingstone to the greater archetypal realm and its meaning, the differentiation of the ego received only minimal attention. For the Freudian Paradigm, since meaning was about nothing other than the ego’s endurance, absolute therapeutic priority was given to that which would enable the ego to endure. Freudians, to this end, dedicated themselves to the microscopic investigation of the ego’s strengths, weaknesses, and pathologies. For the Jungian Paradigm, on the other hand, since ultimate meaning was found not in the endurance of the ego as such, but rather, in the ego’s relationship to the archetypal realm, Jungian therapeutic focus turned to the less demanding task of the development of an ego that would be sufficiently differentiated to sustain a nonpathologic, or specifically in Jungian terms, a noninflationary relationship to the archetypes. “The basic problem for the adult,” Edinger writes with reference to the question of ego differentiation in his highly regarded work Ego and Archetype, “is how to achieve the union with nature and the gods, with which the child starts, without bringing about the inflation of identification.”49 Now although Freudians obtained by way of their paradigmatic assumptions unprecedented insight into the pathologies of the ego and its dynamics, an obvious therapeutic limitation was that all points of access to experiences of depth meaning beyond the ego were to remain sealed. Concerning Jungian therapeutic limitations, on the other hand, as much as meaning transcendent to the ego would be therapeutically pursued, a less obvious, but nonetheless, critical limitation would be that the Jungian failure to approach that meaning systematically, by way of a multidimensional working through of the pathologies of the ego, would preclude a completely genuine, experiential realization of it. What had the potential to become in this regard a fully differentiated, depth encounter with transpersonal meaning would become for the individual but an experience of transpersonal window dressing. What had the potential to become a truly transformative encounter with differentiated transpersonal meaning would be altogether lost to the Jungian therapeutic imposition of transpersonal generalities. Very much in contrast, therefore, to the above-stated assumptions and therapeutic limitations of the Freudian and Jungian systems, the Syndetic Paradigm holds that not only is all of life, that is to say, nature in its entirety, bound together in a highly complex whole through an ongoing process of spontaneous self-organization, but, moreover, that the only true

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point of conscious entry into this self-organizing totality, that is to say, the only true point of conscious entry into the sacred circle of nature in its entirety, is the developmental edge of the differentiating ego. Commensurate, then, with the hitherto unacknowledged processing demands placed upon the ego by self-organizing Reality, the Syndetic Paradigm has taken both a bidirectional and multidimensional approach to the problem of the ego and its differentiation. Concerning the former, the Syndetic Paradigm employs the technical designations of ego control and ego strength to denote undifferentiated and differentiated modes of ego functioning, respectively. Concerning the latter, the Syndetic Paradigm pursues the problem of ego control and ego strength in the context of four nonexclusive sets of dysfunctional/functional orientations. They are, respectively, as follows: Unrelatedness versus Relatedness, Externalization versus Autonomy, Disintegration versus Integration, and Concretization versus Dynamic Meaning. Much as the performance of the most sophisticated computer is subject to the processing limitations of the software under which it is operating, so too, we can say, is the personality subject to the limitations of the processing capabilities of the ego. Not only is the ego that through which the myriad experiences of the individual are processed, but it is that through which the intrapsychic and extrapsychic compensatory input of self-organizing nature is processed as well. Whether or not, therefore, we are talking about the most basic and seemingly insignificant of daily tasks, or whether we are talking about the great spiritual journey of the soul through this life, and even possibly other lives, the degree to which the ego will fail to comprehend or even run resistance on the solution being held out to it by self-organizing Reality versus the degree to which it will receive and process this solution, the degree to which it will, in other words, rely on either ego control or ego strength in meeting its processing needs is, to the Syndetic Paradigm, a matter of no small importance. Ego control is about psychopathology. Now although, of course, it more often than not presents in a form that would not be “certifiable,” the “certifiable” is to be found somewhere along the same continuum. Ego control is about power. Ego strength is about meaning. Ego control is about exclusivity in that it is about the meeting of the narrow objectives and needs of one individual. Ego strength is about inclusivity in that it is about processing and holding in consciousness the comprehensive and inclusive meaning of self-organizing nature. Ego strength opens life to one. Ego control blocks life out, and typically it does so, I would add, unbeknownst to the subject and even contrary to that same individual’s otherwise good in-

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tentions. For instance, under the influences of ego control, the genuine and even admirable desire for meaning and order typically will assume the highly detrimental form of perfectionism. By way of perfectionism, ego control seeks to impose its order on life. Ego strength, by contrast, acts in service of the order of life. The chart that appears opposite is intended to provide an overview of the dynamics of ego control and ego strength as they present in relationship to the four personality orientations already noted above. First and foremost, I should emphasize, the following is probably best conceived of as a type of work in progress in that I would not rule out the possibility of these categories being subject to revision over time. Secondly, as also already indicated above, it needs to be borne in mind that the categories themselves are not necessarily exclusive of each other. Behaviors and cognitions, in this respect, may fall under more than one category. Idealism, for instance, may very well be a specific form of externalization under certain circumstances, but it could equally present as an operative form of concretization. Furthermore, it might also be the case that behaviors and cognitions that have their beginnings in one category may, as a consequence of their deepening pathologization, pass into another category altogether. Behaviors and cognitions, we can therefore say at this point by way of summation, are placed in one of four nonexclusive sets of dysfunctional/functional orientations on the basis of that which best identifies the ego control/ego strength dynamic at their core. Something further of which one needs to be aware concerning this chart is that in keeping with the assumptions of the Syndetic Paradigm all categories of ego strength are understood ultimately to have their ground in self-organizing Reality. So for example, when we speak of the polarity of externalization/autonomy, even though the latter, which pertains to ego strength, may at first glance appear to refer to a type of isolationism, it refers to nothing of the sort. Autonomy, rather, refers to a heightened experience of individuality whose developmental points of reference are to be found within the compensatory workings of self-organizing nature itself. For the Syndetic Paradigm, I would offer in bringing my introductory remarks to a close, the journey from ego control to ego strength constitutes the core problem of life itself. Whether we consciously commit ourselves to its realization or whether we have to be pulled along against our wills, there should be no doubt that this is the task of tasks that stands before us as our invariable destiny. Whether it comes to us in the most seemingly insignificant of our daily activities, whether it comes to us in the form of the challenges of intimacy and relationship, whether it comes to us in the form of traumatization or whether it comes to us in the form of

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the quest for enlightenment itself, it comes to us as our deepest, most immediate, and most genuinely real spiritual challenge. Life, we will indeed be either troubled or heartened to know, is a conspiracy to break down the ego’s false sense of control. EGO CONTROL

EGO STRENGTH

Unrelatedness

Relatedness •egocentric willfulness

•will in harmony with self-organizing dynamics •genuinely supporting others both actively and passively •goal and process as one •beyond win/lose dynamic

•imposing oneself on others through active and/or passive uses of power •goal orientation only •win/lose dynamic only Externalization

Autonomy •moral inferiority/ illegitimacy •external energization only •unable to commit/ love •seeking escape and/ or vicarious atonement through the “other” [addictions, collective ideals and ideologies, etc.] •seeking and needing collective definition and approval [persona, materialism, etc.]

Disintegration

•moral containment by way of nature •internal and external energization •unshakable resolve/ love •accountability for one’s successes/ failures

•beyond collective standards of success and failure Integration

•tendency to be assimilated by life’s vagaries •vulnerability to psychic collapse, psychic leakiness, self-pity and/or arrested anger •oriented to disorder [order to chaos]

•ability to assimilate life’s vagaries •ability to hold firm and process through shocking events and experiences •oriented to order [chaos to order]

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EGO CONTROL

EGO STRENGTH

Concretization •concretization of unfolding Reality

•entrapment in fixed forms

•slicing of Reality along lines of political, cultural, religious concretizations, including archetypalism •clinging to the false certainties of false absolutes

Dynamic Meaning •orientation to meaning whose basis is the dynamic process of selforganizing Reality •beyond the fixed forms of secular and religious ideological concretizations •Reality-line functioning

Relatedness/Unrelatedness Although the Chinese term kung fu has become within the collective consciousness of the Western world exclusively associated with the Chinese martial arts, it is a term whose actual meaning is not confined to them. As much as kung fu denotes a requisite skill of the advanced performance of the Chinese martial arts, it no less denotes within Chinese culture a consciousness and skill that is present in the higher-level performance of any task in life. When it comes to the term kung fu, therefore, it is not so much a question of what one is doing, but rather how one is doing it. In his luminous work Zen and Japanese Culture, Daisetz T. Suzuki artfully defines kung fu, which in the Japanese is termed kufu, as the ability to “[employ] oneself assiduously to discover the way to the objective.”50 Now what is particularly striking about this definition is how fully it exemplifies the qualities that attend the ego strength orientation of relatedness. In Suzuki’s definition, specifically, we are given a formula for a creative, forward-moving dynamic that is equally grounded in masculine and feminine principle functioning. On the one hand, consistent with masculine principle functioning, there can be no doubt about just how firm one’s resolve is called upon to be in pursuit of the goal. On the other hand, there can equally be no doubt that the pursuit of the goal is not to be undertaken in a manner that would in any way be to the detriment of feminine

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principle receptivity. Concerning the masculine principle piece of the formula, kung fu is about the ability to apply oneself assiduously, that is to say, without interruption. It is about the full application of will in pursuit of goal. But, as we also know in turning to the feminine principle component of the formula, Suzuki’s definition doesn’t end there without a critical qualification. Kung fu, we are told, is not simply about the unwavering pursuit of goal as such, rather it is about the unwavering commitment to discover the way—through feminine principle receptivity, we would add— to the goal. Now although masculine and feminine principle unrelatedness are inseparably linked and as such can be conceived of as opposite sides of the same coin, we nevertheless need to identify them as problems in their own right if we are to address therapeutically the dysfunctionality that they uniquely present. Along this line, when we speak of masculine principle unrelatedness, regardless of whether we are speaking of it with reference to men or women, what we have in mind is the positive and active masculine principle attribute of goal orientation succumbing to the excessively narrow, self-serving power drives characteristic of ego control. When we speak, on the other hand, of unrelatedness in association with the feminine principle of receptivity, once again regardless of whether we are speaking of it with reference to men or women, what we have in mind is the constricting if not outright devouring of life in process. I will turn first to the problem of masculine principle unrelatedness. In section sixty-nine of the Chinese classic the Tao Te Ching, that which we have identified as the problem of unrelated versus related masculine principle functioning is taken up in the following manner. The text reads: There is a saying among soldiers: I dare not make the first move but would rather play the guest; I dare not advance an inch but would rather withdraw a foot. This is called marching without appearing to move, Rolling up your sleeves without showing your arm, Capturing the enemy without attacking, Being armed without weapons. There is no greater catastrophe than underestimating the enemy. By underestimating the enemy, I almost lose what I value.

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In Chinese philosophy there is a term that literally translates as nonaction, but in fact denotes a unique type of action. The term is wu-wei.52 Now because that to which wu-wei refers is not an action initiated by the individual as such, that is to say for us, not an action within the realm of ego control, but rather, an action that is in harmony with the way of nature itself, the term carries the critical Chinese philosophical idea of action through nonaction. Wu-wei, we could say in further linking this key philosophical concept to our own model, ultimately pertains, not to unrelated masculine principle functioning through ego control, but rather to related masculine principle functioning through ego strength. In the above passage, accordingly, although the very greatest care is taken to caution against the error of unmeasured or unrelated action, the text is certainly not advising that no action at all is to be taken should circumstances require as much. The Taoist notion of wu-wei is not in this respect about unconditional submissiveness, nor is it about pacifism. Rather the correct response is to act when threatened with violence or even war. The correct response is to act, but not unconsciously, nor out of projection, nor out of power, nor out of anger, nor out of a desire to destroy; in short, one is not to act out of ego control. Beginning with the very first paragraph, the fact that withdrawal is to be preferred over advancing is certainly an admonition that one is to move forward in the most heightened state of receptivity possible. No less is this true of the statement that one should assume the role of guest over that of initiator. Here the crucial directive of the text is for one to be sufficiently patient and receptive so that things might be understood and acted upon in terms of the way of nature. “This is called,” the text tells us in keeping with the philosophical concept of wu-wei, “marching without appearing to move, rolling up your sleeves without showing your arm.” Now for an individual to engage nature in the manner that the text counsels, one will first need to come to that level of consciousness and balance by way of the deepest levels of one’s own being. If relatedness to that which is before one outwardly is to be of any consequence, it needs to proceed from the inside out. This is especially true in situations of conflict. We can imagine, for instance, when tensions exist between two individuals, how just one unconscious shadow hook could quickly and irreversibly propel consciousness into the grip of ego control. The shadow, as we have seen, constitutes an enormous ethical challenge. To the extent we come to know and relate to our deeper selves, we come to know it. To the extent

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we come to know our own shadows, we come to know and understand the shadows of others. Self-knowledge, to be sure, comes at no small price, yet it is the price that must be paid to achieve depth relatedness to oneself, others, and nature as a whole. I have observed on several occasions how the predicaments of individuals who would have been facing the next day at their places of work confrontational situations, were altered completely once the dynamics of the conflict were understood from the inside out, which is to say in these instances, in terms of their own shadow involvements. Quite remarkably, as soon as the power dynamic was defused intrapsychically, the power dynamic was taken out of the unfolding situation as a whole. So much so that when the analysands would arrive at work the next day, although things still needed to be talked through, the dreaded problem itself, to all intents and purposes, simply no longer existed. This, we should understand, is what is meant when the text speaks of “capturing the enemy without attacking.”53 As much, then, as it is clearly in the best interests of both men and women to make their way from an orientation of unrelated to related masculine principle functioning, as much as it is to their benefit to shift from a position of ego control to that of ego strength, it is not a shift to which people readily avail themselves. Ego control is never readily surrendered, since there certainly were very real reasons for it to have been clung to in the first place. Ego control, for instance, may have been one’s only means of defense against the circumstances of one’s childhood. The false promise of ego control in this respect, especially as it concerns masculine principle unrelatedness, would have been that if one would only work hard enough, manage things well enough, and/or move fast enough in pursuit of one’s chosen goal, one would negate the problem presented by one’s familial environment. The compensatory experience of an analysand comes to mind. The analysand, it should be explained, was consciously engaged at the time of this event in the process of shifting his masculine principle functioning from that of an orientation of unrelatedness to relatedness. Much as was outlined above, as a direct response to the familial dysfunctionality of his childhood, the analysand had developed an almost unstoppable drive to do. As a child, for instance, it was often a struggle for him simply to allow himself to relax sufficiently to fall asleep. As he himself put it during a session, as a child trying to fall asleep at night, his conscious experience was that of not being able to ‘let the world stop.” In the years that were to follow, in his working life as an adult, it was no different. In his career he became a strong driver. Hard work had brought him considerable success,

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yet it was becoming increasingly apparent that that success was being achieved to his own physical and emotional detriment. Hoping to counter this imbalance, I had given him some instruction in the martial arts and meditation as means of deepening his experience of self-relationship. Curiously enough, it was during the very first session in which we sat in meditation that something of great significance came to light. Prior to that session I explained to the analysand how meditation provides one with the opportunity to become conscious of that which is being carried within oneself at the unconscious level. When practiced at transitional points in the day, accordingly, such as at the conclusion of one’s time at the office, meditation can release one from problems that would otherwise be unknowingly carried from the office to home. When psychic energy is being dedicated to a problem that is not in consciousness, the implications for one’s overall energy are not insignificant. Tensions will be created within the psyche and those tensions will in turn, as we have seen elsewhere in this work, seek to be secondarily discharged. In the case of this particular type of individual, the presence of such unconscious tensions will likely result in him or her being driven to do all the more. Goals and schedules having been co-opted by ego control, function for such individuals, after all, as their means of defense against life, rather than as their means of accessing it. One dream in particular bore this out. Not insignificantly, it followed a tragic event. During the evening of the day in which he had been informed of the unexpected loss of a close friend’s child, the analysand dreamed the following. He was sitting in a field in a circle with other employees of his company. Suddenly everything shifted and he was in a tent. Yet now instead of being dressed casually, as he had been in the field, he was wearing a shirt with a tie. People were arriving late. He was very angry about this fact and was attempting to prevent them from entering. The importance of the seemingly insignificant progression of events in the dream is not to be underestimated. In the first instance, the analysand is in a grassy field sitting in a circle with a group of individuals from his place of work. This part of the dream pertains to the unity of nature and the wholeness of relationship with others in the context of that unity. This is the realm of ego strength. It is an experience, however, that is short-lived, for the shift to the tent turns energies in a different direction altogether. With this change, which is more accurately termed a regression, the energies of ego control gain the upper hand, and the direction they in turn take is, to be sure, away from nature. This shift away from nature is not only indicated by the switch to the tent, but also by the fact that in the tent the analysand is now wearing a shirt with a tie. An addi-

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tional indicator of the analysand’s movement in this same direction is of course the reference to his complete contempt for those who have neglected to conform to that which we must, given this context, identify as a man-made schedule. Here the analysand’s intolerance for the slightest deviation from the straight and narrow of societal conduct causes him to make every effort to lock the stragglers out altogether, much as the ego would no less seek to control the absolutely uncontrollable with which it had been presented that day in the news of the tragic death of the child. Goal and schedule thus become through ego control the means, not of opening life to one, but rather, of defending one from it, that is to say, of locking it out. Now returning to that day we sat for the first time in meditation, it was the case that when I first saw the analysand at the time of his arrival for our session I had a very strong sense that his spirit was disturbed at a deep level. Yet because he had been away on vacation, I imagined that perhaps he was simply showing the effects of the trip from which he had just returned the day before. Indeed it was only when my analysand spoke of that which had come to consciousness during meditation that I could properly understand what had been apparent enough to me from the moment I laid eyes on him that day. That morning, he told me, he had stopped on his way to the office to pick up a coffee. As he waited in line to be served, he talked, as he often would do, with one of his business associates on his cell phone. What then happened took him completely by surprise. As he stood there talking to this individual, suddenly he was assaulted by the raised and angry voice of a man telling him to “shut it off.” For a moment he had no idea what it was to which this individual was referring. It certainly had not occurred to him that a cell phone conversation could have provoked such a response. But now, apparently enough, it had. What then followed was even more bizarre, for what had started as a verbal assault was on the verge of becoming a physical one. As measured as the analysand’s responses were, this other individual was not about to desist. The tensions between the two men, accordingly, spilled into the parking lot where the analysand, after having been followed there by this rage-possessed individual, was challenged to a physical fight. The analysand, who I might add would have been more than capable of handling himself quite well should it have come to that, fortunately chose not to accept the challenge. Viewing these events in the broader context of the analysand’s desire to progress from an unrelated to a related masculine principle orientation, we see several identifiable ways in which the development of the analysand’s masculine principle functioning was being advanced by com-

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pensatory dynamics. No doubt the first lesson on this learning curve would have to be the analysand’s experience of gaining direct access, through meditation in this case, to that which he was unknowingly carrying within himself. Although the analysand clearly was the one to have walked through the events of that morning, until he sat in meditation later that day, he had no knowledge whatsoever of the degree to which those traumatic events had taken him over, or better still, taken possession of him. Psychic problems that have not been brought to consciousness run rampant within the psyche. As noted above and confirmed by one of the analysand’s own dreams, such problems create psychic tensions which in turn seek secondary discharge. For individuals like the analysand, as was also noted, such secondary discharge will most probably assume the form of ever deepening experiences of unrelatedness. Schedule and goal increasingly will be that to which one will resort as a defense against life. The cycle of unrelatedness and alienation from self-organizing nature thus becomes a vicious one. Now it would seem that the second lesson to be derived from the compensatory patterning of these events has to do with the nature of the wound inflicted upon the analysand. Indeed given how well the analysand handled the situation with which he was so suddenly and unexpectedly presented, one is led to wonder why he did not walk away from all of it in better shape psychically than he did. Outwardly the analysand held his position with this crazed individual. He was not in the least intimidated by him. Yet, when all was said and done, he nevertheless was deeply wounded by what transpired. Although he did not lose in the outward sense of it, he nevertheless was defeated. Whereas losing and winning have to do with often arbitrary, concrete standards of failure and success, the question of being defeated or not being defeated is a matter of how consciousness either is not, or is held in a given situation. People are said to win and lose competitions, they are said to win and lose fights, they are characterized as winning and losing many of the things that people are so eager to force into that particular polarity, but the question of being undefeated or defeated is something altogether different. The last two lines of our above passage from the Tao Te Ching reads: “Therefore when the battle is joined, / The underdog will win.” Employing for a moment our own terms in order at once to shed light on the meaning of this passage as well as further the point here being made, I myself would say that when the battle is joined and held in consciousness in the right manner, even the one who loses will not be defeated. Being undefeated is not necessarily any more about winning than being defeated is necessarily about losing. One can win and still be defeated.

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One can lose, on the other hand, yet be undefeated. My analysand did not lose the outward battle, but he was defeated by it, as the weakened state of his spirit so clearly evidenced. His defeat had nothing to do with losing. It did, however, have everything to do with consciousness and, more specifically still, with his inability to become sufficiently conscious of the problem of masculine principle unrelatedness with which he was being confronted so directly. Even if we were to allow that the analysand’s cell phone use in this type of setting bordered on what is today something of a yet to be differentiated question of social etiquette, even if, for the sake of making a point, we went so far as to allow that the position of the other individual had in this regard an element of legitimacy, we could never allow for the unrelatedness and forcefulness with which this other individual acted. Absolutism and merciless punitiveness are indeed the hallmarks of masculine principle unrelatedness, much as was enacted in the analysand’s own dream when he so forcefully sought to shut out all latecomers wishing to enter the tent. What defeated my analysand, to be sure, was not at all that with which he struggled outwardly, but rather that with which he was unable to come to terms inwardly. What defeated my analysand was not his inability to stand up to the rage-possessed embodiment of unrelatedness with which he was presented outwardly. Rather, what defeated him was his inability to capture inwardly, by fully bringing to consciousness within himself, that with which he had been presented outwardly by self-organizing nature. My analysand was defeated, in other words, because he was unable to capture the enemy without attacking, which is to say, he was unable to capture the enemy within. I have to say that when the events of this confrontation were first conveyed to me, given my own clinical experience with such compensatory dynamics, coupled with my knowledge of this analysand’s almost unstoppable to do orientation, an alarm was triggered in my own mind when I learned that the other man’s opening salvo was a forceful order to “shut it off.” No words, it seemed to me, could have conveyed more cogently what needed to happen with this analysand, not to speak of what needed to happen with the individual from whom these words issued in the first place. That these events, moreover, took place on the day of one of our analytical sessions when their compensatory meaning was least likely to have been lost, and that that particular analytical session, furthermore, was the first session following the one in which the analysand described his bedtime experience as a child of not being able to ‘let the world stop,” only served to deepen my conviction about the compensatory significance of

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all that had unfolded. I thus was led to conclude that in the form of this very disturbing and near violent encounter between the analysand and this other individual whom, we could say, was nothing less than an inyour-face embodiment of the analysand’s own masculine unrelatedness, self-organizing nature had followed with a vengeance the compensatory tack of like curing like. Turning now to the problem of feminine principle unrelatedness, it should be recalled from the above that it typically takes the form of the constricting, if not outright devouring of life in process, as opposed to the conscious receiving and holding of it. For a man or woman in the grip of the unrelated feminine, life as it exists will never just be received as it is. Rather, it will be taken into the psyche and neurotically overprocessed, and it will most probably continue to be neurotically overprocessed until the life force itself has been processed or squeezed out of it altogether. The compensatory experiences of an analysand come to mind. Prior to the beginning of analytical work with me, this analysand, it is important to understand, had on her own initiative successfully brought a longstanding alcohol problem to conclusion. This was a huge achievement. Yet her behavioral success notwithstanding, the analysand held no illusions that the underlying psychic driver behind her alcoholism had in any way been addressed. More specifically, it was understood by her that far from being the actual cause of her internal conflict, alcoholism had been that to which she had turned as the means of its symptomatic relief. For the analysand, alcoholism had become the only means by which she could halt, or perhaps more accurately, at least produce the illusion of having halted the relentless over-processing of a mind trapped in the grip of the unrelated feminine. At a critical point in the analysis two important compensatory symbols emerged. The first presented in a dream, the second in an external patterning. The compensatory image of the dream was not elaborate, but it was nonetheless cogent. In fact I would go so far as to say it was perhaps the most fitting representation imaginable of the characteristic overprocessing of the unrelated feminine. The analysand dreamed her washing machine was about to overflow and she could not get it to turn off. All she could do under the circumstances was unplug it. When we look at this dream analytically, as simple as it actually is, it nevertheless has two very important parts. The first part has to do with the problem of the washing machine being on the verge of overflowing. The second part has to do with the problem of not being able to stop the machine. Symbolically speaking, the first part pertains not just to the issue of overprocessing, but to the ever-escalating problems that follow from such

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overprocessing. Not only is the wash water not being processed through the washing machine, which is to say, there is no functional in and out energy flow occurring between the psyche and life, but it is also the case that the water that is thus flowing one way only is building unchecked. Here, as is typical of the workings of the unrelated feminine itself, things are proceeding at a furious, near-violent pace without any mechanism for selfcorrection and balance. And here, moreover, nothing short of a complete functional meltdown will bring things to a halt. The invariable trajectory of the unrelated feminine is to crash and burn. Unfortunately, however, the subject, or the individual to whom the subject has become attached, invariably discovers this all too late. Now to the extent the analysand had yet to understand how actually to fix the malfunctioning washing machine, she certainly had no recourse but to unplug it, as the second part of the dream symbolism suggests. Of course it had not been all that long since the analysand had used alcohol to do just that. Drinking, it should be recalled, was that to which the analysand had turned in seeking to “shut off” the world—to “shut off,” we would add, the relentless overprocessing of a mind in the grip of the unrelated feminine. But such a shutting off through alcohol abuse, as we know, would be no more of a solution to the real problem presented by the unrelated feminine than would the mere unplugging of a water-filled and still malfunctioning washing machine constitute its repair. Indeed far from truly rectifying the problem, such a shutting off would amount to no more than one’s anesthetization concerning the problem. Now if any doubts whatsoever remained following this dream about the direction things were necessarily moving for this analysand, that is to say, if she harbored any doubts whatsoever that under self-organizing nature progression beyond the false solution of shutting-off through unplugging was nonnegotiable, she was about to discover otherwise. For when this dream was yet very much at the forefront of her inner-world experience, the analysand was again assailed, this time in her outer world, by an experience that she immediately identified as being of profound compensatory significance. The analysand was outwardly confronted with yet another malfunctioning piece of cleaning equipment, this time in the form of a small vacuum cleaner, a “dust buster.” And certainly not insignificantly from a compensatory perspective, it was not until the analysand actually unplugged it that the seriousness of the vacuum’s malfunction was fully apparent. At the very moment the analysand unplugged the vacuum from its cradle on the wall it burst into flames. According to the malfunctioning mind of the unrelated feminine, everything, it can be understood at this point, needs to be “cleaned up.”

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Everything that is of life must be put into its malfunctioning washing machine or vacuum cleaner and “overprocessed” until nothing remains of that which was put into it in the first place. The “cleaning” or “processing” activities of the unrelated feminine do not support life—they devour it. What is, it should be understood, is never good enough. Reality itself, shall we just say, is never good enough. Yet it is here that self-organizing nature kicks in with a vengeance, for despite all protestations of the controlling ego to the contrary, self-organizing nature will know no respite until the ego’s mechanisms of control defer to it. Self-organizing nature, to put it somewhat differently, will know no respite until the ego’s attachment to the illusion of control gives way and Reality in its suchness is received. Whereas the unrelated masculine, I would say in conclusion, creates its casualties by running roughshod over individuals who get in its way, the unrelated feminine, by contrast, pulls life into itself. In its darkest form, it latches onto that which crosses its path in parasitic fashion. Whereas the unrelated masculine tends to whack you and then go on its merry way, in its darkest form the unrelated feminine sticks around to suck the life completely out of you. Accordingly, as much as the soul damage inflicted by either could very well prove to be lethal, it is the insidiousness of the controlling energies of the unrelated feminine that make it potentially that much greater of a threat to its victims, much as is true of the covert workings of parasitic activity itself. At its worst, the unrelated feminine lives, albeit pathologically, off the life that it sucks into itself. Its modus operandi is possession and because, moreover, the nefarious activities by which that particular end is pursued are in the main covert, typically under the guise of love, the problems presented by the unrelated feminine do not readily lend themselves to identification and treatment therapeutically. The core problem of the unrelated feminine is that it does not live through life because it cannot really be with life. The unrelated feminine can no more be with the life with which it is presented outwardly than it can keep itself from overprocessing to death that which it has sucked into itself. As with all forms of ego control, the fuel source of the unrelated feminine is power, not meaning. In this respect, it is sustained not by the life force as such, but rather by the experience of gratification it derives from its largely covert manipulation of that force. It is sustained not by Reality, but by the power gratification it derives from its neurotic, perhaps even psychotic, overprocessing of Reality. If it could only just know that Reality is good enough. In returning, then, to the point at which we began this section, it should be recalled how within the traditional Chinese concept of kung fu we find enfolded the ego strength orientations of masculine and feminine

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principle relatedness, respectively. Within this traditional philosophical concept, we are at once given a firm orientation to goal, in accordance with masculine principle functioning, without there being any compromise whatsoever of the characteristic feminine principle of receptivity. Goal, to be sure, is not to be pursued to the detriment of one’s receptivity to what is. Goal, to extend this critical point somewhat further, is not to be pursued to the detriment of process. Indeed in that goal and process are regarded within the traditional Chinese worldview as being inseparably linked, goal, perhaps most accurately put, cannot be properly pursued but through process. The way of self-organizing nature, to paraphrase our kung fu reference, is to discover the way to the goal in the process. An experience of my own comes to mind as an example of this. At the time I was approaching the end of my Ph.D. work in England,54 I dreamed about a house on the street on which I grew up in Canada. No children had lived in that house during the years of my childhood, so I carried no specific knowledge from my past about it or its inhabitants. The house symbolized for me, in this respect, the unknown. As I neared the completion of my Ph.D., my sights had become set on the obtaining of a full-time university teaching position. And it was because of this that I especially remembered the details of a discussion I had, following the completion of my doctorate, with my external examiner, Dr. Robert Hobson. Dr. Hobson, who was a senior medical Jungian analyst in England, had invited me to visit with him in Manchester just before I was to leave for Canada. On a January afternoon I met with him at his home. As we sat together, he expressed to me his feeling that I should pursue a clinical as opposed to an academic career. His sense was that clinical work, more so than academe, would better afford me the opportunity to realize what I might potentially contribute to the field of depth psychology. Now a clinical practice was something toward which I myself had been inclined at the time of the completion of my M.A., but in the course of my Ph.D. research I had turned toward the strictly academic route. As deeply respectful as I was of Dr. Hobson’s opinions, I did not allow his comments on this matter to penetrate. When I returned from England to Canada, I was short-listed for a few academic positions and interviews were being conducted. During this period of time, which was in the early spring, I went walking one day with my wife and our young son in the neighborhood of my own childhood. As we turned onto the very street on which I had once lived, I saw the house I had dreamed about in England. On the lawn were a woman and her young daughter raking leaves and twigs, cleaning up after the long winter. Knowing what I do about psychophysical patterning, I knew I had

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to speak with her to see if in any way she could provide me with some clues about the meaning of my dream. So I approached her and managed to keep a conversation going between us for a good twenty minutes. The only thing that stood out to me was that she was from Toronto, where I was being considered for a position. Perhaps, I thought to myself as we continued on our walk, I was merely intended to hear disturbing stories of the cost of living in that city. Several weeks passed and with them a series of interviews, yet no fulltime academic position had been offered to me. Having been so determined about the course things would take I was, to say the least, devastated. And since I had invested so heavily in the expectation of getting an academic appointment, I was now completely vulnerable to the negative impact of my failure. On the other hand, I had finally arrived at a place where I was ready to sit down and hear what Dr. Hobson had been trying to tell me in Manchester. My expectations thus shifted, and shortly afterward a very unique opportunity to pursue a clinical internship opened to me. Approximately three months later, I began clinical work under the direction of a psychologist in private practice. Shortly after I joined her practice, we had to move our office due to the sale of the site of the existing one. I was looking in the north of the city, she in the south. She called me one day to say she had found what seemed like the perfect place. It was perfect, and even more so for me. Only days before I had selected an apartment for my family just around the corner. And because I did not own a car at that time the office arrangement couldn’t have been better. It was not too long after we moved into our new office that I went to visit with the owner of the building. We spoke for perhaps thirty minutes, and as our discussion was about to come to a conclusion he took me into an adjoining room to meet his secretary, who was also his wife. When she stood up from her desk to greet me, I immediately recognized her, as she did me. Here was the woman who had been raking leaves with her daughter on the front lawn of the house that I had dreamed about in England. This was the woman with whom I had stopped to speak in hope of obtaining even the slightest hint about the meaning of my dream. There are a number of important things needing to be said here. In retrospect, it is evident enough that my dream in England was a point of access to an unfolding psychophysical pattern that would be of great significance for my life. Had I not been sufficiently receptive to the unconscious to record that specific dream, and had I then not been sufficiently receptive to what was unfolding in the outward situation to speak to this woman as she raked leaves with her daughter, the core meaning of that

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which was presenting through self-organizing nature would have been altogether lost on me. The house, as mentioned previously, symbolized the unknown—and certainly the destiny that would be fulfilled in relation to that symbol was completely unknown to me, even as I spoke to the woman that spring day. My own intention, the goal on which I had so firmly set my sights, was to pursue an academic career—a career, I would add, that would necessarily have taken me out of the city of my birth. The house, however, symbolized an unforeseen shift, both in the sense of a changing career orientation as well as in terms of where that change was going to take place, specifically in the city of my birth. Related to the latter, during a particularly intense period of inner work in the years prior to my time in England, I had cast the I Ching and drawn hexagram 24. This hexagram, which is titled the Return, had continued to hold tremendous significance for me. Given this, I was, of course, astonished to discover at the moment of this most unexpected Return that the street address of the symbol at the center of these events, the address of the “unknown” house on the street of my childhood, was in fact 24. I would like to offer a few reflections with respect to the larger question of destiny. Some individuals hold that at the end of their lives they will necessarily arrive at the place at which they are intended to be. Their assumption, in this regard, is that their passage through life is in some way fixed. I myself don’t believe this to be true. And as much as a case example such as the above might suggest otherwise to some, especially when simply viewed at a glance, it should in no way in my opinion be taken as evidence of there being a destiny that is fixed and thus predictable. The dream in England, I would emphasize, provided a glimpse of the course things would take if—and this word is to be especially noted—I were to choose and follow one particular path, a single path that would have to be chosen from among countless courses of action open to me. The dream, in this respect, provided information about a potential course of action and outcome, as opposed to a certain or fixed course of action and outcome. The dream disclosed a potential as opposed to a certainty. Now significantly that potential path of which the dream spoke was also, I believe, the optimal path of my development at that critical point in my life. The dream had revealed, therefore, what we might equally conceive of as being the path of the Tao of my life. Fortunately, this was the path onto which I ultimately moved, not easily, however, for my sights had been firmly set, as I indicated, on something different, an academic route. When things didn’t go as planned, I was distraught and panic stricken since at that

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moment I could see no other way forward. Eventually, however, I was able to find my way back to the place that had always led me in my work—the place in which I feel connection to the sacred circle of life itself. Only through my openness to receiving direction from the process within which I was ultimately contained, within which we all are ultimately contained— that is to say, the sacred circle of self-organizing nature—could I turn my gaze toward the Tao. Ego control is an enormous obstacle to the bringing of our lives into conscious relationship to the Tao, especially when ego control manifests as unrelatedness in its masculine and feminine principle forms. Drawing on its limited resources and its limited understanding of things, the ego cannot at times help but to fall into error. Its next move, however, is the critical one, for many lives are wasted away, or at least a good portion of those lives, waiting for the wrong door to open. Externalization/Autonomy Externalization refers to a state of ego control in which the personality, being without self-containment, which is to say, autonomy, looks to something or someone external to it for its life orientation, meaning, and drive. Here, not the internal processing mechanisms of the individual, but rather that which is external to the individual become the processing filters through which life experiences necessarily pass. Accordingly, even though an externalized individual will potentially function responsibly and energetically in the world, he or she will, in the main, be able to do so, and this is the critical point, only to the extent that someone or something else is holding in consciousness that with which the individual is engaged. Being without the ego strength capability of autonomy, such an individual will have no recourse but to seek containment and validation externally. Being without the ego strength capability of autonomy, such an individual, I would go so far as to say, will be entirely lacking in the sense of moral justification to do otherwise. An externalized individual can never be a genuine leader, although certainly many such individuals have found their way into positions of leadership. Externalized leaders do not shape public opinion as such, rather they obtain and hold power by discerning where the parade of collective opinion is heading and then, as quickly as possible, making a hopefully clandestine dash to its front. “There are only two kinds of political leaders,” Jim Coutts relates by way of placing in context the uniqueness of the leadership of the former Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, “those who want to be somebody, and those who want to do something. To the former,” Coutts continues, “the challenge is to get to

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the top and to stay there; to the latter, the challenge is to bring about reform.”55 Whereas the “leadership” of the former, we would add, is about the pursuit of power as an end in itself, and as such stands strictly within the realm of ego control, the leadership of the latter, by contrast, has its basis in ego strength. Whereas the “leadership” of the former is about being shaped by the prevailing collective opinion; the leadership of the latter is about contributing to the shaping of it. Now not unlike the careers of externalized political leaders, the everyday life of an individual who operates within the ego-control mode of externalization will be conducted, not by that individual’s own value judgments, nor even by that individual’s own life rhythms, but by the current of collective opinion and idealism to which that individual invariably turns. Such an individual, for instance, will be more concerned with hitting the collective target of marrying or having a child at a specific age than he or she will be concerned with the presence or absence of the love that is required to make such decisions functional. Similarly, an individual will acquire material things, not because these things are what he or she actually wants, that is to say, not because of how they are actually valued by him or her, but rather because of how they are valued by others. Materialism, to be sure, is not so much a question of having nice or even expensive things, rather it has to do with the identifying of oneself with those things. Materialism is not about owning things that you value, rather it is about valuing yourself in terms of what you own. Unlike, therefore, the truly heroic journey of those in pursuit of autonomy, the heroics characteristic of externalization, arise not from the arduous journey of self-actualization, but rather from a journey whose goal amounts to nothing more than the securing of collective approval. The following case example speaks to this problem. An analysand once described to me a breakthrough conversation he had had with his sister. The analysand and his sister, for the first time, had spoken directly to each other about their father’s alcoholism. Now as much as this was a breakthrough for their relationship, it was no less so for his analytical work, for the analysand’s own openness to this discussion with his sister indicated that the transparency he had demonstrated with me was now transferring to other relationships. There was, however, something further that the analysand said that concerned me. He told me the dream he had had following that conversation and, curiously enough, it didn’t seem to acknowledge, in the manner we would have expected it to do, the initiative he had taken with his sister. In the dream the analysand was windsurfing, and doing very well at it, when suddenly he had to stop to help his wife who was having trouble

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swimming. Having sorted things out for her, the analysand returned to his windsurfing only to discover that he was pulling someone behind him. The person in tow was actually his wife’s former boyfriend. The flow of his windsurfing experience, to say the least, had become completely disrupted. So why did the analysand have such a dream when he had just had so freeing and energizing of a breakthrough with his sister? Why, we further asked, would that very breakthrough be celebrated in the dream with the analysand enjoying an activity that he had for sometime longed to pursue—windsurfing—only to have that experience come to the bizarre end that it did? Our answers, it soon became evident, would not be found in what occurred between the analysand and his sister, but rather in what occurred in the exchange between the analysand and his wife following that discussion. What came forward in our review of the events during and following the conversation with his sister was that the analysand’s wife, who was present during that conversation and chose not to participate, later told the analysand that she had felt completely left out of the discussion and was hurt by his apparent lack of consideration for her. Of course it was now clear what had happened. When the analysand turned as he did in that follow-up conversation with his wife away from his experience, so as to accommodate the needs of her experience, he in effect passed from autonomy to externalization. In stopping by way of that conversation to rescue his wife, when she simply needed to be left to struggle in the water, the analysand put his wife’s baggage, as it were, in tow. And as was evident enough from the analysand’s description of his wife’s former boyfriend, it was a heavy, collectively oriented piece of baggage at that. Externalization heightens one’s susceptibility to imbalance and energy swings. To the degree, accordingly, that one invests one’s energy and/ or meaning in something or someone external to oneself, one’s susceptibility to energy swings will increase proportionately. When that which comes back to one from the much-elevated external other is positive, one will be carried to the highest of heights; when, on the other hand, that which comes back to one is negative, one will straightaway sink into the depths of despair. An analysand, for example, who was prone to externalization dreamed the following after he had performed well on a research project and was praised by his superiors for having done so. The analysand dreamed he was easily performing tasks that in actual fact he lacked the competency to carry out. This, of course, was an inflationary dream. Technically speaking, inflation is a psychic state in which one is identifying with, or better still, laying claim to that which one does not truly possess. In this particular instance, the analysand’s inflation was evidenced by the

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fact that he was performing tasks he lacked the knowledge and skill to competently perform. Not, therefore, on the basis of a genuinely existing competency, but rather, on the basis of his vulnerability to the positive regard given him for his research, did the analysand’s energy surge and carry him to heights he would never have otherwise reached. Now quite the opposite of this scenario was the case of another analysand. At the very point he was denied acknowledgment by his supervisor for an excellent professional contribution, the analysand found himself in a psychic free fall that carried him into the depths of a negative inflation. Here, as often happens with such collapses, the analysand not only could no longer hold consciousness on the first-rate skills and professional knowledge of which he clearly was in possession but, moreover, and this is a critical point to understand, as a direct consequence of the shock delivered to his ego by his supervisor’s negative regard, he had been deprived of the sense of moral justification one needs to pick oneself up and fight back. In his dreams, he was thus identified with the most contemptible of societal criminal outcasts. If, to paraphrase the Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu, one is to direct the energy of one’s personality into that which is beyond one’s control, that person or object into which one’s energy has been so directed will gain control over one. If, on the other hand, one walks in “hiddenness,” which is to say shuns altogether externalization, one will not only walk outside the container of the collective consciousness and thus be invisible to its vision, but one will have with him the “light” of self-organizing nature to “guide him in all acts.” The following passage, which I will quote at length, is taken from Thomas Merton’s The Way of Chuang Tzu and is titled The Inner Law. As will be immediately evident, this passage is more than deserving of our attention because it speaks, on so many levels, with such clarity, sensitivity, and insight about the problems with which we are here concerned. The text reads: He whose law is within himself Walks in hiddenness. His acts are not influenced By approval or disapproval. He whose law is outside himself Directs his will to what is Beyond his control And seeks To extend his power Over objects.

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If one’s energy is directed into another person or external object, one will most certainly lose possession of one’s inner self. For not only will that person or object gain control of one’s energy, but one may very well become possessed by the consciousness attending that person or external object. Along this line an analysand dreamed, after having visited with an individual who was even more heavily oriented to externalization than she, that she was viewing herself through the eyes of the other person. Quite

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remarkably, yet not at all inexplicably in light of the above, what she saw when viewing herself through the eyes of this external other was not an image of a living, feeling human being, but a representation of herself as an inanimate object. She saw herself as a statue, an actual bust. And in keeping further still with the above was the fact that in a blink of her eye, or shall we say in a blink of the other individual’s eye through which she was now viewing herself, the analysand transformed from an object of perfect beauty to one of great ugliness. Externalization, like all orientations of ego control, is a false path, yet it nevertheless is a path that many erroneously follow in search of social and spiritual salvation. Externalization, to be sure, is not about spiritual transformation and redemption, rather it amounts to nothing more than the experience of gratification derived from the ultimately insincere approval of the collective. Speaking with direct reference to the horror of such spiritual falsity, Thomas Merton, with an intensity approaching rebuke, thus reflects: A method of meditation or a form of contemplation that merely produces the illusion of having “arrived somewhere,” of having achieved security and preserved one’s familiar status by playing a part, will eventually have to be unlearned in dread—or else we will be confirmed in the arrogance, the impenetrable self-assurance of the Pharisee. We will become impervious to the deepest truths. We will be closed to all who do not participate in our illusion. We will live “good lives” that are basically inauthentic, “good” only as long as they permit us to remain established in our respectable and impermeable identities. The “goodness” of such lives depends on the security afforded by relative wealth, recreation, spiritual comfort and a solid reputation for piety. Such “goodness” is preserved by routine and the habitual avoidance of serious risk—indeed of serious challenge. In order to avoid apparent evil, this pseudo-goodness will ignore the summons of genuine good. It will prefer routine duty to courage and creativity. In the end it will be content with established procedures and safe formulas, while turning a blind eye to the greatest enormities of injustice and uncharity. Such are the routines of piety that sacrifice everything else in order to preserve the comforts of the past, however inadequate and shameful they may be in the present. Meditation, in such a case, becomes a factory for alibis and instead of struggling with the sense of falsity and inauthenticity in oneself, it battles against the exigencies of the present, armed with platitudes minted in the previous century.

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From the safe vantage point of two thousand years after the fact, when the great collective parade has long ago reversed its direction from that of the pursuit of murder by crucifixion to adornment, it is now, shall we just say, far more gratifying to imagine oneself to be aligned with the historical person of Jesus Christ. To have had to embrace and identify oneself with, on the other hand, an individual for whom there existed at the collective level nothing but utter contempt would be to know what it is to pass from externalization to autonomy. In the complete absence of the comfort of any moral support whatsoever from the collective, few would have alternately found within themselves the requisite moral and spiritual understanding to embrace truly the teachings and meanings embodied by the person Jesus two thousand years ago. In the complete absence of the moral certainty of the collective “safe formula,” as Merton puts it, most, we can be sure, would not have as much as taken the first step in that direction. For most individuals, as Freud himself quite rightly proclaimed, a very great illusion indeed underpins their spiritual lives—a very great illusion, the Syndetic Paradigm would add, in which genuine spiritual transformation succumbs to wish, and vicarious atonement amounts to no more than the gratification derived from clinging greedily to a long ago exhausted collective ideal. Writing in his commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower with reference to the unique spiritual problem that vicarious atonement presents in the West, Jung, in a manner that extrapolates readily to our concern with externalization and autonomy, relates: In accordance with his conception, the Christian subordinates himself to the superior, divine person in expectation of His grace; but the Eastern man knows that redemption depends on the “work” the individual does upon himself. The Tao grows out of the individual. The imitatio Christi has this disadvantage: in the long run we worship as a divine example a man who embodied the deepest meaning of life, and then, out of sheer imitation, we forget to make real our own deepest meaning—self-realization. As a matter of fact, it is not altogether uncomfortable to renounce one’s own real meaning. Had Jesus done this, He would probably have become a respectable carpenter, and not the religious rebel to whom, obviously, there would happen to-day the same thing that happened then. Imitation of Christ might well be understood in a deeper way. It might be taken as the duty to give reality to one’s deepest convic-

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tion always the fullest expression of individual temperament, with the same courage and the same self-sacrifice shown by Jesus.58 The inexorable moral direction of unfolding Reality is that each and every individual will be conducted from an orientation of ego control to ego strength, from an orientation of externalization to autonomy. How exactly this will be brought about will vary from individual to individual. There exist, however, two distinct laws. Firstly, progress will not be made but through one’s own efforts and personal sacrifice. Secondly, one will not be excused from the consequences of failing to take up this challenge directly. Of course here it is typically asked: “What exactly will the cost of all of this be to me?” To which self-organizing nature necessarily ambiguously responds: “Whatever you must give to release into life that which is seeking to come forth from within you.” Unlike the typical pricing system of a store, the price to be paid here will be neither fixed nor entirely predictable. Rather, as the following dream of an analysand suggests, it will be set in a manner not unlike that of an auction, where the value of an item is determined largely by its uniqueness. By way of providing a context to the core problem of the case to follow as well as offering some further reflections on the more general problems of externalization, I would like to say how shocking it has been for me, based on my own clinical experience, to see how little concern, if any at all, therapists have shown to the problem of the traumatic impact of cultural shift, especially when it comes to children. Indeed in the bigger picture of acknowledged traumas, the trauma of cultural shift is almost nonexistent, yet I myself have come to regard it as one of the most comprehensively devastating of them all. For an individual, especially for a young child, cultural customs and language are synonymous with Reality itself. If, therefore, they are disrupted or, worse yet, completely terminated and exchanged for something altogether different, it should not be hard to envision the almost cruel consequences. The rug of Reality is pulled from beneath that child. And even more devastating still—unlike other experiences of traumatization which often last no more than a matter of minutes, days, or weeks—traumatic experiences of this sort will continue for years, if not indefinitely. Time and time again the rug will be pulled from beneath that child. Subjected to pressures such as this, how can true cultural adaptation not give way to externalization? When in Rome, the old saying goes, do as the Romans do. Suspend, in other words, what you have come to know to be true and acceptable, suspend your more finely honed mechanisms of reasoning and processing and commit without conditions, carte blanche, to whatever this strange and utterly foreign

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world will choose to assign to you. Quite a potent formula, I would say, for externalization. Now cultural traumatization does not always involve an actual physical move from one country to another. Rather it can also occur in a child who, although born in the country in which the immigrant family now lives, will experience traumatization in moving between the “old world” immigrant home environment and the “new world” culture. In the case of the analysand with whom we are concerned this was in fact the scenario that brought about her externalization and self-alienation. In suppressing her own cultural heritage as a means of forcing her adaptation to the newly chosen country of her family, the analysand sacrificed at the same time, albeit inadvertently, her relationship to her own natural being. In doing away with all that was associated with her ethnic heritage, she ended up doing away with a good part of herself, and no doubt the most important part. The analysand lost relationship to her feelings, her value judgments, and her self-confidence, not to speak of her actual body. Through her analytical work, however, what she had so wrongly been forced to sacrifice began to be reclaimed. In a manner that would never have been possible prior to analysis, the analysand was not only making key decisions about her life, but she was, moreover, showing commitment to those decisions. In her relationships with others, she was holding her own. When tensions arose, she could for the first time honor her value judgments. And she did so when necessary without apology. At the heart of this analysand’s journey from externalization to autonomy was a dream that not insignificantly occurred immediately after having faced up to an individual who for some time had been quite inconsiderate, even abusive, toward her. The analysand dreamed that she was with a friend and they were both going to attend an auction. When they arrived, however, and learned the admission fee was far more than they had actually expected it would be, second thoughts arose on the part of her friend. The analysand herself, however, was not deterred. She paid the $36.00 fee and entered the building where she then ended up, to her surprise and somewhat discomfort, sitting beside an individual from her past—an individual whom, she could tell me after some reflection, she had many years ago shunned because of his lack of social status. It was clear to me that my analysand could now finally embrace in him the wound she had come, by way of self-organizing nature, to embrace in herself. The entrance fee into the realm of autonomy is nothing more nor less than everything that you are. Accordingly, when my analysand asked at the end of our session why I believed the admission fee to the auction was exactly $36.00, it came not entirely as a surprise that her answer to my

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own subsequent question provided us with the explanation. The analysand, I was told, was in her thirty-sixth year. The giving of all that you are is the price of autonomy. Here no one can do the giving on your behalf. No one can do the consciousness work on your behalf. No one can incarnate on your behalf. No one can occupy on your behalf that space into which you alone are called by self-organizing nature to enter. You are the one who must act, and act you must out of the depths of your being. Related to this are the following experiences of two analysands. In the first instance, a friend of an analysand had spoken to her about attending an upcoming social event. Now everything the analysand had come to know about herself and social events of this type told her she should not go. Still, the analysand could not bring herself to say as much. At the critical moment, accordingly, she hesitated. Now it was no doubt because of the analysand’s level of consciousness around her struggle with externalization that the response of self-organizing nature was swift and unequivocal. The analysand dreamed that her young child was in a swimming pool and there was concern for the child’s safety. The analysand, however, fearing that she might create some kind of a scene with those in authority, chose not to remove her child. Instead she left to find the lifeguard, only to discover that this particular individual was not, to all intents and purposes, there. Even though the analysand was able to identify this individual as the lifeguard, he actually was invisible. I will proceed to the dreams of the second analysand before returning to this one. The important dreams of the second analysand occurred at the time of his graduation from university. The analysand, who had worked hard to put himself through university on a part-time basis, struggled at times to hold in consciousness the value of his very real accomplishment. Although he truly had arrived outwardly, he could not experience his success inwardly. Under the spell of externalization, which, of course, exploited the fact that he had no firm employment or educational prospects, the analysand found himself altogether paralyzed by doubt. What needed awakening in the analysand was his experience. And much as it had been with the other analysand, the compensatory response of the unconscious was Zen-like. The analysand dreamed he was on a playing field with a professional soccer team. Seizing what he perceived to be an opportunity of a lifetime to learn how team motivation and flow was attained at the professional level, he approached the team’s coach with his question. To his great shock and painful unease, however, no answer whatsoever was forthcoming. His question was altogether ignored in silence.

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Not unlike the first analysand who, in searching for someone other than herself to rescue her child, would find only a lifeguard who wasn’t actually there, the second analysand, seeking to obtain from yet another expert the key to motivation and flow, would be given in response to his critical question no answer whatsoever. Directly cutting to the heart of the problem of externalization, the Zen-like teaching of the unconscious is clear. There can be no solution but that which comes from the depths of one’s natural being. Similarly shattering all reliance on false externals, a Zen verse from the Kamakura era of twelfth-century Japan reads: The bow is broken, Arrows are all gone— This critical moment: No fainting heart cherish, Shoot with no delay.59 In closing this section on externalization and autonomy, I wish to offer as a footnote to the above a further observation that will hopefully deepen my reader’s appreciation of the complex workings of self-organizing nature. When the above-mentioned analysand spoke to me during our analytical session about the dream in which she had sought the assistance of the “invisible” lifeguard while her child was at risk in the swimming pool, although the analysand herself did not make the association, I myself recalled a very disturbing experience of the analysand’s that she had previously related to me. She had been with her young child at a local garden center when the child fell into a water-filled pond. The child’s head actually went underwater before being pulled from the pond by her mother. My analysand was naturally horror struck by just how close things had come to the unimaginable. What was odd, by contrast, was the reaction of the staff. For them the event was inconsequential. Apparently, near drownings were now almost everyday occurrences to which they had accustomed themselves, rather than concluding, as some would do, that a little fencing might be a good idea. Anyway, it seemed to me that the message of the dream was not unlike the message of that experience. The analysand needed to shun altogether any inclination toward externalization and honor her own value judgment. When I have taken the time to study the case histories of my analysands in terms of the overview of several years, I am always amazed at the complex patterns that reveal themselves. So it was, accordingly, only as a consequence of my review of my complete clinical notes on this analysand, in preparation for what I would write in this book, that something I had

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not previously noticed came to my attention—something that yet again conveyed to me the great complexities of self-organizing nature. As I already indicated above, I readily recalled the incident at the garden center when the analysand and I spoke in our session about her dream of the “invisible” lifeguard. What I certainly did not recall at the time, however, but would later recognize as a result of my review of my clinical notes, was that the incident at the garden center had taken place exactly one year to the month prior to the dream. Both the garden center incident and the analysand’s dream had taken place in the month of May in successive years, respectively. I have to say that this really got me thinking, and almost immediately my thoughts turned to yet another incident of which the analysand had more recently spoken. The analysand had taken her same young child for swimming lessons, and had rightly become concerned about the approach taken by the instructors—the lifeguards. They were in actual fact forcing the child to jump into the pool and go underwater as a means of overcoming her fear of water. At first the analysand assumed, that they being the experts they were supposed to be, would know what they were doing; yet as she thought about it more it became clear to her that she could not agree with their approach and withdrew her child from those classes. Now I should say that when the analysand and I talked this decision through, prior to her actually taking it, at no time did we in any way link the three events to which I have here referred. And we certainly did not realize, moreover, as I myself did only as I turned to my clinical notes in following through on my above-mentioned thoughts, that the incident involving the so-called swimming lessons actually took place in the month of May of the third successive year. Disintegration/Integration Whereas the ego-strength orientation of integration has to do with the extending and strengthening of the personality, the ego-control orientation of disintegration has to do with its lessening and collapse. Whereas the egostrength orientation of integration is about the development and deepening of one’s relationship to the life process, disintegration is, by contrast, about its sabotage and undoing. Whereas, accordingly, the ultimate basis of the ego-strength orientation of integration is the integrative and purposeful compensatory dynamics of self-organizing nature, the ultimate basis of disintegration is to be found in nothing other than the pathologic initiatives of ego control to pursue and manufacture, when necessary, disorder and chaos.

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As an ego-control-driven orientation, disintegration is indeed the life saboteur par excellence. Under the auspices of ego control, the most beguiling strategies of life sabotage imaginable come into play. The game plan itself is quite simple. It is to gratify the ego’s need for power by way of the fabrication of disorder, chaos, and meaninglessness. After all, once the Reality line has been compromised, so also will be one’s accountability to it. Once precise growth challenges and opportunities have been vaporized—or rather at least appear to have been vaporized as a result of the cunning manipulation of circumstances—so also will be one’s accountability to them. One cannot, after all, be held accountable for that which is “impossible” or “unattainable.” It is the case, therefore, with the personality orientation of disintegration that the controlling ego reaches out at every turn to manipulate and fabricate conditions so as to create for the individual the illusion of exemption from that which in Reality is the nonnegotiable responsibility and challenge of his or her personal growth. As a relatively simple illustration of this type of manipulation on the part of ego control we could take the following. The example involves an individual who, in spite of the informed counsel and even the warnings of others, did nothing to prepare himself for the responsibilities of dog ownership. Not surprisingly, his negligence and lack of self-discipline in this regard resulted in an out-of-control dog. Now although this was not as immediately apparent to him as it was to others, the day did come, however, when it became clear to him that he could no longer live with the trouble that he, as should be especially emphasized, had largely created for himself. So it was at this point that he set out to obtain the assistance of a professional dog trainer. Having identified a suitably qualified professional, a lengthy behavioral assessment took place between the man, his dog, and the trainer. Training sessions were then scheduled. With everything in place it seemed that the real work on both the owner and his dog was now finally about to go forward, yet this otherwise reasonable assumption was soon to prove to be nothing more than wishful. Depressingly consistent with this particular individual’s deeply patterned orientation to disintegration, the controlling ego was not about to submit so readily. It, therefore, entered into yet one further strategy of manipulation. Less than one week after the training appointments had been set, the dog’s owner was traveling on pleasure and business to another city. There he took it upon himself to go into the business advertising section of the phonebook and not only identify but also contact a professional dog trainer in that city. And just as the controlling ego no doubt hoped would be the case, he found himself being given by this second trainer assess-

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ments of his dog’s needs that were in conflict with those given him by the first trainer with whom he and his dog were now just beginning to work. Now if we were to take these events simply at face value we would probably imagine it brilliant of that individual to have obtained a second opinion. But such naivety must give way to the realization that within the manipulative games enacted through the ego-control orientation of disintegration that “second opinion” more truly functioned as a way out of the challenge of responsible dog ownership rather than as an alternative way into it. Far from supporting the individual in meeting the demands of the problem and challenge in question, it became yet another means of escape. There is certainly nothing wrong with the legitimate pursuit of a second opinion, but as a rule such options should be pursued before one commits to a schedule of treatment or training, or at the least after one has given that to which one has already committed a fair chance. When, moreover, we take into account that this “second opinion” was obtained from a professional trainer who had never seen the man’s dog—a professional trainer, not insignificantly, with whom the dog’s owner would never be able to work given the fact they resided in different cities—we know with certainty that what was being pursued here was not a second opinion as such, but rather sabotage. What it is of the greatest importance for us to recognize with this case and others like it is that from the very beginning the approach taken by this man was never about addressing the very real problem of dog ownership; rather it was about manipulating circumstances to the extent that he would be relieved, if nowhere else but in his own mind, of the responsibility of having to do so. Now something further to be derived from the above that is entirely consistent with other clinical observations of disintegration is how one’s plummet into this state is in no way conditional on how well or poorly things may be going for the individual in question. Disintegration, it needs to be emphasized in this regard, is a heavily patterned orientation of certain individuals to pursue disorder and chaos regardless of the difficulties, or lack there of, with which life confronts them. Disintegration, accordingly, to put this critical clinical finding and indeed therapeutic note of caution somewhat differently, is as likely to be entered into when things are going well as it is to be entered into when things are going poorly. Consistent with this susceptibility we find that those for whom disintegration exists as a patterned behavior must learn to attend as carefully to the “endings” of their activities and initiatives as they attend to the challenges of their “beginnings.” Indeed it often happens that just as the goal is in sight and one imagines that one’s guard can be safely dropped, the

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ego-control mechanism of disintegration strikes with a vengeance consuming a success that deservedly should have been the analysand’s. A passage from the I Ching comes to mind. The sixty-fourth hexagram of the I Ching is titled Wei Chi or Before Completion. In the introductory commentary to this particular hexagram it is stated: “This hexagram indicates a time when transition from disorder to order is not yet completed. The change is indeed prepared for, since all the lines in the upper trigram are in relation to those in the lower. However, they are not yet in their places.”60 The Judgment, along with its own Commentary, the latter of which I will only quote in part, reads as follows: The Judgment Before completion. Success. But if the little fox, after nearly completing the crossing, Gets his tail in the water, There is nothing that would further. [Commentary] The caution of a fox walking over ice is proverbial in China. His ears are constantly alert to the cracking of the ice, as he carefully and circumspectly searches out the safest spots. A young fox who as yet has not acquired this caution goes ahead boldly, and it may happen that he falls in and gets his tail wet when he is almost across the water. Then of course his effort has been all in vain.61 There can be no question that the experience of “nearly completing the crossing” is a world apart from the experience of “completing the crossing.” Success may be so very close, but it most certainly should never be as much as even imagined to exist before those few remaining steps that separate the two worlds have actually been taken. In the approach to completion, watchfulness and absolute vigilance must be one’s guardians; unconsciousness, on the other hand, stands as one’s great adversary. Now as the text tells us above, unconsciousness could very well take the form of failing to keep in check the false notions of invincibility so characteristic of youth. It equally could, however, and no doubt with even more devastating effect, take the form of dropping one’s guard against the destructive forces of disintegration. From the perspective of inexperience, from the perspective of the relative unconsciousness of everyday experience, it is hard to imagine that in the final steps before completion the battle between consciousness and un-

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consciousness is being so fully waged. It is hard to imagine that in the moment of these final steps the ego-control tendencies of disintegration would use the subtlest of everyday occurrences to devour the life and meaning of the unsuspecting individual. Yet it nevertheless remains an absolute certainty for those predisposed to disintegration that if in their approach to completion their guards are not up and ready, if in their approach they do not hold consciousness up to the very point of completion, it will be the case that a little well-placed shame here, or a little wellplaced inkling of self-doubt there, will be more than enough to cause those unwary souls to stop short of laying claim to that which self-organizing nature strives to have them possess as their own. Dreams of course will announce to consciousness the covert games being enacted by the disintegrative forces of ego control. Along this line, an analysand dreamed of a fulfilling and energizing ride on her bike—at least it had seemed so until she discovered at its completion a streak of excrement on her underwear, something she herself referred to as a “skid mark.” Even as the analysand described to me this sudden turn of events in her dream there was more than a hint of awkwardness and embarrassment. Knowing the analysand as I did and her susceptibility to disintegration, I myself was not without suspicion about the direction things had taken in the dream. I then asked if she had actually been doing more exercise in recent weeks. The analysand answered that the month before she had joined a local gym and was training on a regular basis. The compensatory import of the dream was now clear. The analysand’s dream was showing us that the energies of disintegration were seeking to stop the forward progress of her physical conditioning by shaming her. By bringing to consciousness, therefore, with full emotional impact the shame that, by way of the disintegrative forces of ego control was already at work within her, self-organizing nature, it should be emphasized, was in effect standing in protection of a developmental unfoldment that had yet to reach completion in the analysand. From a therapeutic viewpoint it is of no small importance to realize that at the core of the personality trapped within disintegration there exists a cherished but nonetheless false premise of there being greater risk and suffering in submitting oneself to the flow of life than there is in avoiding it altogether. Such an erroneous assumption, we can imagine, would have no hope of continuance were it not for the existence of delusional processing to sustain it. Accordingly, we find, among other things, that with the disintegrative personality the critical Reality-line demarcation between meaningful and meaningless suffering is greatly blurred, no doubt even more heavily blurred than with other ego-control orientations given

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its uniquely anarchistic leanings. While we will, for instance, see the challenge of genuine love being rejected by the disintegrative personality at every turn, the fact of its absence will no less continue to be lamented. While the meaningless suffering attending such self-sabotage of intimacy will be warmly embraced and even paraded before others as one’s lot in life, one will shun as the plague trusting oneself to the meaningful suffering required of all who would bring forth truly functional love in relationship. At the core of the disintegrative personality there is, to be sure, a fear of life; but almost inseparably linked to that fear is the fear of transformation through meaningful suffering. A crucial therapeutic challenge with individuals of this orientation is, therefore, to discover how to exchange that fear for trust, not merely in the sense of coming to trust another individual such as the analyst, but more importantly in the sense of coming to trust oneself to Reality. Undoubtedly some of the most authoritative initiators of shifts in consciousness of this sort will be those compensatory experiences that convey explicitly to the analysand that unfolding Reality itself, not just the analyst, is holding in consciousness the work of the analytical process. Of course such compensatory experiences do not only present with problems pertaining to disintegration—and the case of which I am about to speak is no exception—but I will again emphasize, when they do appear in relationship to this particular pathology, we should anticipate an especially powerful compensatory impact. I once dreamed of receiving three telephone calls from an individual with whom analytical work had been terminated some months before when she moved back to the city of her upbringing. Although I did not speak directly to her in the dream, she left three voice messages, which oddly enough seemed to be compressed together. Their tone struck of sarcasm, and the gist of their common message—and here even this was not absolutely clear—was that she would have to introduce me to, or rather, I must know, so and so, an individual I took in the dream to be her former husband, someone who years ago had abandoned her. Now as demonstrated elsewhere in this work, if one’s knowledge and experience of syndetic dynamics is sufficiently progressed, especially one’s feeling-level sensitivity to these processes, it is possible to anticipate with relative accuracy the objective validity of the contents of a dream such as this one. Relative accuracy, however, is not the same as absolute accuracy, and in this particular case, I have to admit, I was not looking forward to the possibility of error. It was not that our analytical work had ended poorly and we were on bad terms. It had ended well. My reservations, rather, had more to do with the fact that because syndetic experiences had

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played only a small part in my analytical work with this individual, an outof-the-blue call to her about such a matter, months after termination, would seem more than a little strange if my dream had nothing to do with her own experience. Curiously enough, this analysand had originally chosen to work with me because of my research and interests in the spiritual dimensions of depth psychology. In analytically working with her, however, there had always been this cloud of skepticism that she was never quite able to get out from under—a cloud of skepticism that held her back spiritually both in experience and understanding. At times this of course created tension between us, yet there nevertheless remained at a deeper level a sense of sacred bond. In light of the fact, therefore, that my very best appraisal of the dream indicated, not only that it related to my former analysand’s objective situation, but that it suggested, moreover, given her derisive manner, she was in some sort of trouble, I naturally found myself without option but to make contact. So the next day I did just that and we spoke on the telephone. Now no sooner had we passed through the briefest exchange of pleasantries than she asked me, in a quiet almost reverential tone, why I had called. The consciousness momentarily held by both of us in anticipation of the answer to that question yielded the profoundest of silences. I answered by telling my dream. She then outlined what had happened to her. Two days ago, she told me, she had run into some difficulties and tried to contact me by telephone. She called twice, yet each time my answering machine activated to allow her to leave a message she chose not to do so and hung up. She was frustrated and angry, and so much so, she further explained, that as she went to put the phone down following her second failed attempt to speak to me directly, she found herself thinking: “He is not there when I need him.” Only when I began to consider the possibility of there being a projection behind the irrational anger that seized my former analysand when she could not speak directly to me was I able to make sense of the component within my own dream linking me to her former husband. Only through the combining of these two interactive components of the unfolding pattern, did it suddenly become clear to me that my former analysand’s real predicament—what self-organizing nature was leading me to bring to consciousness for her own protection—was that she had found her way into a dysfunctional orientation comparable to that of her former marriage. The fact that she was speaking to me as if she were speaking to her former husband indicated that she had inadvertently returned to that past. Unbeknownst to her, she had slipped back into codependency. Un-

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beknownst to her, she was now living that out, not in the more familiar form of her previous marriage, but in the less recognizable form of her relationship to her adult daughter and grandchild. At the very heart of the journey from disintegration to integration is one’s awakening to self-organizing nature’s immutable ethicality. Here, neurotic fear gives way to what we would not go wrong in describing as healthy fear. What before was the fear of submitting to the life process, now quite rightly becomes, through this revelatory shift in consciousness, the fear of not doing so. What previously was but an illusory fear—illusory in the sense that its basis was the anticipated loss of a control one never possessed anyway—now becomes a fear whose ultimate basis is, as the I Ching puts it so well, the transformative “shock that comes from the manifestation of God within the depths of the earth.”62 Such a shift in consciousness marks a huge turning point. Caught in a vicious cycle of arrest that compounds exponentially with the failure upon failure of the seemingly well-laid plans of the controlling ego, it is no small task for the disintegrative personality to pull out of this downward spiral and align with self-organizing nature. No matter how inevitable we would imagine such failures to be, prior to such a shift in consciousness, the disintegrative holds no such expectation. Each and every one of these failures, accordingly, is experienced as an unexpected intrusion and violent assault. Torment compounds upon torment, arrest upon arrest, meaningless suffering upon meaningless suffering thus making virtually impossible the establishment of a foundation upon which the energies of ego strength might collect in preparation for their forward advance. Two experiences of an individual who was deeply predisposed to such sudden and violent arrest come to mind. In the first instance, a disintegrative regression was triggered when his daughter was driving the family car and the clutch failed. The analysand became enraged with his daughter and blamed her for what occurred, even though the failure of the clutch was most certainly due to nothing other than normal mechanical wear and tear. Now although the analysand’s daughter, quite wrongly, had outwardly been the recipient of his anger and blame, the analysand himself, we should understand, would most certainly have felt no less targeted internally. Indeed if we were to express quite technically what unfolded between the analysand and his daughter we would say that the analysand simply directed toward his daughter his own experience of failure, arrest, and violation. His dreams of that evening confirmed as much. The analysand dreamed he was driving his car when a “guard”—here a symbol of persecutory authority—stopped him. The guard, the analysand further explained, then began working on his car’s engine, yet the guard did so

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with such force that he managed to completely, as the analysand himself specifically put it, “twist the nuts off the engine block.” Do we need to say more? Contrary to the best-laid plans of even the controlling ego, nothing in life runs flawlessly— mechanical things do not, neither do relationships. Glitches do occur, and for almost everyone such glitches are problematic. For the disintegrative, however, they are especially so. For the disintegrative personality even the smallest of glitches can trigger complete free falls into arrest, anger, and meaninglessness. Undoubtedly, this is exactly what happened in the above situation, and it is exactly what happened in the situation I wish now to describe, with the exception of its very significant compensatory ending. On the occasion of his wife’s birthday, the analysand stopped at a delicatessen on his way home from work to pick up a special dessert for her. When he arrived home, however, and his wife was not there, having been delayed by family grocery shopping, he found himself sinking deeper and deeper by the moment into darkness and arrest. Once again, the controlling ego’s fixed plans had ended up on the rocks. Now if the analysand could have just realized that, he would have been able to bring himself to his senses. If he could have just understood it was the controlling ego’s plan that had been compromised and not his heartfelt plan for his wife, he would not have spiraled downward as he so completely did. Yet this, unfortunately, he could not bring himself to do, so an emotional outburst greeted his wife upon her return. Now significantly enough as regards syndetic dynamics, no sooner had things followed the dark course of disintegration that they did than the phone rang. It was their daughter who much to their surprise and concern was uncharacteristically in a state of emotional meltdown. Having recently started university and living away from home for the first time, she was undergoing a cultural shock of sorts. Several things had gone wrong. Making life especially miserable was the room she had been assigned through student housing. It was not at all up to the standard she had been promised. This was a huge disappointment for her, and with all things combined she had arrived at the point where she was now actually speaking of quitting school altogether. Suddenly the tables had become so fully turned on my analysand, for he himself was now in the position of having to hold, for the sake of the well-being of his daughter, consciousness on life and its process in a manner that he, only a few minutes before, was seemingly incapable of doing. Now it was up to him to deliberately and consciously find the order and meaning in the apparent disorder and chaos of his daughter’s crisis. Sud-

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denly and very much against his own will self-organizing nature had cast him into a role that he had not believed himself capable of assuming, even moments before. Suddenly self-organizing nature had experientially lifted him out of the darkness of disintegration and led him not only to glimpse but to acknowledge and even hold consciousness on, albeit momentarily, the integrative light of its intrinsic ethicality. It is through such irrevocable awakenings to the intrinsic ethicality of nature that the disintegrative personality’s orientation to collapse finally gives way to authentic experiences of intimacy—authentic experiences of intimacy in one’s relationship to oneself, to others, and to life as a whole. Whereas before one’s experiences of “intimacy” and “love” could amount to nothing more than a pitiable, disintegrative collapse into the other, or oneself for that matter, with one’s awakening to nature’s ethicality comes a belief in, and indeed desire for, intimate relationship that is both interactive and transformative—conscious relationship that is in keeping with the intrinsic dynamics of the life process itself. Here the meaninglessness of disintegrative neurotic collapse gives way to the meaningfulness of genuine experiences of intimacy and love. Here the meaningless suffering of disintegrative collapse is freely and gladly exchanged for the meaningful suffering that so necessarily attends the pursuit of authentic personal growth, intimacy, and love. It is here with one’s awakening to nature’s intrinsic ethicality that the spell cast by the illusion of fabricated chaos and meaninglessness ceases. And with its demise, so also go one’s vain efforts to resist the self-regulatory process of nature into which one is so intricately enfolded. What existed before but in the form of an otherworldly potential—a potential whose entrance into this life was barred by the fabricated disorder, sabotage, and chaos of the controlling ego’s own plan—at last experiences the once forbidden space and time of this world open to it. Ego control gives way to ego strength. Life’s saboteur becomes life’s cocreator. Concretization/Dynamic Meaning Whereas concretization denotes the tendency of ego control to fix form and meaning, the ego-strength orientation of dynamic meaning, by contrast, upholds form and meaning as dynamic instruments of unfolding Reality. Whereas concretization leads to the absolute fixing of form and meaning to the extent that form and meaning become severed from self-organizing Reality from which they arose and to which, moreover, they continue to refer, the ego-strength orientation of dynamic meaning has to do with the safeguarding of self-organizing Reality’s energic integrity. Whereas the ego-

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control orientation of concretization is about the pursuit of power—the power derived from the seeming absolute control and absolute certainty attending the fixing of form and meaning—the ego-strength orientation of dynamic meaning, by contrast, has to do with the pursuit of depth meaning—a depth meaning whose pursuit requires no less of one than the direct perceiving of Reality in its dynamic suchness. One of the first facts confronting us as we delve into the question of concretization versus dynamic meaning is that concretization is as much a collective consciousness phenomenon as it is a phenomenon of individual psychology. The psychopathology of concretization, we should understand, is as present in the various collective consciousnesses of humanity as it is in the psyches of specific individuals, and in the case of the former it is perhaps consistently more so. Indeed more often than not its appearance in the psychology of an individual has come about by way of the intrusion of a collectively sponsored, concretized value or ideology. When it comes to the question of the clinical investigation of concretization, therefore, we should anticipate that the impetus toward concretization comes about, in the main, in one of two manners: either, (1) directly and exclusively from an ego control tendency within the personality or, (2) through the transmission to the individual of one of the fixed forms associated with the secular and religious collective consciousnesses of humanity to which the controlling ego in turn attaches itself. In the first instance, the impetus for concretization arises, in the main, from within, that is to say, intrapsychically; in the second instance, the impetus for concretization arises, in the main, from without. In keeping with this formula, then, it will support our discussion if we are to speak of the pathology of concretization in terms of two specific categories: Type I Concretization [Inside Out] and Type II Concretization [Outside In]. Type I Concretization [Inside Out]. Much as an individual operating within the ego-control orientation of disintegration will pursue and manufacture when necessary chaos and disorder as a neurotic defense against the supposed threat presented by Reality, an individual for whom the ego-control orientation of concretization has become his or her comparable means of defense will respond by seeking to arrest through concretization unfolding Reality. Much as the disintegrative will create the illusion of control and thus safety through the imposing of chaos and disorder on order, an individual oriented to concretization will no less forcefully attempt to take refuge in the illusion of ego control, again if nowhere else but in his or her own mind, by attempting to freeze through concretization the life flow of spontaneous, self-organizing nature. When it comes, accordingly, to the

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clinical presentation of concretization, although it is understandable how one might be led to conceive of this ego-control orientation more simply in terms of an individual not being able to see the forest for the trees, it is nonetheless more technically accurate and therapeutically necessary to conceive of concretization as rather an exceptionally willful mind-set that so very desperately is not wanting to see the forest for the trees. This distinction is not unimportant. The modus operandi of concretization is to freeze and elevate detail. In this regard any point of detail will become—through the manner in which it is held in the consciousness of concretization—not merely an inactive point, but rather a black hole of sorts by which Reality itself will be devoured. The detail in question may very well be an actual fact or an idealized fact, or it may also be a combination of both. Regardless of which one of these it is, the critical point to be understood is that as a consequence of concretization that detail will become frozen and so disproportionately elevated in its importance that everything and anything of dynamic meaning within its vicinity will have no chance whatsoever of survival. Just as we saw with disintegration, concretization is as likely to present when things are going well as when things are going poorly. This is the case once again because it is the life process itself that the individual cannot trust, and as a consequence one is no more inclined to trust oneself to this process when things are going well than when things are going poorly. There is no less of a need, in other words, to defend oneself against the life process when things are going well than there is to defend oneself against it when things are going poorly. When things are going poorly it will be imagined that the life process needs to be frozen lest things worsen; when things are going well it will be imagined that the life process needs to be frozen lest that which has come to one be taken away. I have observed, for instance, how individuals of this personality orientation, having finally found their way into an intimate relationship after years of searching, would undermine the intrinsic process of the relationship and along with it their potential for happiness by either obsessively fixating on details pertaining to the relationship, problems or otherwise, or through the obsessive imposing on the relationship of a highly idealized and fixed image. In both cases, the end result of their concretizations was that they, and eventually their partners, became altogether alienated from the authentic process of the relationship. Having been within their grasp, the whole of the relationship experience—the total relationship as it authentically exists in process—became lost to these

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individuals for no other reason but their obsessive fixation on the trees, so to speak. A different example of an analysand who was highly prone to concretization comes to mind. The analysand had been accepted into a professional program she had for some time wanted to enter. In spite of her success in this regard, the analysand could not, however, simply descend into the experience of her acceptance. In fact from the very moment she got word of it, her experience was lost to concretization. In her particular case, concretization took the form of misrepresenting to others the details of the program into which she had been admitted. Specifically, she wanted to make the program appear to be more advanced than it actually was. Consistent with the ego-control mechanism of concretization, the analysand thus sought to manipulate and arrest the flow of Reality by fixating consciousness on an altogether forged, idealized detail. The analysand’s dream on the evening she received notification of acceptance left no doubt as to the intensity of her controlling drive in this regard. In her dream a woman was frantically exchanging the bar codes on items of clothing as she waited in the checkout line of a store. Nothing, it seemed to me, could have more graphically portrayed the analysand’s shameless drive to manipulate Reality by way of the manipulation of detail. Nothing, perhaps even more importantly, could have better conveyed the further message, that no matter how neurotically driven one might be to manipulate the details of the whole, the whole remains unchanged. No matter how neurotically driven the woman in the analysand’s dream may have been to manipulate the concretized details of the items in her possession, the price she would be paying at check-out for the whole, that is to say, for all her purchases totalled, would remain unchanged. The price she would be paying for the whole after having fraudulently switched the details around would be exactly the same price she would be paying for the whole prior to having switched the details around. The whole, self-organizing Reality wanted this analysand to understand, the whole that remains unalterable regardless of the illusory shell-games enacted by the ego control mechanism of concretization, is nothing but her experience in its completeness, her experience as it exists in the dynamic meaning that is Reality. Type II Concretization [Outside In]. In the history of civilization we find no scarcity of evidence as to how the psychopathology of concretization, acting under the auspices of the secular and religious ideologies of the collective consciousnesses of humanity, not only seized hold of the psyches of men and women, but often did so with unstoppable and horrific effect.

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Perhaps more shocking still, however, is how, after centuries of such psychic and spiritual traumatization, humanity’s resistance to individual and/ or group possession by way of collectively sponsored concretized values and ideologies remains virtually nonexistent. Now in endeavoring to find a down-to-earth starting point to a problem that will in short order prove to be multifaceted, we could begin by considering something as accessible to us as the impact of concretized, collective values and ideals on marital relationships. Countless, we should not hesitate to imagine, are the instances in which the concretized values and ideals of secular and religious worldviews have arrested altogether the Reality flow within the sacred circle of marriage. We need go no further in searching for a specific instance of this than to recall how previously in this work we addressed in great detail the detrimental impact of that to which we would now refer as concretized collective ideals on instinctual functioning within marriage. Where, it was then asked, with reference to this collectively induced experience of self-alienation, is the place apportioned the sexual instinct in the collectively sanctioned role of mother? Where, it likewise was asked, is the place apportioned the sexual instinct in the collectively sanctioned role of father? And are the roles of wife and husband, as it was further rhetorically questioned against a backdrop of case material, any more inclusive of the sexual instinct than these other roles? Do the fixed secular and religious ideals of our culture pertaining to marriage, I would now ask, provide us with direct access to unfolding Reality by way of our instinctual selves? Of course they do not; rather these concretizations are the cruel means of our alienation from it. Following a different tack, but nonetheless moving still within the confines of marital-related concretization, we come upon those who would readily reduce the question of marital fidelity to the fact of never having “cheated” on their spouses. Especially shocking and almost unbelievable is when such concretizations are brazenly held by individuals who not only have consistently failed to meet their spouse’s needs for intimacy and authentic love but would go so far as to resent having to attempt to do so. Would not the flow of Reality be entirely shut down in the sacred circles of these marriages by such callous, self-serving concretizations? I for one would rather have seen these same individuals “cheat” on a few occasions and still have loved their spouses fully for the greater part of their marriages, than choosing to cheat their spouses out of their entire lives. Along the same line as the above would be the concretized ideal that holds that under no circumstances should spouses separate when there are children involved. Far from being upheld by only traditional religious groups—which of course would usually go further than this in opposing

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separation even in the absence of children—this particular concretized ideal has come into vogue more recently as an ethical absolute within men’s groups. And as yet another example, we could take the concretized ideal that holds that the father within a family is entitled to carry full authority within the household. Some would even go so far as to suggest that the father should be unconditionally regarded as the exclusive carrier within the family of the authority of God, and as such above reproach. Any challenging of the authority of the father would be, in this respect, irrespective of his level of consciousness or lack of it as family leader, indistinguishable from questioning the very authority of God. I am reminded here of an analysand who held as a religious conviction the belief that she should, whenever possible, unquestioningly do whatever was asked of her. This conviction, as might be imagined, had its basis in a collectively determined understanding of religious obedience. We ourselves would say that the analysand had committed herself to following a collectively derived, concretized ideal. Now it was more than interesting to see in the course of our work together how this analysand came to move beyond this concretized understanding of religious obedience to a more conscious and discriminating experience of it. It was more than interesting to see, in other words, how she was able to progress through the collectively derived orientation of concretization to a nature-based understanding of dynamic meaning. One event especially stands out as a watershed in this regard. The analysand had been asked by members of her church to provide support for the staff of a church-sponsored residence for women who had run afoul of the law. Her specific responsibility, as described to her by staff members, was to be no more demanding than simply going to this residence during the evening and spending the whole night there sleeping. No other staff member would be present during that period of time. Now I have to say when my analysand described all of this to me I was immediately concerned not only for her own safety, but also concerned for a program that didn’t seem to be under the best of direction. My analysand was elderly at the time, and I knew should any sort of emergency occur she would herself very likely be in need of assistance. I also had no doubt, moreover, that even though she had been led to believe she had no real responsibilities, someone out there would most certainly imagine otherwise should something go wrong during her shift. At the very least, she would hold herself accountable. When people place before me, intentionally or unintentionally, their seemingly not so well-laid plans, as I begin to introduce my own questions and conclusions I often have the uncomfortable feeling that I am raining

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on their parades. Given this, I am especially concerned to determine, not only for their sakes, but also no less for my own, that any subsequent changes to their plans will reflect, not my direction, but their direction— their direction in terms of the dynamic meaning of unfolding Reality. When my analysand first spoke to me of her involvement with the residential program, she only did so by way of a discussion of something else altogether. It was certainly not, in this respect, an issue with which she had been preoccupied. In fact it didn’t even exist as a problem for her prior to the introduction of my own concerns. So when it came to addressing the big question about her involvement at the residential center, we had at our disposal a dream that not only had been given to the analysand during her first evening at the center, but one which, moreover, had in no way been touched from the side of consciousness by any previously identified concerns or reservations. I would quite technically put the big question with which we were concerned as follows: Was the analysand accurately assessing by way of her own internal processing her suitability for this position, or was it yet again the case that her unreflective adherence to a collectively determined and concretized ideal of obedience was drawing her into a situation that was not only dangerous but also exploitive? The answer provided by her dream was unambiguous. The analysand dreamed she was picking up crumbs and placing them in a glass solely for others to see. The crumbs, it seemed in this particular instance, symbolized, not what the analysand had directly and consciously chosen for herself, but rather that which had fallen by way of others to her. More precisely put, the crumbs symbolized that which had fallen to her by way of a collectively derived, concretized ideal that unquestioningly authorized others to do with her what they would, which in this specific case, took the form of placing her on that evening shift against her better interests. Far from operating in the realm of firsthand experience, the analysand, her dream about those most minuscule of scraps would have us understand, was operating in the realm of secondhand experience. Far from operating in the realm of discriminating experience, she was trapped in the mindless and indeed soulless realm of the concretized ideal. Those crumbs, those highly idealized, fixed parodies of the sacred, were, after all, placed in the glass, not for the sake of her own experience, but for no other reason than the gratification of having others behold them. This, to be sure, was not the realm of ego strength and dynamic meaning, but the realm of ego control and concretization. This, to be sure, was not the realm of genuine immediate religious experience, and as such neither could it even begin to be the place of genuine spiritual obedience.

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I would add as a curious footnote to the above that in the months following our discussion, the residential center itself, after many years of substandard operation, was actually closed in its above-described capacity with the arrival of a new inspector on the scene. It is indeed the scourge of humanity that the legacy of the history of religion is largely that of having imposed, through its multitudinous ideologies, concretized form on life. For as the above case and our preceding reflections on the concretized ideal have more than intimated, the imposing of fixed or concretized form on life is always an act of violation of the soul. Intrapsychically, a fixed religious ideal will often function as a mask behind which a neurosis is free to operate unchecked. Interpersonally, it will often become the absolute means through which the exploitation and abuse of others is perpetrated. Intrapsychically, it will be that behind which one will hide in evading the real challenges of one’s development as a person. Interpersonally, it will legitimize the unreflective, at times even sadistic, discharging of the conflictedness of one’s neurotically fragmented and arrested self. It requires no great stretch of the imagination, for instance, to know what will happen when an unconscious and emotionally undeveloped individual has assumed, under the auspices of a fixed ideal, an authority that is unconditional and above reproach. Similarly, along the line of our above case, it should in no way challenge us to imagine how the fixed ideal of religious obedience would both conceal and support a much more secretive, undoubtedly neurotic wish to avoid the real challenge of conscious development and differentiation. Is it that difficult to imagine how such a fixed ideal would not only hold out to one the seemingly easier route, but would provide the moral validation for taking it? Would it not, from the typically human escapist point of view, be a far more attractive proposition simply to adhere to the false security and false comfort of a fixed ideal than to have to resolve to undertake consciously the painful, heavily shadowed, at times messy, taboo-laden path of self-development? Both intrapsychically and interpersonally, therefore, the soul, moving under the spell of the concretized ideal is propelled into an unreality plane wherein meaningful suffering can in no way be differentiated from meaningless suffering. Removed from the flow of life, removed from the flow of unfolding Reality, no longer subject to the measures of the true barometer of individual experience grounded in Reality, the soul is carried along in the complete absence of reliable points of reference by which it would get its bearings. Here the soul flounders without consciousness, without, in this regard, any means whatsoever at its disposal to determine

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if the hardship to which it has subjected itself, and/or has been forcibly subjected by others, is or is not a necessary, developmental condition of its spiritual journey; that is to say, whether or not this hardship constitutes for it meaningless or meaningful suffering. The difference between a concretized spiritual value and a spiritual value that is an expression of dynamic meaning is that whereas the former closes one off from life by arresting one’s experiential engagement with it, the latter opens one to life. The critical measure, the critical question, in this regard, will always have to do with determining exactly what a given spiritual value does or does not offer to one’s experience of life. Does it open one to life or does it close one off from life? Not concretized ideals, accordingly, but rather, our experience as it exists within the context of unfolding Reality, must alone serve as the barometer by which we assess our values, spiritual or otherwise. In this manner, therefore, actions are taken and values embraced, not because they constitute a concretized should, but rather because of how they practically support one’s alignment with the flow of unfolding Reality. That life entails suffering is a given, yet what very much remains to be decided is whether that suffering will be for naught or, on the other hand, will be the means by which something of intrinsic value, not just to the individual, but no less to this ethical universe will come into being. Will we, in other words, suffer meaninglessly, or will we suffer meaningfully and through such conscious meaningful suffering become cocreators of the ethical universe of which we are an inseparable part? The fulfillment of the individual psychological/spiritual path is not separate from the fulfillment of the path of unfolding Reality. There exists not two paths but One. The embracing of meaningless suffering, in this regard, will be to no productive end. The embracing of meaningless suffering by way of the imposing on life of fixed or concretized form will always be, we would therefore say in extending our above statement, not only an act of violation of the soul, but no less a violation of the integrity of unfolding Reality itself. Now earlier in this work it was explained that even though Jung was following in his notion of immediate religious experience a path that would have potentially carried him beyond fixed or concretized form to a direct engagement with unfolding Reality, Jung never arrived at such a point of theoretical understanding in his psychological/spiritual model. For along the way, Jung became so enmeshed in the archetypal realm that the archetype, in its most concretized form I would add, came to usurp Reality itself. Rather than following the course of self-organizing nature in its compensatory movement through archetypal theme, Jung increasingly fix-

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ated, at the expense of all else, on the archetypal alone. Rather than viewing the archetypal as an instrument of unfolding Reality, Jung came to regard it as Reality itself. Rather than concerning himself with the archetypal content of unfolding Reality, Jung theorized about its archetypal basis. Accordingly, rather than immediate religious experience being about an encounter with unfolding Reality beyond fixed form, for Jung immediate religious experience could amount to no more than an encounter with the concretized archetypal—concretized, either in the sense of the displacement of the archetypal from its compensatory context as a factor of dynamic meaning in unfolding Reality, or in the sense of the archetypal never having been a factor of dynamic meaning in the first place, but merely a fixed outcome of characteristically Jungian, transpersonal free association. For Jung, in this regard, the ultimate goal of immediate religious experience could never be about the realization of a direct experience of unfolding Reality beyond fixed form, but rather entailed, as we know, an encounter with that which is at the very center of the Jungian archetypal compartmentalization of Reality. I am, of course, here referring to that which Jung termed the archetype of the self—the archetype of orientation and meaning above all other archetypes, the spiritus rector and goal of immediate religious experience. Clearly what the Jungian Paradigm has offered to the spiritual consciousness of this age is significant, but it does not, to be sure, amount to more than what might be characterized as a small-circle insight. On the one hand, the Jungian Paradigm opened new space through which we as a culture might move within the paradigm of fixed form, but there can be no doubt, on the other hand, that the Jungian Paradigm at the same time failed to exceed the limitations of that which has largely been the legacy of the history of religion. The history of religion, I yet again will emphasize, has been a legacy of imposing, through its multitudinous ideologies, fixed or concretized form on life; and in spite of all claims by Jung and Jungians to the contrary, the Jungian Paradigm never exceeded these limitations. Jungian immediate religious experience was never about a direct encounter with Reality beyond fixed form. Rather, it was about the concretized archetypalization of Reality, either in the sense of the archetypal enhancement of the collectively validated, fixed forms of institutionalized religion, or in the sense of its identification of the archetype of the self as the ultimate goal of immediate religious experience. Accordingly, to this very day, the Jungian Paradigm remains trapped in a model that falls far short of the psychological/spiritual understanding of which it has so openly declared itself to be in possession. To this very day, having not found its way through to dynamic meaning, the Jungian Paradigm, no less

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than its institutional religious predecessors, remains trapped in the pathology of concretization. Despite all claims to the contrary, the legacy of the Jungian Paradigm, far from being about our awakening to genuine immediate religious experience beyond fixed form, has been about no more than our pitiable relegation to the merry-go-round of concretized, archetypal theme. Now at the very heart, to my mind, of the Jungian Paradigm’s abovedescribed abandonment of Reality for archetypal concretization are two crucial influences of which I have not yet spoken. The first concerns a personal experience of which Jung speaks in his autobiography and published correspondence; the second has to do with Jung’s theoretical placement of the archetype of the self at the center of the mandala. Earlier in this work it was asserted with the caveat of future substantiation that Jung’s discussion of the problem of evil, especially as presented in his “Answer to Job,” was corrupted by Jung’s own largely unresolved father complex. It was further asserted, moreover, that a linkage existed between this psychological blind spot of Jung’s and that to which we have referred as the Jungian Paradigm’s Reality split. The factual basis of these specific deductions, to which it is now time to turn, is to be found in a clearly momentous dream of Jung’s that preceded his writing of “Answer to Job.” As will be carefully demonstrated in what is to follow, Jung’s erroneous self-analysis of this dream, as presented in both his autobiography and published correspondence, would have enormously detrimental consequences for the future direction of his psychology. “The problem of Job in all its ramifications,” Jung tells us in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, “had likewise been foreshadowed in a dream. It started with my paying a visit to my long-deceased father.” Jung’s father lived in an eighteenth-century-style residence that had at one time served as a popular spa-like inn for “many great personages, famous people and princes.” In fact several of these notables actually ended up being buried there. Jung’s father was now the custodian of the crypt in which their remains were interred. This was not, however, his only responsibility, for much to Jung’s surprise, he had also become “a distinguished scholar,” something Jung did not fail to note that “he had never been in his lifetime.”63 Jung continues: Dr. Y.—who was about my age—and his son, both psychiatrists, were also present. I do not know whether I had asked a question or whether my father wanted to explain something of his own accord, but in any case he fetched a big Bible down from a shelf . . . and began interpreting a certain passage. He did this so swiftly and so

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learnedly that I could not follow him. I noted only that what he said betrayed a vast amount of variegated knowledge, the significance of which I dimly apprehended but could not properly judge or grasp. I saw that Dr. Y. understood nothing at all, and his son began to laugh. . . . I was annoyed and thought it was a pity that he had to talk in the presence of three such idiots as we.64 In the next scene of the dream, Jung found himself standing with his father in front of a house. A strange noise, rather like the sound of split wood being thrown around, was coming from an area very close to them. The place they were in, Jung’s father explained, was haunted. The disconcerting sounds were the work of poltergeists. Entering the house, the two men took a narrow staircase to the second floor where they came upon, as Jung relates, “a large hall which was the exact replica of the divan-i-kaas (council hall) of Sultan Akbar65 at Fatehpur Sikri. It was a high, circular room,” Jung notes, “with a gallery running along the wall, from which four bridges led to a basin-shaped center. The basin rested upon a huge column and formed the sultan’s round seat.”66 The whole arrangement formed an enormous mandala. Jung continues: In the dream I suddenly saw that from the centre a steep flight of stairs ascended to a spot high up on the wall—which no longer corresponded to reality. At the top of the stairs was a small door, and my father said, “Now I will lead you into the highest presence.” Then he knelt down and touched his forehead to the floor. I imitated him, likewise kneeling, with great emotion. For some reason I could not bring my forehead quite down to the floor—there was perhaps a millimeter to spare. But at least I had made the gesture with him. Suddenly I knew—perhaps my father had told me—that that upper door led to a solitary chamber where lived Uriah, King David’s general, whom David had shamefully betrayed for the sake of his wife Bathsheba, by commanding his soldiers to abandon Uriah in the face of the enemy.67 “The initial scene,” Jung tells us turning to his analysis of the dream’s meaning, “describes how the unconscious task which I have left to my ‘father,’ that is, to the unconscious, was working out.” And as the astonishingly polished scholarship of his father more than demonstrated to Jung, all was going very well in that regard. In fact the only real problem in the dream had to do with the challenge of the transmission of that extraordinary knowledge to an audience that was, as Jung himself put it, “in

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part incapable of understanding, in part maliciously stupid.” Unconsciousness, Jung knew, was rampant. Accordingly, that poltergeists should have announced their presence at that time came as no surprise whatsoever to Jung. “Poltergeist phenomena,” Jung explains by way of interpreting their appearance in this dream, “usually take place in the vicinity of young people before puberty; that is to say, I am still immature and too unconscious.”68 Jung’s analysis of the dream continues: The center [of the mandala] is the seat of Akbar the Great . . . who is a “lord of this world,” like David. But even higher than David stands his guiltless victim, his loyal general Uriah, whom he abandoned to the enemy. Uriah is a prefiguration of Christ, the god-man who was abandoned by God. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” On top of that, David had “taken unto himself” Uriah’s wife. Only later did I understand what this allusion to Uriah signified: not only was I forced to speak publicly, and very much to my detriment, about the ambivalence of the God-image in the Old Testament; but also, my wife would be taken from me by death. These were the things that awaited me, hidden in the unconscious. I had to submit to this fate, and ought really to have touched my forehead to the floor, so that my submission would be complete. But something prevented me from doing so entirely, and kept me just a millimeter away. Something in me was saying, “All very well, but not entirely.” Something in me was defiant and determined not to be a dumb fish: and if there were not something of the sort in free men, no Book of Job would have been written several hundred years before the birth of Christ. . . . And what would be the use of that freedom if it could not threaten Him who threatens it. . . . The dream discloses a thought and a premonition that has long been present in humanity: the idea of the creature that surpasses its creator by a small but decisive factor.69 Usually one is more than reluctant to challenge the interpretation of a personal dream, especially to the extent that I am about to do. But given that Jung’s above interpretation of his dream has been used liberally as a basis for Jungian paradigmatic conclusions, I am left with no alternative but to do so in the most candid of terms. After all, so very much hangs on the question of its veracity. Accordingly, I will hold nothing back and, even at this early point, alert my reader to the fact that in the analysis that follows we will be provided with yet further evidence of

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those theoretical misapprehensions of the Jungian Paradigm of which I have already spoken in detail above. We will observe in Jung’s interpretation of his dream just how readily in the Jungian Paradigm the true compensatory dynamics of self-regulatory nature succumb to free association, we will observe how symbols whose meanings reside in the immediacy of personal experience are so forcefully carried up into the lofty regions of archetypalism, we will observe how dynamic meaning is devoured by concretization, we will observe how evil—that is to say, the destructive, antilife, or perhaps better still, life-arresting energy of the complexes—is so brazenly projected onto God/Reality, and, we will observe, moreover, how through the subsequent ethical elevation of human beings to a point above God/Reality, the Jungian Paradigm, in effect, theoretically enshrines that which has repeatedly been characterized in this work as the Jungian Reality split. Jung’s own analysis is filled with irrationalities and inconsistencies. On the one hand, Jung chose to identify himself with Uriah. Yet one would imagine, on the other hand, if that were warranted then Jung should not have hesitated to bow completely down when he was called upon to do so. After all, Uriah, to Jung’s mind, had been elevated not because he himself betrayed anyone, as King David and God had done, but because of the betrayal he endured. Bowing down to Uriah, then, would have simply been about Jung acknowledging fully the reality of such betrayal, that is to say, betrayal by the very power one serves. It would in no way have related to one consenting to such betrayal, as Jung went on to misrepresent it as being for no other reason, I would note, than to excuse himself for not having properly bowed down in the first place. Certainly there would have been no question of Jung losing his free will, and there certainly would have been no question of Jung becoming a “dumb fish” if he were to have bowed down to that which symbolized, according to his own analysis, the “higher” knowledge he himself would offer through his “Answer to Job.” Jung’s analysis of his symbolic relationship to the figure of Uriah, we can only thus conclude, is erroneous. Now despite Jung’s failure to address directly the question of his father’s role in his dream, we ourselves are not about to overlook the fact that Jung’s father is no small player when it comes to the dream’s compensatory direction. And we recognize, moreover, that in order for us to understand the exact compensatory role played by Jung’s father, what we need to shed light on is not the father archetype as such, as Jung would have had us do—that is to say, the father as the more generalized unconscious—but rather, Jung’s father complex.

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Now something we do know about Jung’s experience of his father is that although he may have loved him, he certainly did not respect him. In fact it would be no overstatement to say that Jung pitied him. Whether Jung’s negative sentiments in this regard have a fair and objective basis is a matter of opinion, but they were, nonetheless, Jung’s well-documented sentiments. Jung’s father, Johann Paul Achilles Jung (1842–1896), was a Swiss Reformed pastor who died at the age of fifty-four. The relatively early loss of his father, while still at such a young age himself, was certainly something that in its own right would have greatly contributed to Jung’s undervaluation of his father. Jung’s core criticism, after all, had to do with his father’s failure to achieve his life potential. And we do know, moreover, that this indelible, experientially reached impression had to be given to Jung no later than the age of twenty-one, when the sky would, from Jung’s own perspective at that time, still very much seem to be the limit. Although Paul Jung spent his working life as a parish parson,70 he certainly was no country bumpkin, as Jungians have at times imagined him to be. Paul Jung was a scholar during his university years, and a very good one at that. For his doctoral dissertation, he wrote a commentary on an Arabic version of the Song of Songs. “Scholarly and sensitive,” Ronald Hayman relates, “this commentary shows he was more sophisticated than his son makes him out to be . . . as Joel Ryce-Menuhin has written, it shows him to be ‘a true monotheist with a much broader range of comprehension of the sources of Semitic religions than Jungians have realised.’”71 Paul Jung was a scholar, and there can be little doubt that the crisis of meaning that his son was to witness prior to his early death, had a great deal to do with the fact that Paul Jung had been forced from that path following the completion of his doctorate, not for lack of scholarly ability or passion, but because of financial constraint. His was a real-life constraint, yet it was not a constraint that Jung himself would have been able to appreciate fully, if at all, since Jung had entirely at his own disposal, as early as the year following the completion of his doctorate, the substantial wealth of Emma Rauschenbach’s family. “The new life-style he adopted, on account of his wife and also thanks to her dowry,” Wehr writes about Jung, “was unmistakable. . . . The days of financial want were over.”72 Emma’s wealth and possessions, Hayman similarly notes, of which Jung took complete control under Swiss law, now afforded his career a freedom and independence that it would otherwise never have had.73 Jung’s autobiography, of course, explains things differently. “During the years 1892–94,” Jung reflects in his memoirs about his father’s crisis of

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meaning—a crisis, Jung retrospectively concludes, to which his father ultimately succumbed due to his blind obedience to God’s intrinsic darkness, I had a number of vehement discussions with my father. . . . His days of glory had ended with his final examination. Thereafter he forgot his linguistic talent. As a country parson he lapsed into a sort of sentimental idealism and into reminiscences of his golden student days. . . . It was clear to me that something quite specific was tormenting him, and I suspected that it had to do with his faith. . . . I was convinced that he suffered from religious doubts. This, it seemed to me, was bound to be the case if the necessary experience had not come to him. . . . all my questions were met with the same old lifeless theological answers. . . . I could not understand why he did not seize on these opportunities pugnaciously and come to terms with his situation. . . . He had to quarrel with somebody, so he did it with his family and himself. Why didn’t he do it with God, the dark author of all created things, who alone was responsible for the sufferings of the world? . . . My memory of my father is of a sufferer stricken with an Amfortas wound, a “fisher king” whose wound would not heal—that Christian suffering for which the alchemists sought the panacea. . . . He wanted to rest content with faith, but faith broke faith with him. Such is frequently the reward of the sacrificium intellectus.74 If we are to take just one point from the above it should be Jung’s absolute conviction that his father’s spiritual arrest and unhappiness in life was a direct consequence of him having sacrificed, in characteristic Christian fashion to Jung’s mind, intellect and experience for blind faith—blind faith, we would add, in an intrinsically immoral God. And if we are to hold this point in mind as we return to a previously cited comment of Jung’s, we will find in that comment a meaning that we could not before. It should be recalled how when Jung failed in his dream to bow down completely one of his rationalizations for not doing so was, as he put it: “Something in me was defiant and determined not to be a dumb fish.” “Something in me,” we will take the liberty to assert on Jung’s behalf even more specifically, “was defiant and determined not to be the dumb fish that I most certainly knew my father to be.” But why, we naturally then ask, would Jung say such a thing? Why would Jung take such a position and not follow his father’s directive to bow his head fully to the floor, when Jung’s father, as represented in the dream, was certainly anything but a dumb fish? Psychological/spiritual blindness, it seems, comes in many forms, and concretization, as we have

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come to appreciate, is one of them. Sometimes with concretization, it is not so much a question of the controlling ego not being able to see the forest for the trees, but rather, more accurately, the controlling ego not wanting to see the forest for the trees. Concretization, it should be recalled, leads to the elevation and absolute fixing of form or meaning to the extent that form and meaning become severed from self-organizing Reality. Concretization, as also explained, involves fixing detail to the extent that that fixed detail becomes not merely an inactive point, but rather a black hole by which Reality itself will be devoured. Now although this was not stated earlier, it is the case that complexes may very well be subjected to concretization especially by way of previously described Jungian theoretical proclivities to split them off. Complexes themselves can become concretized, and as such split off from the compensatory activities of self-organizing nature that would seek to bring about the healing and growth of the personality by way of their transformation. And the most common reason for the concretization of a parental complex, I would suggest, would be the early, or perhaps better, premature loss of a parent to death. Typically, the response of ego control to this traumatic event takes the form of the parental complex becoming frozen or concretized, much as the actual relationship to the deceased parent would have become itself. Our question, then, must be: Did Jung’s father complex succumb to concretization? Judging by the compensatory structure of Jung’s dream, and taking into account that that dream presented as it did at such a late point in his life, the answer would seem to be yes. When it comes to a complex, once again, concretization takes the form of stopping that complex from undergoing transformation. Concretization freezes the complex and suspends it in a state that it would otherwise have moved through years ago. And of course a central theme of Jung’s dream has to do with Jung’s absolute inability and even resistance when it came to getting into consciousness the transformation that his father so unmistakably had undergone. It would have to do with, to bring things precisely into focus, Jung’s “malicious” resistance when it came to allowing his father complex to undergo transformation. When Jung’s father was alive he supposedly was neither passionate about his work nor scholarly, yet when he appeared in his transformed state in the dream he undoubtedly was both. And although Jung could acknowledge this transformation to the extent that he knew that his father’s “mind was flooded with profound ideas,”75 Jung, nevertheless, could not begin to comprehend exactly what it was that his father so desperately sought to convey to him. Jung failed in this regard, and admitted as much

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in referring to this failure as his “defeat.” Jung failed in this regard, not because he lacked the intelligence to take in what his father was compelled to convey to him, but, more precisely, because Jung lacked the consciousness to do so. The compensatory presentation of the poltergeists confirmed this. Jung couldn’t grasp what was being said to him simply because what was being said to him was outside his range of consciousness. And the same was no less true when it came to Jung not following his father’s crucial directive to bow his head fully to the floor, even after having arrived in the “highest presence” only because of the knowing direction of this altogether transformed individual, his father. What Jung’s father explained and what his father modeled could neither be understood nor followed by Jung because what was said and modeled were completely outside Jung’s range of consciousness. And they were outside Jung’s range of consciousness because Jung’s range of consciousness had always remained so willfully locked, through the process of concretization, on his father complex in its earliest form. Hence Jung’s own description of himself as being maliciously stupid. Untouched by the transformative influences of dynamic meaning as a consequence of its concretization, Jung’s father complex, and with it Jung’s relationship to unfolding Reality itself, remained, self-organizing nature would have Jung understand at that critical moment of his approach to “Answer to Job,” not only unredeemed, but unredeemable. Having considered at length the problem of the concretization of Jung’s father complex, that to which we now must turn is the problem of Jung’s father complex as such. What exactly, we must now understand, was the nature of that complex which in combination with the ego-control mechanism of concretization precipitated the Jungian Paradigm’s Reality split? When a boy in the course of his upbringing has not intimately and consistently known authority by way of a male—usually in the person of his father—it is not uncommon for that individual not only to be distrustful of all authority later in his life, but also to be borderline anarchistic in his relationship to meaning itself. If Jung, as we have been led to imagine by Jung’s own characterization of his father, did not respect his father, he certainly would not have respected the authority of his father. And if Jung did not intimately and consistently come to know and respect the authority of his father, Jung’s father complex, I would now say, certainly would never have allowed him to know, respect, and trust any authority whatsoever, including the authority of unfolding Reality itself. We learn from Jung’s correspondence that the above-described dream involving the bowing theme occurred in January of 1948. Now this particular dream, according to Jung, was the second dream of a two-part

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series, pursuing as it did a problem raised in a previous dream on December 18, 1947. In a letter to Victor White dated December 19, 1947, Jung spoke about that first dream, even though only briefly. There were three Catholic priests in the dream, Jung told White, one of whom “had a remarkable library.” “I was the whole time,” Jung continued, “under a sort of military order and I had to sleep in the barracks. There was a scarcity of beds, so that two men had to share one bed. My partner had already gone to bed. The bed was very clean, white, and fresh and he was a most venerable looking, very old man with white locks and a long flowing white beard. He offered me graciously one half of the bed and I woke up when I was just slipping into it.”76 Now it does take some effort not to entertain the possibility that the thrice-repeated reference in this dream to the color white, not to mention the three priests of whom Jung also spoke, could in fact be a veiled compensatory linking to Jung’s correspondent, Father Victor White. Still on good terms with Jung at the time of this exchange of letters, White, it should be recalled from Part II of this work, would be the one who would most fully challenge Jung on his treatment of the problem of evil, especially as found in Jung’s essay “Answer to Job.” Perhaps significantly in this regard, then, it would be White, in his return letter to Jung, who would draw Jung’s attention to the compensatory meaning of the barracks, which White himself took to symbolize submission and discipline. Jung concurred.77 Submission and discipline, it goes without saying, to an order and authority above oneself—a potentially deeply transformative submission to that higher order and authority by way of, the symbolism of the dream suggests, the consciousness of the body. Jung did not, however, get there, for he woke up, we are told, just as he was slipping into the bed. On January 30, 1948, Jung wrote back to White, this time with further details about his dream. “While I stood before the bed of the Old Man,” Jung told White, “I thought and felt: Indignus sum Domine. [‘I am not worthy, Lord.’] I know Him very well: He was my ‘guru’ more than 30 years ago.” The Old Man, as we have come to learn from Jung’s notes, was in fact Philemon,78 the most significant of Jung’s fantasy figures during the time of his creative illness. Now it is of the greatest importance to the concerns of our inquiry to understand that Philemon symbolized “a force,” as Jung himself puts it in his memoirs, “which was not myself.” Jung continues: “He said I treated thoughts as if I generated them myself, but in his view thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air, and added: ‘If you should see people in a room, you would not think that you had made those people, or that you were responsible for them.’”79

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One cannot help but be reminded here of that great turning point for Job in his encounter with God. After having had His authority challenged by Job, God, responding from the whirlwind and putting a little Reality on the table for His now not so humble servant, rhetorically asked of Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know? . . . Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place? . . . Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with strength? . . . Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?”80 Job certainly got the message. Did Jung, however, when Philemon asked as much of him? Apparently not, for had Jung taken to himself Philemon’s critical observation, Jung, I believe, would have been able to enter consciously into that bed with Philemon, but this he could not do, much as Jung also could not submit himself by way of his whole body to the “highest presence” when directed by his father in the second dream to do so. Jung awoke, it should be recalled from his previous letter to White, just as he was about to slip into Philemon’s bed. When confronted by Philemon some thirty years earlier, much as God had confronted Job, Jung, I can only conclude, did not get it right. When confronted by Philemon, Jung’s entirely predictable, but nevertheless far-reaching error, was to misconstrue Philemon’s challenge as calling for, as Jung put it in his memoirs,81 his submission to the “objectivity, the reality of the psyche,” which, of course, ultimately would take the form of Romantic subjectivism or solipsism, rather than his submission to Reality itself with which the psyche is coextensive. When a boy, I will emphasize yet again, has not come to know, respect, and ultimately trust authority as transmitted to him through a male, he will in later life, by way of his father complex, not only be resistant to authority, but also anarchistic in his relationship to meaning altogether. Yes, he may trust his meaning—however, incomprehensible that may be to others and ultimately even him—but I am not referring to that meaning. I am referring to the problem of his submission to the meaning of unfolding Reality itself. Between Jung and unfolding Reality, between Jung and his experience of that life “force which was not myself,” stood Jung’s concretized father complex. Although Jung did not know this, self-organizing nature most certainly did. Accordingly, when the stakes were highest for Jung and for those, I would add, who were about to become the second generation of this horrific shadow problem,82 at the point at which Jung was about to embark on what would prove to be his greatest theoretical disaster,

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“Answer to Job,” self-organizing nature, yet again, reached out to Jung to make this obstruction known to him in no uncertain terms. “In all parts of the dream,” Jung wrote to White with reference to his second dream of the series, the bowing dream, “I was concerned with my father. In the last scene,” Jung continued, “I was in his house on the ground floor, very much preoccupied by a peculiar question which had been raised at the beginning of the dream.” The house was, of course, the multileveled building of which Jung spoke in his autobiography. The question itself, however, as we very well know, was never mentioned in Jung’s memoirs. Yet this, as we are about to see, was no minor omission on Jung’s part, for the “peculiar question” itself cuts to the very heart of that with which we are so fully concerned, the problem of Jung’s father complex. The question that had hung so heavily over Jung from the beginning of this incredibly important dream was, as Jung explained to White: “How is it possible that my mother celebrates her 70th birthday in this year 1948 while I am reaching my 74th year?” Jung continued: “My father is going to answer it and he takes me up with him to the first floor by way of a narrow winding staircase in the wall.”83 How is it the case, I myself would ask in speaking to the so-called peculiar question by way of a question of my own, that the age ratio between Jung and his mother, as represented in the question of his dream, more closely approximates the age ratio that in fact exists, not between Jung and his mother, but rather, between Jung’s father and mother? Now the answer to these questions resides not in an archetype, as Jung told White in his letter—“My mother = anima is younger than myself.”84—but rather, in a complex, Jung’s father complex to be exact. Indeed the answer to these questions resides in the fact that Jung, most probably acting in conjunction with no less than the tacit approval of his mother, usurped the authority of his father and symbolically took his father’s place in relationship to his mother. We have, of course, already noted the pity and contempt Jung held for what he came to regard as his father’s spiritual impotency and helplessness, his father’s blind faith in a malevolent God. And if we just hold this in mind and couple it with sentiments of the type we are about to consider below, we are certainly given intimations of the synergy existing between Jung and his mother vis-à-vis his father—a synergy that would have brought the two of them, for instance, although by different paths, to the common understanding that the death of Jung’s father was close to merciful for all parties concerned. “The following days,” Jung writes in his autobiography with reference to his father’s death, were gloomy and painful, and little of them has remained in my memory. Once my mother spoke to me or to the surrounding air . . .

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and remarked, “He died in time for you.” Which appeared to mean: “You did not understand each other and he might have become a hindrance to you.” . . . The words “for you” hit me terribly hard, and I felt that a bit of the old days had now come irrevocably to an end. At the same time, a bit of manliness and freedom awoke in me. After my father’s death I moved into his room, and took his place inside the family. For instance, I had to hand out the housekeeping money to my mother every week, because she was unable to economize and could not manage money.85 Now given that Jung was in 1948 still symbolically married to his mother, that is to say, still in the same age ratio to his mother as that of his father to his mother, we know, on this basis alone, that the problem of Jung’s father complex was in no way resolved. We, of course, also know that Jung’s father, in accordance with compensatory dynamics, appeared in Jung’s dream, transformed and healed, for the sole purpose of providing Jung with the solution to this psychological/spiritual impasse, the solution to this unhealing wound that left unresolved would be directly transmitted to humanity through Jung’s “Answer to Job.” We also know, moreover, that not only was Jung incapable of receiving the much-needed solution to this psychological/spiritual impasse from his father, but, even more disturbing still, Jung had no awareness whatsoever of the fact of his failure in this regard; and he never would, I would emphasize, even after having had the benefit of many years to ponder and reassess all that transpired in that dream. What was it, then, we must ask, that was so altogether lost on Jung? It should be recalled that it was in the very moment that Jung stopped short of bringing his forehead fully to the floor in a full-body gesture of complete submission that Jung suddenly realized—perhaps he was even told by his father—that beyond the small door lived Uriah. Now to translate the import of this critical compensatory moment into more specific symbolic terms we would say that between Jung and God/Reality, between Jung and his unconditional submission to the Absolute, somewhere in that “perhaps millimeter to spare” between his forehead and the floor, resided that crucial problem of which Uriah was the most precise symbol. And notwithstanding what Jung himself willed that problem to be, despite all compensatory indicators to the contrary, that problem did not have to do with the betrayal/abandonment of Jung by God/Reality, much as David had abandoned Uriah, but rather, it had to do with Jung’s betrayal/abandonment of God/Meaning/Reality. According to the assessment of self-organizing nature, Jung, to be sure, was no Uriah. If anyone, Jung was David, who driven by hubris killed his friend Uriah and took his wife, much as Jung

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himself had done in the form of usurping the authority of his father and taking his father’s place in relationship to his mother. Jung was no Uriah, if anyone, he was David, for like David who abandoned his general and friend for no reason but that of the gratification of his needs, Jung himself, acting under the influence of his unresolved, concretized father complex that led him to place his needs above the needs of unfolding Reality, would abandon one of his closest friends and generals, Victor White. Contrary to what Jung and Jungians would contend, White did not betray and abandon Jung, rather Jung betrayed and abandoned White. Jung betrayed and abandoned White when White would not—out of his love for Jung and God/Meaning/Reality—say to Jung what Jung’s father complex wanted to hear. Jung was not White’s victim, but White, however, sadly, became Jung’s,86 much as no less would God/Meaning/Reality in Jung’s “Answer to Job.” No, that millimeter gap between Jung’s forehead and the floor was not as Jung’s still unresolved father complex would have him believe indicative of that “small but decisive factor” by which “the creature. . . surpasses its creator,”87 rather that millimeter gap would ultimately prove to be that small but decisive factor separating the Jungian Paradigm from Reality. If, then, it is not Reality toward which the Jungian Paradigm’s gaze is turned, if, then, it is not Reality to which the Jungian Paradigm would counsel one to submit, toward what does the Jungian Paradigm turn its gaze and to what would it direct one to submit? What, we have every right to ask and know, is the true nature of the sacred circle, the mandala that the Jungian Paradigm has drawn, and what stands at its center? Given the Jungian Paradigm’s Romantic, psychologistic orientation, standing within its sacred circle, we will neither seek nor come to know unfolding Reality beyond the psyche, even if we are fortunate enough to find our way to Reality inwardly despite this same limitation. Within this sacred circle, the transformative flow of self-organizing Reality will succumb to archetypalism. And even though, furthermore, the Jungian Paradigm would claim that its mandala supplants the past and present spiritual systems of humanity, we will not find within it that to which humanity has referred as God, at least if we are to take Jung’s formal disclaimers to this effect at face value. And if by chance we suddenly were to come upon that to which humanity has referred as God, as Jung’s less formal statements lead us at times to imagine we might do, we would, nonetheless, know that God, the archetype of the self, or whatever it is that is designated as being the Creator and ongoing developmental sponsor of us, is neither to be trusted nor submitted to, being that it is of questionable moral character and indeed a sponsor of evil in its own right. After all, in the Jungian Paradigm, it is neither God, nor the archetype of the self, nor the Creator that surpasses its

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creature, but rather the creature that surpasses its Creator. After all, within the sacred circle of the Jungian Paradigm, it is neither God, nor the archetype of the self, nor the Creator of humanity that holds supreme moral authority, but rather, shockingly in keeping with Freud’s own conclusions, none other than the ego that does so. The tragedy of the Jungian Paradigm, to my mind, was its betrayal of that which surely amounted to its most important clinical finding, its discovery of the self-regulating psyche. Rather than moving forward systematically under the auspices of that core paradigmatic assumption, Jung, for many reasons but the right ones, chose to abandon the self-regulatory model when it came to the Jungian Paradigm’s most critical theoretical moments. Archetypal reductionism, as we have seen, carried the Jungian Paradigm, both in theory and practice, far from self-organizing nature’s Reality line. Then there would be that father-complex-driven flight of fancy that Jung’s inquiry into the problem of evil would become—that flight of fancy that not only dangerously elevated the authority of the ego, but did so by way of theoretically undermining the moral integrity of self-organizing nature. But, of course, not least of all when it came to Jung’s abandonment of the selfregulatory model, was the introduction of his theoretically redundant notion of the archetype of the self. If the psyche is indeed self-regulating, something of which we certainly are not in need (as outlined in Part I of this work) is yet another theoretical construct to oversee its self-regulation. When a theoretical construct does indeed constitute a theoretical redundancy that construct, having neither a genuine theoretical nor functional clinical life of its own, will, to all intents and purposes, amount to no more than a concretization. Although it may be allotted a place in a theoretical model, being without a genuine theoretical or functional clinical basis, it will be as useless, as indicated earlier, as a head on a head. Thus was the fate of the archetype of the self. It did exist, but it only truly did so as something approximating a concretized ideal, a fixed form. Accordingly, when Jung chose to position the self at the center of the mandala88 in the place of the deity, rather than moving beyond the paradigm of fixed form—as in the view of the Syndetic Paradigm it is incumbent upon us to do in meeting the psychological/spiritual needs of this age—the Jungian Paradigm’s contribution could amount to no more than the substitution of a new fixed form for an old one. The Jungian Paradigm’s contribution, to put it differently, could amount to no more than a psychological variation on an already failed paradigmatic approach to our present-day crisis of meaning. The history of religion is a legacy of having imposed on life fixed or concretized form; and the imposition on life of fixed or concretized form

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is always an act of violation of the soul. At this critical moment of our present-day crisis of meaning, therefore, the last “solution” of which we are in need is one that perpetuates our state of psychological/spiritual arrest by holding out to us, not the dynamic meaning of self-organizing Reality, but yet another concretization, yet another false absolute upon which we are to hang our lives, as opposed to that through which we can fully live. The vulnerability of humanity to false absolutes, which are, so to speak, the by-products of concretized or fixed forms, is a most frightening vulnerability indeed. Whether they are of a religious, psychological, social, or political nature, when it comes to the workings of the human psyche, false absolutes are tremendously seductive. The reason for this, it seems to me, is perhaps to be found in the linkage that exists in the minds of human beings between the search for meaning and the need for certainty. We would not be pressed to imagine that one of the drivers at the very core of our search for meaning is our no less instinctive need for certainty. Far less apparent, though, would be the reason why these closely related drives might end up being altogether at odds with each other. How is it that certainty and meaning so suddenly diverge from their parallel trajectories? The answer, to my mind, is that certainty may very well be acquired for a far cheaper price than that which must be paid when truth and meaning are obtained along with it. Certainty may be entirely manufactured by ego control and as such have little, if anything, to do with truth and meaning. Certainty may be an utter fabrication of ego control and as such have nothing whatsoever to do with Reality. Certainty of this particular sort, therefore, having everything to do with ego control and power and nothing to do with meaning, is most appropriately termed false certainty. Concretized or fixed forms lead to false absolutes, which in turn produce false certainties. Now we can observe the workings of false certainty in something as commonplace as psychological diagnosis. I am thinking, for instance, about situations in which individuals experiencing psychological crisis, perhaps even to the extent of having to be hospitalized, have undergone team psychological/psychiatric assessment and diagnosis. Typically, as soon as a diagnosis has been formally delivered, there is relief, if not something close to elation for all parties concerned, especially if the diagnosis is an unusual or rare one. What I have found to be most remarkable, however, is that this occurs even when the diagnosis will ultimately prove to be inaccurate and thus useless. Here, not dynamic meaning, through the diagnosis, but rather, a false absolute and a false certainty gain the upper hand. A type of honeymoon period then commences, but it will be shortlived, perhaps lasting only a matter of weeks until it becomes apparent to all concerned that the diagnosis has not provided a basis for addressing the

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patient’s real problem. At this point, more often than not, enthusiasm for treatment itself wanes for both the team and the patient. In fact in some situations, things will go off track to the extent that further diagnosis and treatment will be abandoned altogether or pursued only half-heartedly. The patient may even be marginalized for seemingly not cooperating with the first diagnosis. Egos are bruised on all sides, or, as we would more specifically put it, all parties have now to recover from this clear affront to the ambitions of ego control. Not at all unlike the above example, would be the case of an analyst who would reduce a specific problem of an analysand to an archetype as such, rather than assessing and interpreting the analysand’s predicament in terms of the dynamic interplay of both personal and archetypal factors. As with psychological misdiagnosis, the reducing of a complex psychological process to the false absolute of a single, transpersonal factor—a factor, moreover, into which the analysand can readily escape from the true developmental demands of Reality—will in no way be therapeutically productive. Indeed archetypal reductionism of this sort can do no more than momentarily elevate the spirit of the analysand by way of false certainty. Unlike dynamic meaning, which opens life to us, false certainty closes life off. False certainty provides false comfort; it does not prod us forward into life and consciousness, as dynamic meaning can only do, at times gently and at times not so gently. False certainty creates in us a type of tunnel vision, thereby enabling us to ignore the real problems to which our development is most fully tied. False certainty may uplift our spirits, but it will never heal them, for as with concretization, false certainty is not about consciousness and dynamic meaning, but rather, about no more than the ultimately empty, power-based gratification of ego control. Perhaps the human susceptibility to false certainty, I will offer as a further reflection on this important question, will prove to be the operative factor not only in the so-called placebo effect but with hypnosis, which discloses in its own right the tendency of human beings to believe unconditionally whatever they have been told to accept as true. Not at all irrelevant to our discussion of false certainty are the conclusions of research conducted into the problem of eyewitness testimony. Two findings, to my mind, are especially pertinent. Firstly, research into the problem of eyewitness testimony has demonstrated that confidence is not a reliable indicator of accuracy when it comes to the eyewitness identification of criminals. Concerning the ever-growing body of research that casts doubt on the confidence-accuracy relationship in eyewitness testimony, Neil Brewer, Amber Keast, and Amanda Rishworth write in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied (2002): “A recent survey of eye-

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witness testimony researchers indicated . . . that some 73% of them would have been willing to testify that confidence is not a good predicator of identification accuracy. . . . The reason for this is simple. The outcomes of empirical studies, reviews, and meta-analyses have converged on the conclusion that the confidence-accuracy relationship for eyewitness identification is weak, with average confidence-accuracy correlations generally estimated between little more than 0 and .29 (e.g., Bothwell, Deffenbacher, and Brigham, 1987; Cutler, Penrod, and Martens, 1987; Sporer, Penrod, Read, and Cutler, 1995; Wells and Murray, 1984).”89 Secondly, and further to the above findings, research has no less demonstrated how eyewitnesses, in viewing suspect lineups for the purposes of criminal identification, are inclined to “find” a culprit in a suspect lineup regardless of whether the actual perpetrator is present. With reference to research conducted on eyewitness identification in culprit-present versus culprit-absent lineups, Gary L. Wells and Elizabeth A. Olson, write in the Annual Review of Psychology: “In one study, for example, 54% of eyewitnesses were able to identify the actual culprit from a 6–person culpritpresent lineup and 21% made no identification. When the culprit was removed without replacement (making it a 5–person culprit-absent lineup), however, the rate of no identification rose only to 32%, with the other 68% of the eyewitnesses who saw this lineup mistakenly identifying someone from the 5 remaining members of the lineup.”90 Remarkably, with the actual culprit now absent from the lineup, with only five instead of six suspects standing before the eyewitnesses, only 32% of eyewitnesses made no identification, that is to say, only 11% more than when the culprit was actually present in a six-person lineup. Seemingly paradoxical about all of this, as the researchers themselves explain: “The same eyewitnesses who identified an innocent person from a culprit-absent lineup might otherwise have been able to identify the actual culprit from a culprit-present lineup.”91 So readily can the parallel trajectories of certainty and meaning come to an end under the influences of ego control. So readily can the drive that would so productively support the search for truth and meaning deviate from its intended course and become but a parody of its more authentic form. So readily can certainty succumb to false certainty. Now of course beyond the concerns of individual psychology, we find that false absolutes and false certainty operate no less detrimentally on the global scale. History and indeed current events offer no scarcity of evidence as to how the false absolutes and false certainties of religious and secular ideologies have seized hold of the psyches of men and women with unstoppable and dreadful effect. All too often do truth and justice suc-

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cumb to illusion. All too often has the very survival of humanity needlessly been put at stake because of this. If this is allowed to continue unchecked, what should we anticipate but the doom of humankind’s ethical, if not physical existence. The problem of distinguishing false absolutes from dynamic meaning remains, therefore, humanity’s greatest vulnerability and most pressing spiritual challenge. Speaking with striking relevance to the consciousness needs of our present age as described above is the following passage taken from the writings of the Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu. A recluse, Hsu Su Kwei, the story tells us, one day visited Prince Wu. The prince, being altogether ignorant or altogether in denial of the true nature of his foreign policies, sought to take advantage of Hsu Su Kwei’s presence to have the sage confer upon him that which the prince in his own unconsciousness anticipated would be approval and praise. His plan, however, quickly backfired. For rather than praising Prince Wu and his foreign policies, the sage, drawing on his own consciousness and wisdom, proceeded to expose systematically the prince’s shameless concretization of love and justice. The sage proceeded to expose systematically the prince’s shameless employment of love and justice as false absolutes, as mere pretexts for that which in Reality was nothing other than a power-driven, ego-gratifying pursuit of war. Chuang Tzu’s brilliant “Advising the Prince” reads as follows: The recluse Hsu Su Kwei had come to see Prince Wu. The Prince was glad. “I have desired,” he said, “To see you for a long time. Tell me If I am doing right. I want to love my people, and by the exercise of justice To put an end to war. Is this enough?” “By no means,” said the recluse. “Your ‘love’ for your people Puts them in mortal danger. Your exercise of justice is the root Of war after war! Your grand intentions Will end in disaster! “If you set out to ‘accomplish something great’ You only deceive yourself. Your love and justice

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The Empty Mandala Are fraudulent. They are mere pretexts For self-assertion, for aggression. One action will bring on another And in the chain of events Your hidden intentions Will be made plain. “You claim to practice justice. Should you seem to succeed Success itself will bring more conflict. Why all these guards Standing at attention At the palace gate, around the temple altar, Everywhere? “You are at war with yourself! You do not believe in justice, Only in power and success. If you overcome An enemy and annex his country You will be even less at peace With yourself than you are now. Nor will your passion let you Sit still. You will fight again And again for the sake of A more perfect exercise of ‘justice’! “Abandon your plan To be a ‘loving and equitable ruler.’ Try to respond To the demands of inner truth. Stop vexing yourself and your people With these obsessions! Your people will breathe easily at last They will live And war will end by itself!”92

The history of the secular and religious ideologies of humanity, I will extend a previous statement in saying, is a legacy of having imposed on life, through fixed or concretized form, false absolutes and false certainties; and the imposition on life, through fixed or concretized form, of false ab-

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solutes and false certainties is always an act of violation of the soul. Perhaps even up to one hundred years ago, this formula could have been believed in and lived with relative authenticity, in spite of its ultimate destructiveness. Today, however, it cannot. There truly is an evolution of consciousness and thus what falls within the range of acceptability in one age becomes, or is on its way to becoming, a virtually intolerable condition in the next. Perhaps this shift in consciousness coincides with the fact that today there is little margin for error. As never before in humanity’s history, unconsciousness could now very well destroy everything, and do so within a matter of moments. Whether it is for this reason or other ones, what we do know—what is clearly indicated in the dreams and outward compensatory experiences of people today—is that in this our present age our deepest beings are rebelling against the legacy of concretization, false absolutes and false certainties. What we do know is that we no longer can accommodate ourselves to that old formula. Yet because, I would also add by way of caution, it is our deepest beings and not our conscious selves that have rebelled against the old, our conscious selves continue to reach for the solution in the wrong places and in the wrong forms, much as even Jung himself did. Accordingly, with each vain attempt to resolve this crisis with yet another fixed-form cure, with yet another false absolute, we are repeatedly subjected to that to which our deeper selves have now developed a near-allergic aversion. No solution, we should be assured, be it spiritual, psychological, social, or political will come from such folly. For the answer to our crisis of meaning, which is unlike anything that humanity has previously faced, will come, not by way of concretization, but rather by way of our direct and conscious access through dynamic meaning to unfolding Reality. From its very depths the collective soul of our age cries out to be released from its entrapment in that which has been the legacy of humanity’s secular and religious ideologies: Concretized or fixed forms lead to false absolutes, which in turn produce false certainties. Whereas the Jungian Paradigm, still operating within the assumptions of the paradigm of fixed form, sought to answer this present-day crisis of meaning by way of heightening and enhancing our experience of symbolical form, the Syndetic Paradigm, by contrast, leads us to reach through form to engage unfolding Reality itself. Whereas the Jungian Paradigm concerned itself with making what appears—that is to say, form—more real through the importation of archetypal meaning, the Syndetic Paradigm, by contrast, is concerned with allowing Reality, through form, to appear. To reach through form, as the Syndetic Paradigm holds, is not to be without form, rather it is merely to be without fixed form. When form is enhanced and fixed, especially by

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way of archetypal reductionism, it becomes disengaged from unfolding Reality. We ourselves in turn become trapped in its disengagement. When form is not fixed, on the other hand, when it is left to function as the dynamism of self-organizing nature that it is, form becomes the means of our direct engagement with unfolding Reality. In the Buddhist Prajnaparamitahridaya-sutra, the Heart Sutra, the text thus reads: “Form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form.”93 Now because dynamic meaning as it presents in the particular, which is to say, in form that is not fixed, is regarded by the Syndetic Paradigm as the point of direct access to unfolding Reality, and because, additionally, the Syndetic Paradigm believes that the only means of functional engagement with the particular is the developmental edge of the differentiating ego, within the Syndetic Paradigm, the differentiation of the ego, as we have seen, assumes an importance that the Jungian Paradigm was never inclined to assign to it. Accordingly, within the Syndetic Paradigm, the problem of the clinical differentiation of the ego and its dynamics is taken up systematically in terms of four categories of ego control and ego strength. Reality, the Syndetic Paradigm holds, does not reveal itself to those whose gaze is turned away from its immediacy. Only through conscious experience of the immediacy of the particular in dynamic process does Reality make itself known to us. In great contrast, then, to the highest symbol of the Jungian Paradigm, the archetype of the self—which is linear as opposed to nonlinear, concretized and fixed as opposed to dynamic—the highest symbol of the Syndetic Paradigm is that of the Empty Mandala. The Empty Mandala is indeed empty to the extent it harbors no fixed forms. In it concretization gives way to dynamic meaning. The Empty Mandala is a symbol of the space in which everything of self-organizing nature moves freely. It is, therefore, not about nothingness, but rather about dynamic everythingness. Being without fixed form, moreover, fixed form affords one no point of access to it. Access, rather, is but granted through the dynamic, everchanging particular, that precise point at which the developmental edge of the differentiating ego encounters self-organizing Reality.

NOTES Introduction 1. Robert Aziz, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990). 2. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 208. 3. Ibid., p. 5. 4. Edward Glover, Freud or Jung, foreword by James William Anderson (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1991), p. 4. 5. Ibid. 6. Kuhn, Structure, p. 162. 7. Ibid., pp. 89–90. 8. C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffé, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Vintage, 1965), p. 149. 9. Ibid., p. 153. 10. C. G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation, Collected Works (hereafter cited as C. W.), vol. 5, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. xxiii. 11. Henri F. Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious (New York: Basic, 1970), pp. 447 and 672. 12. Ibid., p. 889. 13. Sigmund Freud, “Moses and Monotheism: Three Essays,” Standard Edition (hereafter cited as S. E.), vol. 23, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1964), pp. 98–100. 14. Kuhn, Structure, p. 5. 15. Ibid., p. 11. 16. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. 3–5. 17. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London: Unwin, 1979), p. 657. 18. Edward F. Edinger, Ego and Archetype (Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1974), p. 136. 19. Russell, History, p. 21. 295

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20. Andrew Samuels, “Can the Post-Jungians Survive?” Psychological Perspectives 31 (1995), p. 56. 21. Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype (New York: Ballantine, 1992). 22. Ibid., p. 374. 23. Andrew Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 101. 24. Aziz, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, pp. 70–72 and 148–50. 25. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Webster’s New World College Dictionary (New York: Macmillan, 1999). Webster’s Third New International Dictionary: The English Language Unabridged (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1981). I. Self-Organizing Nature 1. C. G. Jung, “General Aspects of Dream Psychology,” C. W., vol. 8, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), par. 488, p. 252. 2. C. G. Jung, “On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena,” C. W., vol. 1, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), par. 136, p. 79. 3. Jung, “The Structure of the Psyche,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 321, pp. 151–52. 4. Jung, “A Review of Complex Theory,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 201, p. 96. 5. Jung, “Psychological Factors in Human Behaviour,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 253, p. 121. 6. Jung, “On the Nature of Dreams,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 550, pp. 289– 90. 7. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 196. 8. Jung, “General Aspects of Dream Psychology,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 478, p. 249. 9. Ibid., pars. 479–80, pp. 249–50. 10. Jung, “On the Nature of Dreams,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 552, p. 290. 11. Ellenberger, Discovery, p. 890. 12. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 134. 13. Ellenberger, Discovery, p. 890. 14. Jung, “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 924 and note 12, p. 489. Jung writes, “It is, whenever possible, a thinking in terms of the whole, a point also brought out by Marcel Granet.”

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15. M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 12. 16. James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: Penguin, 1987), p. 4. 17. Waldrop, Complexity, pp. 12–13. 18. Roger Lewin, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos (New York: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 14–15. 19. Waldrop, Complexity, pp. 60–61 and 64. 20. Ibid., p. 285. 21. Ibid., pp. 287–88. 22. Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture (New York: Bantam, 1983), pp. 72–73. 23. Waldrop, Complexity, p. 288. 24. Ibid., p. 12. 25. Lewin, Complexity: Life . . . , p. 54. 26. Waldrop, Complexity, pp. 9–11. 27. Ibid., p. 107. 28. Ibid., p. 122. 29. Ibid., p. 108. 30. Lewin, Complexity: Life . . . , p. 170. 31. C. G. Jung, “The Psychology of the Transference,” C. W., vol. 16, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), note 14, p. 171. 32. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 131. 33. The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Richard Wilhelm, trans. from the German by Cary F. Baynes, foreword by C. G. Jung (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), p. 4. 34. Ibid. 35. The Layman’s Parallel Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Bible Publishing, 1973), King James Version, p. 4. 36. This account is taken from my article “Synchronicity and the Transformation of the Ethical in Jungian Psychology” published in Carl Becker, ed., Asian and Jungian Views of Ethics (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999) under the auspices of the Uehiro Foundation, Tokyo, Japan. 37. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 314. 38. Jung, “Instinct and the Unconscious,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 273, p. 135, and par. 280, pp. 137–38. 39. Aziz, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, see especially pp. 51–58 and “Archetype(s)” in the index. 40. Ibid., p. 54.

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41. Ibid., pp. 54–58, 136–44, 165–66, and 174–75. 42. Jung, “On the Nature of the Psyche,” C. W., vol. 8, pars. 418–19, p. 215. 43. Aziz, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, p. 57. 44. Andrew Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians, pp. 29–30 and 100. 45. Ibid., p. 100. The quote from Jung that I fully cite above in the main text of this work begins: “Since psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world . . .” Also see Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians, pp. 29–30. 46. Jung, “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 841, p. 437. 47. Ibid., par. 912, p. 481. 48. Ibid., par. 846, p. 440. 49. C. G. Jung, Aion, C. W., vol. 9, pt. 2, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), par. 257, pp. 167–68. 50. Ken Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution (Boston: Shambhala, 1995), p. 206. 51. Ibid., p. 207. 52. Sean Kelly, “A Trip through Lower Town: Reflections on a Case of Double Synchronicity,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 38 (1993), p. 193. 53. Ibid., pp. 193–94. 54. Wilber, Sex, Ecology . . . , p. 207. 55. Kelly, “A Trip . . . ,” pp. 196–97. 56. Ibid., p. 197. 57. C. G. Jung, “The Structure of the Unconscious,” C. W., vol. 7, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), par. 512, p. 300. 58. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 196. 59. Glover, Freud or Jung, pp. 128–30. 60. Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians, p. 104. 61. C. G. Jung, “A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity,” C. W., vol. 11, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), par. 238, p. 160. 62. Jung, “The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious,” C. W., vol. 7, par. 399, p. 238. 63. Edinger, Ego and Archetype. 64. Ibid., p. 36. 65. Ibid., p. 37. 66. The Secret of the Golden Flower, trans. Richard Wilhelm, trans. from the German by Cary F. Baynes, commentary by C. G. Jung (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), p. 133.

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67. Ibid., p. 124. 68. James W. Heisig, Imago Dei: A Study of C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1979), note 151, p. 176. 69. John P. Dourley, “Response to Bock and Coward,” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 5 (2) (1995), p. 106. 70. Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians, p. 92. 71. Ibid. 72. C. G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation, C. W., vol. 5, par. 450, p. 294. 73. Jung, “On the Nature of the Psyche,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 405, p. 205. II. Nature’s Intrinsic Morality 1. Erich Neumann, Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, trans. Eugene Rolfe, forewords by C. G. Jung, Gerhard Adler, and James Yandell (Boston: Shambhala, 1990), p. 15. 2. Aziz, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, pp. 32–33. 3. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 192. 4. The Secret of the Golden Flower, p. 118. 5. Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). 6. This is a revised version of an account that first appeared in my article “Synchronicity and the Transformation of the Ethical in Jungian Psychology” published in Asian and Jungian Views of Ethics under the auspices of the Uehiro Foundation, Tokyo, Japan. 7. C. G. Jung, ed., Man and His Symbols (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979), p. 85. 8. Sigmund Freud, “The Future of an Illusion,” S. E., vol. 21, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1961), p. 15. 9. Jung, “Answer to Job,” C. W., vol. 11. 10. Ibid., par. 586, p. 378. 11. Ibid., pars. 560–61, p. 365. 12. H. L. Philp, Jung and the Problem of Evil (London: Rockliff, 1958), pp. 45–46. 13. Gerhard Wehr, Jung, a Biography, trans. David M. Weeks (Boston: Shambhala, 1988), p. 394. 14. Ibid., p. 383. 15. Lionel Corbett, The Religious Function of the Psyche (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 130–31. 16. Gerhard Adler and Aniela Jaffé, eds., C. G. Jung Letters, vol. 2, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), note 1, p. 33. 17. Ibid., p. 32.

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18. Neumann, Depth Psychology, p. 133. 19. Francoise O’Kane. Sacred Chaos: Reflections on God’s Shadow and the Dark Self (Toronto: Inner City, 1994), p. 9. 20. Ibid., p. 26. 21. Adler and Jaffé, eds., C. G. Jung Letters, vol. 2, pp. 434–35. 22. Jung, “Answer to Job,” C. W., vol. 11., par. 747, p. 461. 23. Matter of Heart, Kino International Corporation, C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, 1983. 24. Ann Ulanov, “Jung and Religion: The Opposing Self,” in Polly Young-Eisendrath and Terence Dawson, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 309. 25. Sigmund Freud, “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” S. E., vol. 18, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1962). 26. Freud, “An Outline of Psycho-Analysis,” S. E., vol. 23, p. 148. 27. Freud, “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” S. E., vol. 18, p. 53. 28. Freud, “Civilization and Its Discontents,” S. E., vol. 21, p. 120. 29. Andrew Samuels, Bani Shorter, and Fred Plaut, eds., A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), pp. 39–40. 30. Jung, “On the Psychology of the Unconscious,” C. W., vol. 7, pars. 33–34, pp. 28–29. 31. Jung, “A Review of the Complex Theory,” C. W., vol. 8, pars. 194ff, pp. 92ff. Also see note 1, p. 92. 32. Ibid., par. 201, p. 96. 33. Ibid., par. 203, p. 97. 34. C. G. Jung, “Problems of Modern Psychotherapy,” C. W., vol. 16, par. 125, p. 56. 35. Jung, “A Review of the Complex Theory,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 210, p. 101. 36. Jolande Jacobi, Complex/Archetype/Symbol in the Psychology of C. G. Jung, trans. Ralph Manheim (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959), p. 6. 37. Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians, p. 52. 38. Samuels, Shorter, and Plaut, eds., A Critical Dictionary . . . , p. 34. 39. Sherry Salman, “The Creative Psyche: Jung’s Major Contributions,” in Young-Eisendrath and Dawson, eds., Cambridge Companion, p. 61. 40. Ibid., p. 63. 41. Jung, “The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 856, p. 446. 42. C. G. Jung, “A Psychological View of Conscience,” C. W., vol. 10, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), par. 449, p. 847.

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43. Jacobi, Complex/Archetype . . . , p. xi. 44. Ibid., p. 20. 45. Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians, p. 49. 46. Jacobi, Complex/Archetype . . . , p. 22. 47. Ibid., pp. 26 and 30. 48. See C. G. Jung, “Experimental Researches Including the Studies in Word Association,” C. W., vol. 2, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973). 49. Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians, p. 48. 50. Jung, “A Review of the Complex Theory,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 204, p. 98. 51. Jung, “On Psychic Energy,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 46, p. 24. 52. The I Ching or Book of Changes, p. 92. III. Sexual Alchemy 1. Marie-Louise von Franz, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology (Toronto: Inner City, 1980), p. 68. 2. Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, trans. Gia-fu Feng and Jane English (New York: Vintage, 1972), no. 1. 3. Freud, “Civilization and Its Discontents,” S. E., vol. 21, p. 112. 4. Kristofer Schipper, “Science, Magic and the Mystique of the Body: Notes on Taoism and Sexuality,” in Michel Beurdeley, Chinese Erotic Art, trans. Diana Imber (Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell, 1969), p. 7. 5. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 429–30. 6. Schipper, “Science, Magic . . . ,” p. 8. 7. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 5, pt. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 275. Also see note d on the same page. 8. R. H. Van Gulik, Sexual Life in Ancient China (Leiden: Brill, 1961), pp. 135ff. 9. Ibid., p. 122. 10. Ibid., p. 124. 11. Ibid., p. 145. 12. The Secret of the Golden Flower, p. 62. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid., p. 63. 15. Ibid. 16. Schipper, “Science, Magic . . . ,” p. 23. In some texts, ching in women is directly linked to menstrual blood. See Joseph Needham, Science

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and Civilisation in China, vol. 2, pp. 148–49. With reference to this same question, Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber, in Stephan Schuhmacher and Gert Woerner, eds., The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion (Boston: Shambhala, 1989), p. 72, writes: “Ching literally designates the semen of a man or the menstrual flow of a woman. In Taoist texts, however, it is not used in such a concrete sense but rather describes a subtle substance or essence.” 17. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 2, p. 149. 18. Schuhmacher and Woerner, eds., The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, p. 105. 19. Ibid., p. 104. 20. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 2, p. 149. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid., pp. 149–50. 23. The Secret of the Golden Flower, pp. 31–32. 24. Baynes, in The Secret of the Golden Flower, p. 14, note 1, translates p’o and hun as earthly soul and spirit-soul, respectively. Fischer-Schreiber, in The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, p. 149, translates p’o as body soul and hun as breath soul or spirit soul. Wing-Tsit Chan, trans. and comp., A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 12, translates p’o and hun as earthly soul and heavenly soul, respectively. 25. Schuhmacher and Woerner, eds., The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, p. 149. 26. The Secret of the Golden Flower, pp. 13–15. 27. Ibid., p. 14. 28. Ibid., pp. 15–16. 29. Ibid., pp. 16–17. 30. Ibid., p. 17. 31. Ibid., p. 49. 32. Ibid., p. 17. 33. Wing-Tsit Chan, note 30, p. 12 (see n. 24 above). 34. Within Jung’s theoretical model, consciousness is understood to disappear at the instinctual pole of the archetype. In his most carefully developed essay dealing with this problem, “On the Nature of the Psyche,” C. W., vol. 8, par. 414, p. 211, Jung writes: “By means of ‘active imagination’ we are put in a position of advantage, for we can make the discovery of the archetype without sinking back into the instinctual sphere, which would only lead to blank unconsciousness or, worse still, to some kind of intellectual substitute for instinct. This means—to employ once more the simile of the spectrum—that the instinctual image is to be located not at the red end [the instinctual end] but at the violet end of the colour band.

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The dynamism of instinct is lodged as it were in the infra-red part of the spectrum, whereas the instinctual image [consciousness of the meaning of the instinctual behaviour or pattern] lies in the ultra-violet part.” I would further add that even in the case of Jung’s description of the psychophysical unity associated with synchronistic phenomena, the fact is that the physical and psychic are understood to adhere to a common archetypal pattern of meaning without there being the further implication that consciousness exists intrinsically in the physical or instinctual components of these experiences. 35. The Secret of the Golden Flower, p. 28. 36. Ibid., note 1, p. 65. 37. Freud, “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,” S. E., vol. 18, p. 112. 38. Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time (New York: Norton, 1998), pp. 547–48. 39. Freud, “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,” S. E., vol. 18, p. 112. 40. Sigmund Freud, “Totem and Taboo,” S. E., vol. 13, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1957), p. 156. 41. Ibid., pp. 141–42. 42. Ibid., p. 143. 43. Ibid., p. 161. 44. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. 149–50. 45. Freud, “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,” S. E., vol. 18, p. 141. 46. Marion Woodman, The Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological Transformation (Toronto: Inner City, 1985). 47. Marion Woodman, Addiction to Perfection: The Still Unravished Bride (Toronto: Inner City, 1982). 48. I would refer my reader to my discussion of the case of Ingrid in C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity. 49. von Franz, Alchemy, p. 254. 50. The two examples of the unrelated masculine taking the form of presence through overt power appear on pp. 62ff. and 83ff., respectively. The two examples of the unrelated masculine taking the form of presence through covert power appear on pp. 101ff. and 117ff., respectively. 51. See pp. 47ff. 52. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 5, pt. 5, pp. 216–17. 53. Schuhmacher and Woerner, eds., The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, p. 267.

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Notes 54. Aziz, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, pp. 197–

99. IV. The Empty Mandala 1. Jung, “Psychotherapists or the Clergy,” C. W., vol. 11, par. 516, p. 336. 2. Ibid., par. 514, pp. 335–36. 3. Ibid., par. 509, p. 334. 4. Ibid., par. 507, p. 333. 5. Jung, “Psychology and Religion,” C. W., vol. 11, par. 10, p. 9. 6. Ibid., par. 75, p. 43. 7. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 175. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., p. 176. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., p. 177. 12. Wehr, Jung, a Biography, p. 192. 13. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 196. 14. Ibid., p. 195. 15. Ibid., pp. 196–97. 16. Ibid., pp. 197–98. 17. Ibid., pp. 198–99. 18. Ibid., p. 197. This mandala can be found in The Secret of the Golden Flower, figure 3, as well as C. G. Jung, Word and Image, ed., Aniela Jaffé (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 91. 19. Ibid., p. 197. 20. Jung, Word and Image, p. 92. 21. Jung, “Psychology and Religion,” C. W., vol. 11, par. 140, p. 83 and par. 141, p. 85. 22. Jung, “Psychological Commentary on ‘The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation,’” C. W., vol. 11, pars. 760–61, p. 476. 23. Neumann, Depth Psychology . . . , p. 135. 24. John P. Dourley, A Strategy for a Loss of Faith: Jung’s Proposal (Toronto: Inner City, 1992), p. 136. 25. John P. Dourley, The Illness That We Are: A Jungian Critique of Christianity (Toronto: Inner City, 1984), p. 23. 26. Ibid., p. 9. 27. Aziz, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, p. 179. 28. Jung, “Psychological Commentary on ‘The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation,’” C. W., vol. 11, pars. 760, p. 476.

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29. Edward F. Edinger, The Creation of Consciousness: Jung’s Myth for Modern Man (Toronto: Inner City, 1984), p. 91. 30. Lawrence W. Jaffe, Celebrating Soul: Preparing for the New Religion, (Toronto: Inner City, 1999), p. 7. 31. Lawrence W. Jaffe, Liberating the Heart: Spirituality and Jungian Psychology, (Toronto: Inner City, 1990), p. 12. 32. Glover, Freud or Jung, p. 160. 33. Jaffe, Celebrating Soul: Preparing for the New Religion, pp. 32–35. 34. C. G. Jung, “Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams,” C. W., vol. 18, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), par. 523, p. 228. 35. Jung, “A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity,” C. W., vol. 11, par. 238, p. 160. 36. Aziz, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, pp. 21–22 and 182ff. 37. Jung, “A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity,” C. W., vol. 11, par. 237, p. 160. 38. Ibid., par. 231, p. 156. 39. Ibid., par. 230, p. 156. 40. Ibid., par. 233, p. 157. 41. Jung, “Psychology and Religion,” C. W., vol. 11, par. 102, pp. 58– 59. 42. Jaffe, Celebrating Soul: Preparing for the New Religion, p. 18. 43. Glover, Freud or Jung, pp. 160–61 and 163. 44. Corbett, Religious Function, p. 49. 45. Edward F. Edinger, “Consciousness without Peers,” Psychological Perspectives 7 (1) (1976), p. 106. This quote appears in a review by Edinger of Marie-Louise von Franz’s C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time. 46. Edinger, The Creation of Consciousness: Jung’s Myth for Modern Man, p. 12. 47. Aziz, C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, pp. 91– 132 and 219. 48. Ernest Jones, Sigmund Freud: Life and Work, vol. 3 (London: Hogarth, 1967), p. 258. Toward the end of his life, after a long battle with cancer, Freud, in a manner not uncharacteristic of his worldview, described his experience as that of “a little island of pain floating on a sea of indifference.” 49. Edinger, Ego and Archetype, p. 11. 50. Daisetz T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 157. 51. Tao Te Ching, no. 69.

306

Notes

52. Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, ed., Derk Bodde (New York: Free Press, 1966), p. 100. The text reads: “Wu-wei can be translated literally as ‘having-no-activity’ or ‘non-action’. But using this translation, one should remember that the term does not actually mean complete absence of activity, or doing nothing. What it does mean is lesser activity or doing less. It also means acting without artificiality or arbitrariness.” Similarly, Wing-Tsit Chan in his A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, p. 791 writes: “. . . wu-wei is not simply ‘inaction’ but ‘taking no unnatural action.’” 53. I would also refer my reader to the sections within my work C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity that deal with synchronistic shadow intrusions. See pp. 119–21, 155–56, and 196ff. 54. This is a revised version of an account that first appeared in my article “Synchronicity and the Transformation of the Ethical in Jungian Psychology,” published in Asian and Jungian Views of Ethics under the auspices of the Uehiro Foundation, Tokyo, Japan. 55. Andrew Cohen and J. L. Granatstein, eds., Trudeau’s Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Toronto: Random House, 1998), p. 151. 56. Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu (New York: New Directions, 1969), pp. 136–37. 57. Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (New York: Image Books Doubleday, 1996), pp. 103–104. 58. The Secret of the Golden Flower, pp. 133–34. 59. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, p. 120. 60. The I Ching or Book of Changes, pp. 248–49. 61. Ibid., p. 249. 62. Ibid., p. 197. 63. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 217. 64. Ibid., pp. 217–18. 65. The Cambridge Encyclopedia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 43–44. Akbar the Great, Jalal ud-Din Muhammad Akbar (1542–1605), was the Mughal emperor of India from 1560 until his death in 1605. 66. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 218. 67. Ibid., p. 219. 68. Ibid. 69. Ibid., pp. 219–20. 70. Wehr, Jung, a Biography, p. 20. 71. Ronald Hayman, A Life of Jung (New York: Norton, 2001), p. 7. 72. Wehr, Jung, a Biography, p. 92.

Notes

307

73. Hayman, A Life of Jung, p. 67. 74. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. 91–92 and 215. 75. Ibid., p. 218. 76. Gerhard Adler and Aniela Jaffé, eds., C. G. Jung Letters, vol. 1, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 481. 77. Ibid., p. 492. 78. Ibid., p. 491. Also see notes 9 and 10 on the same page for translations. 79. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 183. 80. The Layman’s Parallel Bible, Revised Standard Version, pp. 1309– 13. 81. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 183. 82. Ibid., pp. 217–18. Dr. Y and his son were both psychiatrists, with Dr. Y. being closer to Jung’s age. The text reads: “They both represent my shadow—first and second editions of the shadow, father and son.” 83. Adler and Jaffé, eds., C. G. Jung Letters, vol. 1, p. 491. 84. Ibid., p. 493. 85. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 96. 86. Victor White, “Jung on Job,” Blackfriars 36 (1955), pp. 52–60. Although White certainly offers sound criticisms of Jung’s theoretical work in this essay, what White has to say could never be construed as an abandonment of Jung himself. In fact White’s essay shows a great concern and caring for Jung. This, however, was not enough for Jung. For in spite of White’s efforts to maintain connection, Jung, following the publication of his “Answer to Job,” broke all contact with White for the next four years. (Hayman, A Life of Jung, pp. 426–27.) Only when Jung learned in the winter of 1959 that White was dying of cancer did he finally attempt to reconnect (ibid., p. 445). 87. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 220. 88. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. 196–99. The text reads: “When I began drawing the mandalas, however, I saw that everything, all the paths I had been following, all the steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point—namely, to the mid-point. . . . During those years, between 1918 and 1920, I began to understand that the goal of psychic development is the self. . . .I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate. . . . This dream [the Liverpool dream] brought with it a sense of finality, I saw that the goal had been revealed. One could not go beyond the center. The center is the goal, and everything is directed toward that center. Through this dream I understood that the self is the principle archetype of orientation and meaning. . . . After this dream I gave up drawing or painting mandalas.”

308

Notes

Jung, “Psychology and Religion,” C. W. vol. 11, pars. 136–40, pp. 80–82. The text reads: “I have seen many hundreds of mandalas,” Jung related to his Yale University audience in 1937, “done by patients who were quite uninfluenced, and I have found the same fact in an overwhelming majority of cases: there was never a deity occupying the centre. . . . There is no deity in the mandala, nor is there any submission or reconciliation to a deity. The place of the deity seems to be taken by the wholeness of man. . . . When we now speak of man we mean the indefinable whole of him, an ineffable totality, which can only be formulated symbolically. I have chosen the term ‘self’ to designate the totality of man, the sum total of his conscious and unconscious contents. . . . Why did the gods of antiquity lose their prestige and their effect on the human soul? Because the Olympians had served their time and a new mystery began: God became man.” 89. Neil Brewer, Amber Keast, and Amanda Rishworth, “The Confidence-Accuracy Relationship in Eyewitness Identification: The Effects of Reflection and Disconfirmation on Correlation and Calibration,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 8 (1) (2002), pp. 44–45. 90. Gary L. Wells and Elizabeth A. Olson, “Eyewitness Testimony,” Annual Review of Psychology 54 (2003), p. 286. 91. Ibid. 92. Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, pp. 139–40. 93. Schuhmacher and Woerner, eds., The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, p. 102.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adler, Gerhard, and Aniela Jaffé, eds. C. G. Jung Letters, vol. 1 Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973. ———, eds. C. G. Jung Letters, vol. 2. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. Aziz, Robert. C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. ———. “Synchronicity and the Transformation of the Ethical in Jungian Psychology.” In Carl B. Becker, ed. Asian and Jungian Views of Ethics. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999. Brewer, Neil, Amber Keast, and Amanda Rishworth. “The ConfidenceAccuracy Relationship in Eyewitness Identification: The Effects of Reflection and Disconfirmation on Correlation and Calibration.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 8 (1) (2002), pp. 44–56. The Cambridge Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Capra, Fritjof. The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture. New York: Bantam, 1983. Chan, Wing-Tsit, trans. and comp. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973. Cohen, Andrew, and J. L. Granatstein, eds. Trudeau’s Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Toronto: Random House, 1998. Corbett, Lionel. The Religious Function of the Psyche. London: Routledge, 1996. Dourley, John P. The Illness That We Are: A Jungian Critique of Christianity. Toronto: Inner City, 1984. ———. “Response to Bock and Coward.” International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 5 (2) (1995), pp. 101–108. ———. A Strategy for a Loss of Faith: Jung’s Proposal. Toronto: Inner City, 1992. Edinger, Edward F. “Consciousness without Peers.” Psychological Perspectives 7 (1) (1976), pp. 106–108. ———. The Creation of Consciousness: Jung’s Myth for Modern Man. Toronto: Inner City, 1984. ———. Ego and Archetype. Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1974. 309

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INDEX A Adler, Gerhard, 197 Archetype(s): archetypal image versus, 211; Freud’s archaic vestiges as instances of, 6; interplay of instinct and spirit in, 55–57, 141; Jungian reductive use of (archetypal reductionism), 12, 14–16, 20, 57, 60–61, 63–64, 119, 206–208, 223–224, 272–274, 287, 289, 294; not viewed by Syndetic Paradigm as basis of synchronistic experience, 60; numinosity of, 56, 74; psychoid nature of, 55, 57–60; Syndetic versus Jungian Paradigm on the clinical use of, 61–66, 105–106, 289; transpersonal compensatory role of, 6, 11, 19, 52–55, 64. See also Collective Unconscious; Self

B Body: compulsive discharge through, 109, 115–116, 118, 122–124, 128, 133, 143; consciousness of, 141–143, 145–151, 164–167, 169–170, 172, 187–189, 282; rhythmic movement as language of consciousness of, 148–149;

symbolic meaning of whole body experiences in dreams, 169, 187, 282–283, 285. See also Sexual Instinct/Sexuality/ Sexual Intercourse Brewer, Neil, 289–290

C C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, 1, 16–17, 55, 58, 78, 207, 212 Case examples by theme: analysand forced by dream to acknowledge therapeutic need, 33–34; archetypal compensation of fiveyear-old after death of sibling, 53–54; arrested emotion following end of relationship, 113–115; autonomy, entrance into nothing less than everything you are, 251–253; clash of collective ideal and shadow power drive, 26; complex causes emotional paralysis, 111–112; complex symbolized in dream as loss of control when driving, 101–102; concretization/dynamic meaning, attempted altering of Reality through forged details, 267; concretization/dynamic meaning, concretized religious ideal as but

315

316

Index

Case examples by theme (continued) a fixed parody of the sacred, 269–271; consciousness of sexual response under ego control’s on/off switch, 161–166; death of mother as negative mother experience, 107–108; discovering the goal by way of the process, 241–244; disintegration, individual sabotages scheduled training of his dog, 256–257; disintegration/integration, individual in disintegrative state shifts into integrative state after daughter’s call for help, 263–264; disintegrative personality triggered by car failure, 262–263; disintegrative tendencies resist exercise program, 259; double penis theme and the destructive jealousy of an Oedipal man trapped in false maternal, 175–176; double penis theme depicts Oedipal man’s need to incarnate, 177–180; dream’s compensatory influence even when not understood, 28; externalization and the obstacle of external/collective approval, 245–246; externalization/autonomy, analysand forced to answer his own question when no answer from expert forthcoming, 253–254; externalization/autonomy, child at risk requiring analysand to act, 253–255; father complex and the avoidance of challenge, 29–32; feminine principle receptivity denotes instinctual healing, 169–170;

freeing of true masculine instinct through experience of defeat: holding of space unencumbered by power dynamics, 181–182; good masculine energy to bad, Oedipal man and false maternal, 176–177; holding open space at time of childbirth, 47–52, 180; immediate gratification versus completing, staying in the game, 117–118; integrative dynamics of Reality support former analysand in crisis, 260–262; jealousy as avoidance of important problem, 7–10; Jung’s unresolved father complex, 96, 274–287; nature’s inexorable drive toward consciousness of sexual instinct, 143–145; negative mother complex misread as boundary infraction, 44–45; personal sexual possessiveness as block to transpersonal sexual, 191–193; self-destructive pattern triggered by slight criticism at work, 115–117; sexual dissipation following negative response of employer, 129; sexual dissipation/psychic collapse as only known expression of intimacy, 126–128; sexual energy field of couple’s home environment realigned, 158–161; sexual energy of couple awakens outside home environment, 157; sexual instinct consciousness protects woman from violation, 170; sexual instinct facilitates healing of shaming experience held in

Index consciousness of the body, 170–172; transpersonal sexual love by way of release of personal betrayal, 186–189; trauma of imposition of idealism on consciousness of body healed by sexual instinct, 146–148; trauma to consciousness of the body indicated in dream by absence of rhythmic wave activity, 148–151; unrelated feminine as lifedevouring vortex, 238–240; unrelated masculine as cultural/ political problem, 83–88; unrelated masculine not addressed in case example due to Jungian reductionism, 62–66; unrelated masculine using goal to block life out, 233–238. Chan, Wing-Tsit, 141, 302n.24, 306n.52 Chinese traditional worldview, 36–37, 134, 135: Chuang Tzu, 247, 291; I Ching, 50–51, 119, 243, 258; kung fu, 230, 231, 240–241; Secret of the Golden Flower, 70, 133, 134, 137, 140, 142, 143, 203, 250, 302n.24; Tao, 70, 140, 143, 184, 243, 244, 250; Tao Te Ching, 126, 170, 231; wu wei, 232; Zen (Chan), 81, 253–254. See also Sexual Instinct/Sexuality/ Sexual Intercourse: Chinese sexual alchemy Collective consciousness/Group consciousness/Societal consciousness, 68, 107, 198, 216, 225, 229–230, 235, 245, 247, 273, 293: as obstacle to personal development and differentiation, 18, 42–44, 97,

317

114, 121, 151–152, 156–161, 164, 174, 176–177, 184, 190–191, 245–247, 249–250, 265, 268–270; Jungian collective, 204, 214, 216. See also Sexual Instinct/Sexuality/ Sexual Intercourse: and constraints of collective/ societal ideals Collective unconscious, 24, 53, 55–56, 60, 70, 109, 210–211 See also Archetype(s) Compensation/Self-regulation/ Spontaneous self-organization: experience of meaning proportionate to level of consciousness, 32–33; Freud’s conflict model versus, 10–11, 23, 35–36, 66, 89, 96–100; fundamental role within Jungian Paradigm of, 19, 23, 26; individuation as comprehensive expression of, 32, 34, 39, 78, 201; Jung’s contradictory theorizing pertaining to, 88–90, 96–97; Jung’s earliest intimations of, 23, 201; repetition of compensatory patterns in single dream and dream series, 29–32, 118; self-regulation and spontaneous self-organization as equivalent, 19, 21, 105, 195, 226–227; Syndetic Paradigm’s progression from closed to open system model of, 19, 36–37, 40–52, 56–57, 79, 195, 226–227, 241–242, 254, 261; tracking how psychic energy comes and goes, 27, 125. See also Archetype(s): transpersonal compensatory role of; Reality/ Reality Line Complex(es), 25–26, 29, 48, 61, 64, 74, 85, 98, 209, 280:

318

Index

Complex(es) (continued) discharging of its tension versus therapeutic effect, 112–113; distortion of experience through, 25, 111, 210; feeling toned quality of, 25, 105, 109; Jung’s earliest formulation of, 23; Syndetic versus Jungian Paradigm on, 100–119; word association test and, 110. See Ethicality/Morality and the Problem of Evil; Sexual Instinct/ Sexuality/Sexual Intercourse: complex-driven sexuality, eroticized arrest Complexity theory: chaos theory as precursor of, 37–38; defined, 37–39; Santa Fe Institute, 37; spontaneous self-organization in, 39–41. Corbett, Lionel, 93 Coutts, Jim, 244

D Death/Destructive Instinct: ego versus unconscious, 54; Freud’s definition of, 98; Syndetic versus Freudian Paradigm on, 98–100. See also Sexual Instinct/Sexuality/ Sexual Intercourse: Syndetic versus Freudian Paradigm on sadism/masochism Dream symbolism: example of Freudian versus Jungian interpretation of, 7–10; layered meanings of, 7, 105; personal/transpersonal dimensions of, 24;

temporal dimension of, 125–126. Dourley, John, 73, 207

E Edinger, Edward F., 13, 68, 69, 71, 208, 211, 217, 218, 220, 226 Ego: Freudian theoretical treatment of, 23, 98–100; Freudian versus Jungian theoretical treatment of, 10–12, 66, 118–119; Jungian theoretical treatment of, 67–71, 73–75, 77, 79, 201, 214; Syndetic theoretical treatment of, 20–21, 116–117, 127, 145–146, 161–162, 167, 175, 190, 195, 220–221, 227–230; Syndetic versus Freudian and Jungian theoretical treatment of, 88–89, 96–97, 99–101, 224–227. See also Ego Control/Ego Strength Ego Control/Ego Strength: concretization/dynamic meaning, 264–294; defined with orientations, 227–230; disintegration/integration, 255–264; externalization/autonomy, 244–255; unrelatedness/relatedness, 230–244. See also Case examples by theme Ellenberger, Henri F., 5, 34 Emotion, 25, 28, 31, 53, 81, 97, 111–112, 114, 152–156, 159, 163, 164, 166, 167, 169, 174–175, 177, 179, 184–186, 191, 192, 193, 234, 275: clean burning, 112–113, 115; dirty burning or arrested, 109, 110, 112–113, 114–116, 126–129, 259, 263. See also Suffering Ethicality/Morality and the Problem of Evil:

Index difference in masculine and feminine principle understandings of, 82–83; ethical challenges associated with Jungian Paradigm, 78–79, 86, 90; Freud’s theories concerning, 89, 98–100; Jung’s answer to Job: 50/50 formula concerning God/ the self/nature, 20, 77, 90–100, 104, 220, 286–287; intrusion of Jung’s father complex into discussion of, 96–97, 274–287; loss of ethical direction/meaning when insights not carried forward in practice, 80–81, 272; Neumann’s new ethic, 77–78; Syndetic Paradigm: on complex(es) as significant source of evil, 100–119; on nature’s intrinsic ethicality/ morality, 20, 77, 88–90, 99–100, 102, 105, 119, 122, 151, 184, 220, 230–233, 262, 264, 272, 277; versus Jungian Paradigm on questions of, 14, 79–80, 81–82, 88, 92, 100, 105, 109, 209, 220–221, 276–277, 286–287. See also Death/Destructive Instinct

F False absolute(s), 230, 288–293 False certainty(ies), 230, 288–293 False comfort, 11, 118–119, 167–168, 176, 180, 191, 215, 249, 271, 289 Feminine/Feminine Principle, 65, 221: defined, 82; role of receptivity in, 135, 145, 165–166, 230–231, 241, 244;

319

unrelated feminine, 238–240, 244. See also Masculine/Masculine Principle: feminine principle balanced with Fischer-Schreiber, Ingrid, 138 Franz, Marie-Louise von, 96, 126, 168

G Gay, Peter, 153 Gilligan, Carol, 82 Glover, Edward: Glover’s critique of Jung contrasted with Syndetic Paradigm’s critique, 7, 17–18; Jung’s dismissal of Glover, 3; on theoretical shortcomings in Jung’s work, 67, 209, 215, 217; tendentious spirit of his appraisal of Jung, 2.

H Hayman, Ronald, 278 Heisig, James W., 71

I Individuation, 20, 32, 34, 39, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 77, 78, 106, 168, 201, 203 See also Compensation/Selfregulation/Spontaneous selforganization: individuation as comprehensive expression of

J Jacobi, Jolande, 104, 108, 109 Jaffe, Lawrence, 208–211, 214–215 Jung, Johann Paul Achilles, 278–279

320

Index

K Keast, Amber, 289–290 Kelly, Sean, 62–65 Kuhn, Thomas S., 1, 5, 10, 59

L Lewin, Roger, 37, 39, 41

M Mandala, 49, 200–203, 274, 275, 276, 286, 287, 294 Masculine/Masculine Principle, 101, 135, 219, 221: defined, 82; feminine principle balanced with, 221, 230–232, 235, 240–241, 244; holding of space, 166, 173, 180–181, 182; Oedipal man, 173–181; unrelated masculine, 64, 65, 83–88, 166, 233, 235–238, 240, 244, 303n.50. Meaning (Psychological/Spiritual): modernity and self-organizing nature’s answer to the problem of: Freudian Paradigm’s intimations and contribution, 11–12, 217–227, 250; Jungian Paradigm’s intimations and contribution, 11–12, 20, 21, 53–54, 74, 155, 195–197, 197–204, 217–227, 250–251; Syndetic Paradigm’s assessment of Jungian theoretical shortcomings concerning the problem of, 11–15, 21, 39, 60–66, 80–82, 109, 141–143, 195, 204–219, 224, 272–274, 286–287; Syndetic Paradigm’s core psychological/spiritual challenges of modernity by way of selforganizing dynamics, 39–41, 61, 74, 80–82, 109, 125–126, 132, 151,

184, 219–224, 226–227, 228–229, 249, 267–272, 287–294. See also Ego Strength/Ego Control; Suffering Merton, Thomas, 247, 249, 250

N Needham, Joseph, 132, 135, 136, 137, 183, 184 Neumann, Erich, 77, 95, 206

O O’Kane, Francoise, 95 Olson, Elizabeth A., 290

P Paradigm(s)/Scientific model(s)/ Worldview(s): as belief systems, 2–3, 5; paradigmatic shift(s), 1–5; relationship between fact and theory in, 5–11. Personal unconscious, 24, 109 Philp, H. L., 92 Pinkola-Estes, Clarissa, 14, 15 Plaut, Fred, 99, 104 Projection, 13, 41–47, 205–208 Psychologism, 14, 207, 208

R Reality/Reality Line: defined, 61, 105; straightforward engagement with, 21, 45, 49, 61, 66, 81–82, 117–118, 123, 132, 168, 181, 193, 195, 219–230, 251, 256, 260, 264–265, 269–270, 287–288, 292–294; versus Jungian Romantic splitting of, 12–16, 66, 97, 205–217, 220, 223, 224, 274–287;

Index versus neurosis/unreality, 21, 109, 129, 190, 195, 223, 240, 256, 264, 266–267, 268, 271–272, 287–288, 289, 292–294. Rishworth, Amanda, 289–290 Russell, Bertrand, 13, 14

S Salman, Sherry, 104 Samuels, Andrew, 14, 16, 59, 67, 73, 74, 99, 104, 108, 110 Schipper, Kristofer, 132, 135 Self: as archetype of orientation and meaning, 20, 63–64, 66, 68, 77, 90, 202, 203, 274, 294; as spiritus rector, 20, 66, 67, 201; Edinger on ego and, 68–69; functional emergence of, 68–71; Syndetic Paradigm’s understanding of Jungian theoretical redundancy and other shortcomings concerning, 66–74, 204–221, 294; under Freudian influences, theoretical emergence of, 66. See also Ethicality/Morality and the Problem of Evil: Jung’s answer to Job: 50/50 formula concerning God/the self/nature Sexual Instinct/Sexuality/Sexual Intercourse: and constraints of collective/ societal ideals, 114, 151–152, 156–161, 162, 164, 174–177, 180, 184, 190–193, 225, 229, 268; Chinese sexual alchemy, 132–143, 183–184; complex-driven sexuality, eroticized arrest, 61, 115, 119, 124–132; consciousness of sexual instinct, 141–142, 152, 158, 166–170, 173, 184, 189, 191, 193;

321

containment approaches to, 121–122, 131–132, 156; cultivative forms of, 131–143, 145, 151, 159–160, 183, 219, 221; dissipative forms of, 131–143, 179, 189; Freud and sublimation of, 20, 121, 131, 153–156; Freud’s exclusive concern with pathological forms of, 20–21, 61, 121, 124, 131–132, 152–156, 221; Jung’s theoretical neglect of, 18, 61, 123–124; Syndetic versus Freudian Paradigm on sadism/masochism, 129–131, 189–190; transpersonal dimensions of, 130, 152, 182–193. See also Masculine/Masculine Principle: Oedipal man Shadow, 26, 27, 63, 78–86, 88, 95–96, 125, 232–233, 271, 283 Shorter, Bani, 99, 104 Suffering, 90, 91, 94, 95, 114, 279: creative illness, 5, 200; meaningful, 168, 198, 259, 260, 264, 271, 272; meaningless, 88, 115, 129, 130, 180, 198, 225, 259, 260, 262, 264, 271, 272. Suzuki, Daisetz T., 230, 231 Synchronicity/Synchronistic, 36, 55, 57, 58, 60–65, 203, 222: Syndetic Paradigm’s understanding of Jungian theoretical constraints regarding, 36, 39, 60–61, 73–75, 296n.24; unique contribution of C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, 10, 16–17. Syndetic Paradigm: complexity theory as analogous theoretical model, 37–41;

322

Index

Syndetic Paradigm (continued) defined, 19–21; Freudian Paradigm contrasted with, 20–21, 89, 130–132, 152–153, 156, 173, 184, 189–190, 218–227; Jungian Paradigm contrasted with, 19–21, 35, 36, 60, 73–75, 79, 81, 88, 97–98, 100–103, 105, 108–110, 119, 123, 140, 166, 207–209, 218–227, 287, 293–294.

T Training analysis, 34, 35 Transference/countertransference, 41–52 Trudeau, Pierre Elliott, 244–245

U Ulanov, Ann, 96

V Van Gulik, R. H., 133

W Waldrop, M. Mitchell, 37, 38, 40 Wehr, Gerhard, 92–94, 278 Wells, Gary L., 290 White, Victor, 92, 282, 286, 307n.86 Wilber, Ken, 61, 63 Wilhelm, Richard, 138, 203 Woodman, Marion, 166–167

PSYCHOLOGY

THE SYNDETIC PARADIGM THE UNTRODDEN PATH BEYOND FREUD AND JUNG

robert aziz In The Syndetic Paradigm, Robert Aziz argues that the Jungian Paradigm is a deeply flawed theoretical model that falls short of its promise. Aziz offers in its stead what he calls the Syndetic Paradigm. In contrast to the Jungian Paradigm, the Syndetic Paradigm takes the critical theoretical step of moving from a closed-system model of a self-regulatory psyche to an open-system model of a psyche in a self-organizing totality. The Syndetic Paradigm, in this regard, holds that all of life is bound together in a highly complex whole through an ongoing process of spontaneous self-organization. The new theoretical model that emerges in Aziz’s work, while taking up the fundamental concerns of its Freudian and Jungian predecessors with psychology, ethics, spirituality, sexuality, politics, and culture, conducts us to an experience of meaning that altogether exceeds their respective bounds. “Grounded in both theory and practice, Aziz offers a solid critique of both Freud and Jung and presents a model that goes beyond them. The Syndetic Paradigm will creatively challenge Freudian and Jungian theorists of all kinds, including cultural theorists. The critique and correction that Aziz offers is of fundamental importance.” — Harold Coward, author of Yoga and Psychology: Language, Memory, and Mysticism “This book is an absolute must for readers of Jungian and Freudian literature. It is one of the rare works that takes a brand new look at the whole landscape of depth psychology and has the courage to say that each of the two established paradigms has important shortcomings, blind spots, and outright contradictions.” — Jeffrey C. Miller, author of The Transcendent Function: Jung’s Model of Psychological Growth through Dialogue with the Unconscious “Lucidly written and richly illustrated with clinical material, Aziz’s book goes beyond highlighting problems in Jungian and Freudian theory to propose a cogent new model that resolves them. The result is a profound and captivating work that is infused with spiritual wisdom as well as psychological insight. It is a book that deserves to be seriously pondered not only by psychotherapists but by all those seeking a coherent and dignifying new paradigm of our human being in the world.” — Roderick Main, author of Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience ROBERT AZIZ is a psychotherapist in private practice, an executive consultant within the business sector, and has lectured on the psychology of the unconscious. He is a Clinical Member of the Ontario Society of Psychotherapists and a Full Member of the Canadian Psychological Association, and is the author of C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, also published by SUNY Press. A volume in the SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology Richard D. Mann, editor State University of New York Press www.sunypress.edu