Gad, in rereading my little piece, the old Latin saying comes to mind: " si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses"... if you had shut your mouth, you'd still be thought bright. But never mind. Now to get a bit off topic:
Clueless, the man Jung is indeed fascinating, much light and much shadow there, very much a child of his times and on the other hand breaking barriers and pushing into unknown territory. Not an easy man, powerful of mind and body and at the same time often rather petit bourgeous in his every day value system. Politically naive and his view on woman has the feminists aflame to this very day. I know Jungians here in Zurich, who acknowledge his greatness in his field, but dislike him intensely as a man. There is reason for both, to my mind. He has been very much mythologised, which is bad. Both sanctified and made a devil of. But he seems to fascinate people to this very day. I know, because I've lectured on him the last 35 years and have seen generations of students both fasinated as well as apalled.
As far as Heisenberg is concerend, Jung himself mentions him in his theory of synchronicity, which I have indirectly aluded to in my last post.
His psychology is still very much alive today, but in very different guises. His theory of transference and countertransference, certain basic aspects in the understanding of psychotic phenomina, his typology, his theory of the collective unconscious have formed rhyzomes in very different fields. So his thoughts live on, often under different names than his.
Nrchy, I feel as you do, since we are part of nature, we will never know the ESSENCE of nature, so in a sense, even a dyed in the wool "scientist" bases his reasoning on metaphysical premises, if he likes or knows it or not. At the same time, these reasonings are not moot, because they advance our knowledge within the boundaries of our fields. What has to be fought against and refuted, though, I find, are the absolutists, who cannot differentiate between essence and outer form as it appears to our searching eyes. This seems to me, given that I understand him correctly, also Asa's point. Cheers,
Cheers |
Oops, I just stumbled over Clueless' and Asa's argument. Its late here in Europe and I'm too tired to give it the serious thought it deserves. Will have to pospone it. At first glimpse, it seems that both are right, only their viewpoints are basically different and since I'm trained in neither, I swim in deep water....As far as I can see, Asa's point is philosophical, epimistological, following the lines of theory of knowledge. (Erkenntnistheorie, as we call it here). And from this point of view, he is of course absolutely right and it is an elegant argument to my mind, because it seems not to be concerned with the complexity of both forms of "matter" in question and rightly so, to my simple way of thinking, because "science" only knows what it can know within its concepts and do we really know, all that is going on in a wire, passing a signal, or in an amp, for that matter?
Clueless, as I understand him, also makes perfect sense to me, because he seems to argue on the basis of what is known about the functionings of amps and wires and hence it seems reasonaable to say, that the goings on within an amp are more complex than in a piece of wire.
Funny, though, I still, probably naively, prefer Asa's point of view, because intuitively I sense, that it encompasses both what is scientifically known and what is not. I leaves things open to the searching mind: Both wire and amp are forms of matter, about the goings in and about them, we don't really know very much. Since Heisenberg, Pauli and Jung we know, that the interaction of mind and matter can have an influence on both, where we don't know, what is egg and what is hen and what is doing what to which side. Of course we know a lot about what goes on in matter (Clueless), but since we do not really know what matter is in its essence, having no real Archemidian point outside of it, since yes, we are also part of it, Asa's view - in my naive understanding - puts amp, wire, the observing mind, all creation under the sun on one and the same level qualitatively. This makes for great openeness...also for the curious scientific mind.
Cheers, |
Clueless, if old Kant was right, that e-mail will never come, because being part of that "essence", we cannot look at it from the outside. We have to leave that to the fanatics, of what ever creed, breed and shape and size, who will not tire to feed us with their "isms" or try to wipe us off the face of the earth in the name of the great truth. Strange world indeed! |
Asa, your thoughts on Jung need time and careful consideration. At the moment I have neither. So the answer may come in little pieces. Only your last paragraph: Of course you can know "essence", you are quite right. But you cannot build a scientific theorem (or a religious system?) on that "knowledge", because it is experience , not knowledge in the way we use that term. It is not there to be "exploited" or applied, in the way mathematical formulas can be applied, so I think...and this is not a logic, but a value statement, my original reasoning still holds good.
ds good. He who is tempted to systematise or exploit Agustinus' stepping into the dark |
Asa--your thoughts on Jung - and since you've brought them up here, ( Arnie please forgive us ) and dear brothers in arms here on A. please have patience - here is an attempt at a response:
Reading between your lines, which essentially and as far as I am able to understand them, are not off the mark, I suddenly have the suspicion, reading your criticism of Jung the man, eg.: " his perception was not stable, due to significant degrees of remaining "ego distortion"..... and later again "--J. perceptive applications into theory, that were incongruent with his daily behavior" , that in your value system, you are either "enlightened" or a "predator", and you ( rightly so of course, if I have understood you correctly) fault both Jung the man and his theories as well, of being inconsequential so to speak. You are right, Jung was neither Buddha or Christ. On the contrary, he wanted to make his place in the world, rise from his small beginnings into the spheres of the haute bourgeoisie and heal the wounds which his psychosis struck him, by turning his expierence into a goldmine of concepts and ideas, which not only was a rather successful and heroic attempt at selfhealing but also laid the foundation for "analytic psychology", the fruits of which obviously give nourishment to many. What started with his "septem sermones ad mortuos" and ended with his dream about a tree bearing fruit frozen, which nourished a multitude of people, one may rightly call a descensus ad inferos, a stepping into the darkness, a road to possible enlightenment on the one hand. His making a professorship out of it, his thirst for recognition, his harem of valkyries, the institutionalysing of it, can be looked upon as a predator's betrayal.
I don't know Asa, if my translation of the feeling content underlying your thoughts is correct. If it is not, you need not to read further. Our concepts of man, obviously differ. Perhaps this is no coincidence, that I give SS a chance next to tubes in opening the road to true musicality, because I hold it with Luke,chaper 16 in the New Testament, that you have to predate on the world, not only to feed you, but more importantly even, to hold your deeper inner treasures safe from the world and alive. I do not see a dychotomy in the two forms of perceptive experience, I see it rather as paradoxical form of existence, which everyone of us must live in, suffer in and balance out for us, as best as we can. We will starve,though obviously on different levels, if we only live one side. Jung, who was not a small man by any means, throws a large shadow, as he once dreamt of himself, but there was also tremendous light behind him, to make that happen. Those who knew him, when he was in the last few years of his life, descibe him as a witty, still immensely curious and lively old shaman, with a trickster's twinkle in his eyes. So I reckon, he must have been fairly content with the balancing act, which was his life. Cheers, |
Asa, thanks for your beautiful and and immensely kind and touching response. We will have to move to private conversation to go further. Please give me time. I have so little. A fond wave across the oceans, |
WMmcmanus, apologies to you and to all the others, for my selfishly misusing this thread to veer off on a tangent from it together with ASA. Glad, we didn't get any flak, which would have been quite understandable but also shows the generosity of our colleagues here.
For myself, I've learnt the importance of wires through the years and I try to use them as discernedly as I am able to, it makes me always uncomfortable however, if I feel tempted to use ic's as an instrument to better voice my system. I only try to do that as a last resort, when everything else fails. Basically wires should neither add nor subtract anything from a well set-up rig, but that is purist theory, I suppose. Cheers, |
No, this is not on Jung:
6chac: Wasn't it Spock? He with the pointed ears, but then I'm of an older generation and you said V didn't you? Didn't know Star Trek was like AR gear: MK I, MK II ad infinitum.....
Ernie, the rabbit hole has proven an inspiration to your abrasive wit. Great post Ernie, though I somewhat beg to differ. What is passive aggression? Sort of like the significant other not talking to one for a week? Can't be though, ' cause ASA, though significant, sure is erudite and talking! My mantra for the week: My mind is a component and one with all components.....('tis true by the way, was in a lousy mood last night and the stereo just sounded like crap. Perhaps that was THE moment of truth...)-: )
Cheers, |
6chac, Ernie is....hey Pychic turn the volume down......ahem, Ernie is a Guru, steps into rabbit holes, swears like a trooper doing it and sells Submarine...ahem ..arus, methinks and ASA loves to wrestle with him. Its lots of fun...and yes both can spell too. |
Asa, yes, I KNOW I'm right. Nothing more simple, every child knows that, but later they forget. Healed myself and the system by listening to Patti Smith for the very first time in my life and on vinyl no less. Oh megosh, that power, frailty, resilience, tenderness, scorn and lust all packed into one voice. I fell in love with her and my system again, wires included, integral part, yes, Sub and Clue, integral. And "they" say, stators cannot play loud, cut back dynamics. BS, isn't it Albert. You either need big ones like Albert, or lots of them ,stacked, like me, to have the best of both worlds. No horn colourations, no sluggish cones...just music. Speaking of water, 6chac, me and my system, it can pee as far as the best of them... or almost, at least tonight, not that I cared about that, while Patti was in the room. Only turned silly later. Tomorrow is another story. Carpe diem..... WOW, what a woman.......life is great.
Cheers, (-; |
Beautiful systems ASA, assembled with love. Prosecutor? not bad, obviously you were on the road to Damascus once.... |
Asa, Carl Gustav a tube type..definitely. By the way, he very rarely went to concerts or listened to music. He said it overwhelmed him, stirred him up so much, that he had trouble concentrating on work and patients, that the music struck right at his core. Interesting, no? |
Hardly Asa, they are not hearing things. I've edged closer to what I consider to be a live rendering of instruments and voices in real space by the judicious use of cables. There is no doubt about that and I am not finished with this process. |
Referral ASA?, Certainly: "Jadot&Freres" Dijon, "Caves Ropitaux", Mersault, to start off with..the only cure from Bordeaux is a good address in Bourgogne....Cheers. |
O heck, ASA and I thought I would bootleg the tape and show it to my students in CGJ studies. )-: |
Rather not kill him ASA, we need him, since the righteous, the politically correct and the Philistines are generally in the majority. He certainly was none of that. |
LOL, Asa, no he won't. He'll follow this thread in silent wonder only to break from the bushes at the right moment.
To your question briefly, lest Arnie and the others chide us, that what the Catholics tell us in their idea of the privatio boni, is that the horned one is, as you say, only an epiphenomenon of ultimate goodness. Not so, says the old man from Zurich, the devil is the other face of GOD. Therefore you have to love and to fear him at the same time. He had all the theologists of his time aflame of course. Not so, that the behaviorists hijacked Jung. They don't bother to read him. But the Jungians proudly point out, that some of their master's ideas seem to be corroborated by "modern science", as if that was the greater truth. LOL again.......
Greg, read you post only now, your marketing plan is truly mephistophelian, i.e. blissfully good and no, you need neither Kant nor Feuerbach, just read the book of Job. But your point is excellent. Cheers, |
Asa, I am with you as regards psychology and those "treating" in the name of it, not so in the case of Jung. It is not a question of coexistence, that is far too comfortable, it is a paradoxon, which has to be born and lived through until it becomes unimportant. Come one, you know that...... |
Sub, interesting, do they employ Jungians without a green card?
ASA he lived in it, I think and creatively, which is hardly comfortable and yes, he "co-existed", I think, in the way you so astutely describe. ...in a stable sense transcending..difficult to answer, I doubt it, have to think more about it, perhaps too much a child of the 19th century....archetype for wielding rulers and bashing heads with it ? No... but Anna Freud has it amongst her "defensive mechanisms" against the oh so chaotic and evil unconscous (-; |
Nrchy yes, he was a political fool, realised too late what was going on in the "Reich", but was fascinated not by the man Hitler, but by the phenomenon Hitler and the sort of mass psychosis which was going on in Germany at the time, it seemed to fit his theories. He had an opportunstic streak, which let him play along with his Nazi collegues, at the same time he sincerely tried with some success to help his Jewish collegues as long as he could. It is a complex story, with lots of dark and some more positive sides to it and he acknowleged that he had failed in his later years. I feel as far as that.. and only that... is concerned,one has to differentiate between Jung the man and his findings. If I can use these, to understand and help people better, solid philophical base or not, I will use them gladly. But it is a different story of course, if I concern myself with Jung the man. A man may be a villain of whatever shade, but his ideas may change a small part world for better. It is not as easy as you suggest. |
You don't need a lifevest Asa the way you swim and I see your point Greg. I doubt that CGJ liked Goebbels though.
Again: He was fascinated by Nazism, which he saw as a collective psychosis, with Hitler as a head-shaman, possessed.
This fascinated him....and yes he was a Nazi, like most of his social class in Europe in the thirties, because he was scared of Soviet Russia and the Commies and a possible revolution, which he hoped the Nazis would prevent and disappear in the process. ( A very Churchillian idea )
....and yes, though he helped Jews and had Jewish friends and pupils, Erich Neumann, Jolande Jacobi and Aniela Jaffé being the most notable amongst them, he was an antisemite, again like most of his kind and social class.......and if you want to bash him some more, he had affairs with patients,the most important, a beautiful Russian Jewess, (sic) highly intelligent, whom he cured, helped her to study medicine and dropped like a hot brick, when the liaison became known and he had to fear for his professional stature. The woman, Sabina Spielrain, whom the Nazis murdered together with her children, when they invaded Kiev,
became a well known psychiatrist of her own right, with interesting publications on the question of a death-drive, which Freud later developed without reference to her groundbreaking work. She was close to Freud, the latter incidentally protecting and covering up for Jung in this affair. She cherished Jung, inspite of his callous behaviour..she knew more about loving than he ever did, but then he knew a lot about "love".
There was a "fascination with the dark" in all of his generation in Europe in those years. A terrible, destructive unrest underneath the surface,the roots of which were more than enconomic, which, as you know, errupted first in 1914 and again in 1939. If you wonder about the Europeans as they are today, it is perhaps a good point to remember, that the best of them on all sides were wiped out in those two terrible wars. Nobody thinks about that, because it is an eleticist view and politically not correct, but it seems to show. But that is another story. If you want to know, what Jung was really fascinated by, it pays to my mind to read up on a dream of his as he was three years old, which he recounts in his "Dreams, Memories and Reflections". It is a pointer towards what he had to face and contend with in his life. A later outcome and a waymark of his struggle is his "Answer to Job" . A wild and highly emotional bit of writing. His torment, which you can feel hehind his words, holds my deep respect and compassion to this very day. Yes, light and dark is as a mirror we gaze in and as we gaze we see some of our entanglement. We have to, in order to perhaps grasp - through suffering only - its illusive powers. Jung was a great man, hence his struggle was so obvious as was his failure. He failed of course, like all of us, and Maya's web is closest, when we think it is gone for ever.........
Help me understand one thing though, why couldn't he take music, why did it shake him up so ? He clumsily called it "emotion pure", but then that is not music per se, that is us, what it can do to us. Obviously his thoughts, his words, his theories must have been a barrier against what is "beyond the mirror" ,which he could see through, sometimes step through, but had to guard against, lest it would destroy him. He once proudly said, that what had destroyed Nietzsche and Hoelderlin and many others, had also engulfed him, but did not break him.......but what do I know...
This all may be off topic, but I have the feeling, when we discuss this man, we use him as a substrate (not substitute) for our own lives, which is so closely linked with music and I am wondering what the role of music is in our lives in our attempt to see through mirrors...I dimly sense here a circle closing, yet alas "everyone is clear, only my mind is not".
6chac beautiful, how much of that are you able to live? (-: |
Fascinating point you make Nrchy. I think the fear of the "red tide"..and the yellow one at that, was a real fear in the upper classes, in the haute bougeoisie and the nobility. Not so in the lower middleclass,the "Kleinbürger" where the "Bewegung" first fed on. I think the occult activity was more marginal in numbers,however highly influential, certainly in the upper classes, amongst certain intellectuals and with strong roots in the middleclass as well. As far as Jung was concerned I have no evidence and also do not suppose that he was DIRECTLY influenced by any of the groups you mention. You must not forget that he was Swiss and they have generally a deep mistrust as regards ideas of such ilk. But there is no doubt, that " osmotically", these ideas did influence his thinking. Some of the language and ideas he used, could be interpreted as pointing to a more direct influence, but I doubt that they took hold deeply, it somehow does not fit with the rest. He would in a bout of Freud"hate", more than direct Antisemitism speak of a Germanic spirit and a Germanic psychology, words which sound despicable to our ears, but were the normal language of his times in the German speaking world and must be understood in this context. The study of races was thought to be scientific, as you know, and he was interested in any religious or pseudoreligious phenomena. He saw clearly that the Nazimovement had strong religious traits, which however he did not share, his interests lay elsewhere. The Nazis courted him, because he was not Jewish and antifreudian and belonged to the "Germanic race". This is where he got involved on a societal level within the German group, trying to gain acceptance for his ideas and importance on the one hand, on the other trying to help his Jewish colleagues. He never was part of the party or moved up in it. On the contrary, his ambivalence was soon not well taken in Berlin and he was looked upon with mistrust. In a sense he was never a REAL Nazi, anyone who maintains that either does not know the facts or has other reasons for maintaining that. But he was not an Antifascist either. His break with Freud traumatised him in more ways than one and he fought on every level to get recognition for his way of depthpsychology. This is the point where he failed to see sufficiently clear and made a pact with the Nazi-devil, if you will. He condemmned Freud's psychology as Jewish and raised his as Germanic, and that was the language the Nazis spoke and for that they loved him and that is the point where he fell.
He did not influence the pagan groups you mention, simply because they did not read him and also I doubt very strongly that he was influenced by them directly. However it is not to be discounted, that academically, outside of his medicine, he was influenced by the same sources as they were. Interestingly enough, they had no basic influence on the main body of his psychology, but he certainly used a language, especially in his younger years, which had an unsavoury closeness to the sinister "Blut und Boden" romanticism of these groups. But basically and perhaps that saved him, he never left the deeply protestant (i.e. sceptical )Christian gound, he was raised in, not in a confessional sense, but in his sense of questioning, searching and in his way of trying to understand the importance of Christ as a religeous phenomenon per se and its importance for the "individuation of mankind". |
True Asa, the karmic energy is still here. Jung was one of us and he saw more than the most of us and he failed like all of us, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty he stood his ground like only few of us.
True Clueless, I find little fault with your synopsis. You are knowlegeable and place your accents well. Two points only: It is, thanks to Jung, that much which was called occult, nowadays has become common knowlege about the psyche-mind. Occult is a silly term to my mind and just as sterile as the mainstream of knowlege, which by naming it thus, ostracises it and by doing this, hides its inability to understand and deal with it. I don't like the term, because it places barriers within the mind. I find my own stupidity barrier enough and I don't need more, thankyou.
Alchemy is only occult to the beholder who does not see beyond the veil. Case in point, perhaps. Jung was fascinated by the Alchemists, because he saw parallels between their imagery and symbolism and that of his patients. The Alchemists, not knowing in terms of modern science what was going on within their bulbs and ovens, saw that their prime matter, they were working on, was transforming in appearance and substance and described this in a symbolism which can find its exact counterpart in dreams, visions, phanstasies of modern man, when he is undergoing change, is growing, transforming. Why thus: The anwser is very simple. To the Alchemists, the matter in their retorts was like a Rorschach test and they "projected". What they projected were transformative symbols, which to Jung lie dormant in our psyche and which come to life during our spiritual, intellectual and biological growing pains,when we should develop but yet do not quite know how. Jung went on to show, that quite a number of alchemists started to realise, that they projected. That it was they who underwent change and the symbolism, which popped up in their minds, concerned them just as much as the matter, they were observing. Sort of a Heisenbergian forerunner no?! Well there are a few Alchemists like Maier, or Lampspring, who in their language and symbolism in the 17th century described exact stages of the individuation process with a detailed knowlege about its steps and implications, which yet have to be reached by the mainstream of modern psychology.It was they, who realised, that the transformation, which took place, was in them as well as in the matter , they were observing. Fascinating,no?! It was Jung who gave us a key to its understanding and if you are, like me, familiar with the dreams and phantasies of modern man, you'd be amazed how to the point and knowledgeable those "occultists" were. To cut a long story short: What we call irrational probably only shows the boundaries of our rationality and unveils us as shortsighted and stupid.
I feel, since Jung and his occupation with the "occult", we have the chance to be a little less stupid about our ture reality. The East has been always and since centuries far more knowledgeabe about this. As far as the knowlege of ourselves is concerend, here, we in the West are underdeveloped country and in need of aid. Our pszchology basically is ridiculous in its blindness for our transcendent needs and in its obsession with measurements. What we manage to measure and statistically prove generally boils down to what every child knows anyway. Jung has closed the gap for us quite considerably by using the modalities of western thought. He is one of us, not an imported Guru. Quite an achievement, in the light of which his failings don't really interest me much. rather, like Clueless, I like him more for it. |
Clueless, please stay, ASA is not hostile, he's probing you. He needs partners, strong partners to talk to, he's lonely and those he chides, he respects and loves. Don't take it personally. He wants to draw you out, because he needs more of you. So do I by the way. Please stay with us. |
Asa, as to Jung and music. I don't know. He probably needed words and concepts, structures to battle with the other side. Words to him were perhaps like the stones and earth and rubble, they use in Holland to capture back land from the ocean. He tried to put in the language of Western science of his time, what the East had known for centuries. He was not afraid to step into the realm of the "mothers" to paraphrase Goethe's Faust, he could let go completely, but that what he brought from beyond he hammered and forged into words and concepts. He was a Westerner and he refused to be anything else, although he was wide open for, an highly knowlegeable about the East.
At the same time, he was not an intellectual. You cannot say that he did not practice what he preached. What he drew as knowlege came from his very life, it was not bland thought..Foucoult comes to mind here, brilliant as it may be.... Music silences words, especially if it strikes deep. He was wide open, so he needed his mind, not to predate, but in this case to protect and hold safe. Perhaps it was a simple as that. Food for thought, not more. |
Dear friends, having always felt a bit uneasy in using this space about discussions on Jung, I want to thank Nrchy and of course also Arnie for lending us their space. I've enjoyed the discussion immensely, learnt from it and felt in excellent company, but now I want to call it closed. Please contact me personally if more questions arise. I want to open a thread about a question which has bugged me for decades, namely what is the essence of musicality and why is it, that music does to us, what it does. In fact, what does it and why. The question became even more burning, as I pondered the reason, why Carl Jung obviously so had to shy away from this experience. I sincerely hope, you will join me in this thread and give me food for thought. Bless Ya All and thanks! Detlof |
Nrchy, I think the more refined and complex a system gets, every single part of it plays an important role and in the end the whole is certainly more than all its parts. In a system tweaked to the utmost, every little change matters and can be heard and therefore, yes, in my opinion, everything is a component, in its old Latin sense of the word. And in this complex interrelationship of electronics, plugs, wires and transducers, to me, wires have become as important as any other component and this goes down to any part of which I have learnt, that it can make a difference to the sound as I percieve it. Cheers, |
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Great response Nrchy!LOL!! |
Nrchy...are you serious? Just enjoy the music and don't "let yourself be sickenend by the mind's grey thoughts" ..free translation out of Goethe's "Faust", above all: congratulations for getting a new plaything ! |
