Category: Philosophy

The banality of evil from a Jungian view
We’ve all heard the phrase “the banality of evil”, coined by the political theorist Hannah Arendt. Her 1951 masterwork, “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” about the parallels between Hitler’s Third Reich and Stalinist Russia, made her an intellectual celebrity. In her book, she argued that totalitarian regimes seek to dominate every aspect of everyone’s life as a prelude to world domination. Reflecting recent events, on more than one occasion the phrase “the banality of evil” crossed my mind. Touched by her psychological and philosophical view to totalitarian systems, I often wondered, how this radical political theorist would have commented to evil political events of the new millennium. Based on her quotes this essay suggests, that we live in the advent of new totalitarian regimes. I was very hesitant to publish this essay. Why? The psychological and philosophical analysis cannot be strictly separated from its political perspective. Be assured, that I am just interested in todays Evil from a Jungian view without political prejudices.

Totalitarianism and supranationalism

Arendt emphasized repeatedly that totalitarianism differs essentially from other forms of political oppression known to us such as despotism, tyranny and dictatorship. Wherever it rose to power, it developed entirely new political institutions and destroyed all social, legal and political traditions of the country. The term totalitarian, first used in the late ’20s, was not fully developed until the late ’40s and early ’50s, when a classical literature arose describing a new kind of tyranny created in this century. Arendt discusses the use of supranational organizations, fake (non) governmental agencies, and doctrines as a means of concealing totalitarian aims. She claimed for instance that the Nazis were not simple nationalists. Their propaganda was directed toward their fellow-travelers and not their convinced members; the latter, on the contrary, were never allowed to lose sight of a consistently supranational approach to politics.

Their aim was a dominating superstructure which would destroy all home-grown national structures alike. They could indulge in hypernationalistic talk even as they prepared to destroy the body politic of their own nation, because tribal nationalism, with its immoderate lust for conquest, was one of the principal powers by which to force open the narrow and modest limits of the nation-state and its sovereignty.

Isolation and loneliness of the individual

What made totalitarianism unique was its militant, messianic ideology; its mobilization of the masses; its total control of social life (all independent “intermediate” structures — such as churches, parties, unions — standing between the individual and the state were to be eradicated); and its systematic use of terror to enforce that control. Totalitarian regimes were thought to be (under Hitler and Stalin they certainly were) energetic, enthusiastic in an almost religious sense, on the march. Orwell’s 1984 seen from today was not a parody. It was just a mild extrapolation of past totalitarian reality and a abstract picture of today’s totalitarian possibilities. Totalitarian domination as a form of government is not content with isolation in public political life but aims to destroy private life as well. It bases itself on loneliness, on the experience of not belonging oneself, which is among the most radical and desperate experiences of man. Superfluousness which have been the curse since the beginning of the industrial revolution, have become individual isolation and loneliness – one looses even contact with the Self – both outcome and precondition of totalitarian domination.

The Banality of Evil

Hannah Arendt most memorably employed it in both the subtitle and closing words of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, her book on the trial of Nazi lieutenant-colonel Adolf Eichmann. To Arendt’s mind, Eichmann willingly did his part to organize the Holocaust — and an instrumental part it was — out of neither anti-semitism nor pure malice, but out of a non-ideological, entirely more opportunistic combination of careerism and obedience.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.

This kind of evil is very tricky to explain, but one Jungian definition could be this one: Banal evil is a kind of evil
which is unconscious, a kind of evil that the “evil person” hasn’t reflected over. The complex or the shadow took over. It’s also a kind of evil that is not considered evil by the person who acts, in the moment of the evil act. The reason why the person doesn’tconsider the act as an evil act is mainly ignorance or inconsiderateness of the Ego.

In 1961, The New Yorker sent her on her request to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief instrument of the Third Reich’s Final Solution, who had been kidnapped by Mossad operatives and brought to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes. The five-part article which emerged, “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” set off what is considered to be one of the most passionate and best public debates concerning Evil ever to take place

Arendt, who was born into a secular family of German Jews present-day Hanover and grew up in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). and Berlin. She studied philosophy with Martin Heidegger (later tainted by his support of the Nazis) and wrote her dissertation in Heidelberg under the existentialist philosopher-psychologist Karl Jaspers on the concept of love in the thought of Saint Augustine, published 1929. In 1933, she was arrested by the Gestapo for collecting evidence of anti-Semitic propaganda. After fleeing to Paris, she worked for a Jewish relief group before being sent to a French internment camp, from which she escaped. She and her second husband, Heinrich Bluecher a German Communist, emigrated to America..

Arendt’s original series of “Eichmann in Jerusalem” articles can be found in the New Yorker‘s online archives:: part one, part two, part three, part four, and part five. Although the poet Robert Lowell called “Eichmann in Jerusalem” a “masterpiece,” Arendt’s portrait of Eichmann as a bureaucrat motivated not by extreme ideology but rather by ambition disturbed many people. Throughout the piece, Arendt wrestles with her perception of Eichmann, calling him “monstrous” yet “terrifyingly normal.” Many readers objected to Arendt’s use of the term “banality of evil” to describe Eichmann. In a Reflections piece published posthumously, Arendt expanded on her use of the controversial phrase:

I was struck by a manifest shallowness in the doer which made it impossible to trace the incontestable evil of his deeds to any deeper level of roots or motives. The deeds were monstrous, but the doer—at least, the very effective one now on trial—was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither monstrous nor demonic.

Go back 60 years to the controversy that surrounded Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, a study of the Adolf Eichmann trial, in which she coined this famous phrase “the banality of evil.” Arendt wrote in a letter to a friend: “It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never ‘radical,’ that it is only extreme, and that it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface.” This was what Hannah Arendt meant: Evil is unspectacular and always human. The normality of evil is evident.

In any event, the fearful imagination has the great advantage to dissolve the sophistic-dialectical interpretations of politics which are all based on the superstition that something good might result from evil. Such dialectical acrobatics had at least a semblance of justification so long as the worst that man could inflict upon man was murder.

The truth about evil that needs attention now is its shallow, deadly, fungus quality. Today evil destroys not only life, but it destroys the fact of existence itself. In a tiny, multicultural world in which different civilizations inhabit different centuries–are often moved by evil deeds, like blowing up the Other. Don’t bother demonizing terrorists as being inherently evil (as Satan is evil). That’s not how it works.

Opportunistic evil passes like unconscious complexes (in a Jungian sense – negative energy) through the world, clustered in supranational institutions and financial concentrations, that take up residence in individuals or cultures from time to time. For example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization of 186 countries has been the centerpiece of the world monetary order since its creation in 1944, and its supervisory role has been considerably strengthened after the advent of floating rates of 1973. The role of the IMF in the current EU-crises and global events has been largely overlooked. But this is not the story I like to tell here.

The Global Evil

Distance once helped dampen the effects of human wickedness, and weapons once had limited range. But evil has burst into a new dimension. The globalization, democratization and efficiency of the instruments of destruction and control mean a quantum leap in the delivery systems of evil. Drones for full physical control or their diabolical stepbrother of electronic and financial means for full virtual control, un-leveled the local playing field globally again – and the level field has fungus on it. For a short while ragged Islamist group with weapons, which sells girls in slavery can terrorize citizens by asymmetric strategies, but even then, the Local Evil serves a purpose for the Global Evil.

Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

The Global Evil potential became a world-historical force, but with more discretionary destructive power at hand than the great old monsters, from Caligula to Stalin, ever had. In the new dimension, micro-evil (the dark impulse to rape or murder, say) and macro-evil (economic genocide) achieve an ominous reunion in any bid for the apocalyptic gesture. That’s the real evil that is going around. Most revolutions, as historical analyst Hannah Arendt points out in her 1963 published book “the fools of history”, have not established and maintained a state of liberty in which a common citizen can usually make politically heard. Even the American Revolution ultimately failed because Americans lost interest in their political condition in order to pursue their private gain.

Omnipotent Evil

According to Arendt that totalitarian totalitarian elites have usually a firm and sincere belief their unilateral omnipotence. Totalitarianism and the belief to be chosen to lead the world instead of other less worthy powers go together. This moral cynicism, their belief that everything is permitted, rests on the solid conviction that everything is allowed to them. Moral decisions become dependent on the context. Aggression on the grounds of “ exceptionalism”, is backed by the dubious idea that some are special and cannot be held to the same standards as others. Unilateralism, preemption, and exceptionalism, the toxic combo that has spurred hundreds of of wars, territory occupation, regime change, global surveillance, extra-judicial assassinations, drone attacks, and hyperbolic state terror most of which has been directed at civilian populations whose only fault is that they occupy regions which have some geostrategic or economic importance.

The totalitarian attempt at global conquest and total domination has been the destructive way out of all impasses. Its victory may coincide with the destruction of humanity; wherever it has ruled, it has begun to destroy the essence of man.

…
And if it is true that in the final stages of totalitarianism an absolute evil appears (absolute because it can no longer be deduced from humanly comprehensible motives), it is also true that without it we might never have known the truly radical nature of Evil.

Narcissism of totalitarian belief systems

It’s a cliché to say that most politicians become arrogant if they are in office for more than about six or seven years, and become quite disconnected from reality. We perhaps didn’t realise when the exceptionalism doctrine was presented first – that exceptionalism is a extreme form of narcissism, a messiah complex, that had been always an thriving impulse in totalitarian systems.

“If you had to summarise narcissism, it’s a feeling of specialness,” says Dr Adam Perkins, a researcher at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry. “Narcissists view themselves as special, as deserving of better treatment than the rest of the world.”

I have experienced and written how narcissism and excessive self-confidence can actually “help” in the political realm often supporting a negative selection. When action is needed, Narcissism – even of the mildly delusional variety – may be a useful thing in publicity.

And a healthy dose of narcissism is probably protective in certain situations. “If you’re dumped as a leader, it might help you to feel special – to think, well, their loss.

Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection not because he was narcissistic, necessarily, but because his reflection was so beautiful. Extreme narcissism, however, like psychopathy, usually manifests itself evil. Narcissus’s story ended badly, of course. According to the The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder can be made if a patient (or system sic!) displays five of the following nine symptoms:

An exaggerated sense of one’s own abilities and achievements.

A constant need for attention, affirmation and praise.

A belief that he or she is unique or “special”.

Persistent fantasies about attaining success and power.

Exploiting others for personal gain.

A sense of entitlement and expectation of special treatment.

A preoccupation with power or success.

Feeling envious of others, or believing that others are envious.

A lack of empathy for others.

I mean here extreme exceptionalism, evident in political correctness and certain supranational elites (inner circle) and organisations, and recently very openly in super powers again. Extreme unreflected exceptionalism has been a trademark of feudal systems with a thin ruling class and a large peasant class.

Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.

Lying and deceiving

Totalitarian policy is as a case of the government beginning to believe their own propaganda about their narcissist exceptionalism. The distorted reality will be believed by those who use them, just as C.G. Jung said – the unconscious in us is real. It is this form of perceived omnipotence that leads to bullying and manipulating the citizens and the failed Hero acting of the elite: the weak king, the cruel warrior, the wicked magicians, the narcissistic lover. Sure, there are also clear political struggles and psychological motives behind the supranational and unipolar debate: the establishment join in the hope for the blessings of a centralist post-democratic state, because they share belief in the stability of the state as sole power (and on its non accountable priests). Anything significant beyond the state (such as the individual, the family, the truth, the religion), would challenge the semi-religious ego of the transnational institutions – not only their political clout.

The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.In this sense, truth, even if it does not prevail in public, possesses an ineradicable primacy over all falsehoods.

Dissent thoughts let the inner circle fear for the long-awaited stability of a nation less and culture less state. That was the reason why the Europe’s leaders and the EU bureaucracy has been trying to reassure the public with obviously wrong assurances and after an earthquakes election continue with business as usual. Assurances, which are obviously wrong arouse always a debate and laid the foundation of today’s distrust in opponents. This triggered even neutral public figures, to believe that conspiracy theories might be plausible. Welcome to virtual reality. In George Orwell’s dark vision, the year 1984 would see the triumph of totalitarianism in Europe—an era of Newspeak and Doublethink, of dictatorial cruelty and dehumanizing coercion. That fateful year is now three decades away, and it seems less and less visible that Orwell’s grim prophecy proved correct.

Conclusion

I’ve read Hannah Arendt “Eichmann in Jerusalem” and “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, several times – it always amazes me. I find Arendt very hard to disagree with – she just seems so shrewd, so alert, annoyingly good at noticing everything that needs noticing; She must have it right. Writing 50 years ago, this great theorists of totalitarianism, noted that totality and irreversibility are related. It used to be thought that totalitarianism had repealed the law of history by which power sows the seeds of its own destruction. If sheer ruthless vigilance could destroy any center of opposition, even any island of independent thought, then — aside from external conquest, with humanitarian pretext — totalitarian rule could never be reversed. Conversely, if total control fails due to today’s interconnected multipolar world, what happens to single-minded direction? If totalitarianism can decay, can it not be transformed? We don’t yet know. We know only that it can be modified. It can give way to a society with some space. How much? Well, somewhat between 1984 with drones, full coverage realtime surveillance and a brave new world of constructed realities.

Obviously you can read the banality of evil as a description of the ordinariness of the people involved, or as a statement about the optimisation of work in international institutions like the IMF or others. The point about the ‘radical’ evil – the cruel, savage, sadistic kind – is that it is much easier to spot. Is is visual, it is on CNN. That is what makes it all the more important to be aware of ‘evil’s’ other face – the unconscious evil. It hides in the balance sheets.

Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good, and under no conditions can it either lead into freedom or constitute a proof for its existence.

The banality of evil is not so banal after all.

Bibliography

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). (Rev. ed. New York: Viking)

The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). second enlarged edition; A MERIDIAN BOOK First Meridian printing September 1958 Seventh printing September 1962

The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958).

On Revolution (New York: Viking, 1963).

Note: the first two books are available as free of charge ebooks.
June 4, 2014
Who killed Freud? And is Psychoanalysis dead too?
Arguably no other notable figure in history was as wrong as Freud was about every important thing he had to say. He was a favorite of the avantgarde from the begin of last century until its sixties, but while the theories of his contemporary colleagues, C.G. Jung, Adler and Wilhelm Reich aged well, little of Freud’s narrow understanding of the human psyche is in practical use today. What an utter disappointment this must been for the fans of Freud. Psychoanalysis Is Dead … So how does that make me feel as an Jungian? Well, I must admit Freud is truly in a class of his own. While I credit Freud as absolute trailblazer to reveal the concept of the unconscious, the so-called “Freud wars” caused a tremendous loss in our culture, in essence a counter revolution. However, by no means all psychoanalysis is dead, quite the contrary, the concepts of C.G. Jung and Adler are still important to understand individuals, political and organisational cultures.

This essay is a crime story, which wants to show: when was Freud killed; who had motives and means; finally, who had done it. As we will see, laymen did it, but particularly certain segments which wanted and succeeded installing a new religion of narcissistic unlimited individualism, very convenient for those in power and suitable in today’s post-industrial society. The murder happened in the sixties or early seventies and paved the way for “greed is good” which prevails today, a boulevard of broken dreams and global wars, financial, cultural, cold and hot wars.

Note: I connected four very old articles of Time magazine which are not mine. Although those articles are most likely open source, I have protected them by a password (which you may find at the end of this essay). Nevertheless I want to share them on request as a fascinating Longitudinal Study of Culture. Here is the link to TIME Magazine archive, or google will lead you to the source, but you need to have a TIME subscription.

The death of Freud

The assault on Freud, Time Magazine 1993

1993 Time magazine asked aloud, and on its cover no less, “Is Freud Dead?” questioning Freud’s reputation as a man and as a thinker. The psychoanalytic century was over before the 21st century had begun. Every seems to know the answer to Time’s rhetorical question: Indeed, Freud is dead. However, the opinion shapers who understood little, the anti-intellectual and foremost the Freud killers wanted to do away with psychoanalysis as a whole. As we will see, this has been done for very good reasons, because wo/men go great length to deny their shadows. We all agree that Freud did not “discover” the unconscious, but are sophisticated enough to see that it has a history that long predates him. However, he did formulate the first coherent theory about it. In a way, it was a response to the second industrial revolution, to the advent to the modern society of mass-production and mass media democracy of consumers, gratification seekers, me-suffers and myriads of suffering fractions of society. This has been very well described by the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner: “I Suffer therefore I am”. This exaltation of pseudopathos creates all kind of sweepstakes of attention seekers. “Everyone aspires to be taken for an underdog,” says Bruckner, which results in “victimization gone berserk — metastasizing through the social body.” This change was at the same time a retreat from the objective rational and political realm to the subject, to extreme individualism and later to narcissism. In retrospective , was this liberating? Yes, in a way it fulfilled the promise of the Enlightenment period, facilitated new art cultures, emancipation movements and deconstructed most moral restrictions. But the price was high. Transcendence and spirituality were lost. Community spirit and family bonds were discarded. Adaptation to a materialistic society and a sexualized consumerism became the benchmark of a successful life. The meaning of autonomy, equality, democracy changed, even the definition of gender.

The motive

The history of science is littered with cases where advocates of a theory have clung to it in spite of apparently falsifying data and have later been vindicated. Something more than mere tenacity is at issue. Sometimes as in the case of Freud the accusation was the stronger one that he reported his theory to have been confirmed when he must have known he was not in a position to do so. Freud’s theories interacted well with the socialist thinkers in the twenties and played a central role in the upheavals of the sixties. After Trotsky’s fall (who was fond of psychoanalysis and had known Adler personally), Stalin outlawed psychoanalysis and eliminated later in the thirties Freudians quite literally. Despite strong opportunism especially in the German speaking countries, Hitler did the same in the forties. However Freudianism flourished briefly again in the Anglo-Saxon after WWII. It has been always a charismatic movement, maybe suitable for medical purpose in the context of the hysterical Viennese upper class but an efficient and instrumental for deconstructing and cultural engineering. Until Woody Allan came along. The strongest reason for considering Freud a pseudo-scientist is that he claimed to have tested – and thus to have provided the most cogent grounds for accepting – theories which are either untestable or even if testable had not been tested. Why? Shortly afterwards it became an “antipolitical, antifeminist and homophobic degraded pseudo science”,the latter, by the way it always has been. You might see this paradox as a case of the revolution devours its children, but I like to explore Eli Zaretsky’s answers given in “Secrets of the Soul” which point to social and cultural history.

The culprits

Ironically extreme feminism and genderism, denying differences of sexes, which followed and prevails today, triggered Freud’s downfall. Freudian’s were at least in the beginning a heterosexual patriarchical men’s club viewing homosexuality as deviation until the third industrial revolution. Freud was the father of an charismatic movement, and his children killed their “Father”.The children were left, naked and uncared for. The “Death of Freud” gave way to the postmodern society, which exchanged the term psychoanalysis with psychology and became an instrument of social control, to a great deal exercised by lay(wo)man and media as agents with zeitgeist-authority or in self-medication. Consultants, routinely counsel people and mediate team issues today, not speaking of post-modern new age prophets or gender-related NGO’s. The children of the sixties and the new service based economy turned the back on Freud. Jungian’s found a profitable market niche, haunted however in Germany by the published opinion as a convenient shadow for the opportunism of psychoanalysis in the Third Reich. Most people do not recognize, how much in counselling, cross-cultural training and corporate psychology we owe C.G. Jung.

Well, in any case 1993 almost everyone knew that “Freud is dead.” You can always count on orthodox and opportunistic academics to keep a candle burning for whatever idea they’ve invested long years, enormous sums of money and, perhaps above all, limitless ego promoting. Eli Zaretsky seems to be one of those, but his historical context, is a brilliant longitudinal study, based on facts, which gives give food for thought and explains raise and fall. It is not likely that intellectuals walks away from a venture that helped pave the way for tenure and the prestige of authorship. Over the years, there were so many books, so many reviews, so many lectures, all with so little perspective on Freud’s limitations, and the folly continued to march on. So the Freud industry continues. Academics always have been — and still are — infinitely creative in their efforts to white wash any errors, even as laymen grow increasingly critical. Zaretsky’s thesis is that psychoanalysis has repressive and emancipatory aspects is true. However, as Karl Kraus put it many years ago, Freud’s psychoanalysis itself became the poison it purports to cure and Freud’s psychoanalysis is just an outdated subset. Another way to put it, is that Freud’s clerics have infected the Western mainstream with and sex-is-everything view, penis envy, Oedipal conflicts as source for anything what can can go wrong, even politically, that Freud itself became irrelevant. Nietzsche claimed “God is death”. The new Freudian replaced (or killed) the spiritual “Self” with an infantile inflated Super-Ego. To Jung (and Eastern spirituality), one part of the subconscious — the term Self — was given for an entity, which is our communication path to God or even God in us and had a complete different meaning than it has today in the Freudian context. Freud’s followers, replaced what was left, the rational Ego quite directly with an ever young forlorn based primarily on sexual identity and entitelment.

The remains

Consequently, the killer got killed, the death of psychoanalysis is itself the desired outcome Freud’s psychoanalysis was ever designed to deliver. Depriving the world of spirituality and transcendence in nihilistic capitalism, which replaced the failed Communism as unilateral power. Or in other words Freud’s theories did their job, but its usefulness expired. We had priest, quack or analyst –which claimed special access to the darkest, scariest reaches of our minds — today we are left with ‘experts’ and quacks amplified by media and technology. For a certain price, they drug us. scientifically, Freud’s psychoanalysis turned out very ponderable and has left psychoanalysis as a whole discredited and made laughable today. Psychology took a worse turn. Evidently (or forensic) I encountered this today in my local library. 12 large bookshelves, containing 50 % women’s problem in all shades (with sexuality, with men, with themselves, with the kids…) the other half is generic self-help and astrology. A real triviality shock. Out of 10 Books left under the label “Psychoanalysis” only one was worth to be picked up – and that was sampler of original texts.

Unfortunately, this is tragic — for Western culture and the world in general, because like one never will understand himself if not in touch with the unconsciousness, the history of psychoanalysis and political history must be seen tangled and holistic. I would argue, the history of psychoanalysis and development of theories reflects the unconsciousness of human history. When I read the Time articles (again) they became a Longitudinal Study of Culture with all wishes, suppressed fears, shadows and projection of those years in and between and after the major wars. As Jung noted, the “unconsciousness is real” like blueprint for houses, they create reality (a great youtube video interview with C.G. Jung touches that – see around min 37). Troubled dreams, visions, or complexes lead to psychological troubled people (and societies). This full film represents a rare record of an original genius. In Dr. Richard Evans interviews, “Jung on Film”, C.G. Jung tells us about his collaboration with Sigmund Freud, about the insights he gained from listening to his patients’ dreams, and about world events. It is almost frightening, how valid his unique psychoanalytic view on political issues still is today.

Cultural history of Psychoanalysis

FreudAfter1stWW

Freud, Adler and Jung—these names personify, above all others, modern man’s restless exploration of his own mind, his struggles for self-knowledge and for control of his darkest drives. Freud gave an individual, Adler a political and C.G. Jung a spiritual answer. In the 20th century, impelled by the detailed theory and dogma of the Big Three, psychology has burst out of consulting room and clinic, spreading all through life and leaving nothing untouched—neither love nor economics, war nor politics, neither art nor culture nor God. Freud clung to the mechanical and material scientism of his age and was anti-religious almost until its end. He constructed a new. detailed, machine like scheme run by sexual energy or libido. In Freud’s view, the unconscious was a problems zone cluttered with neuroses and repressed materials. The Freudian concept of libido eventually grudgingly broadened, but still narrowly insisted that infantile parricide and incest wish were almost mono-causal important. Vienna’s Alfred Adler, like C.G. Jung an early disciple of Freud, rejected this sex-is-everything view, and formulated his theory that human beings are propelled more by drives for power because of inherent feelings of inferiority. Both saw the same importance of gender differences, but Adler did understand the upcoming womans lib movement whereas Freud, did not. Adler, being political motivated wanted to combine feminism with socialism. Freud’s work, “Totem and” Tabu tried to reconcile differences mainly with Jung, but also with Adler. Here the view of irrationalism, mythos and transcendence were the great dividers. So only a trinity , all men which went quite different ways. I have written about Sabine Spielrein, I see this as a great loss that she was belitteled away (by Jung and Freud).

After the three arch-fathers, came the Early psychoanalysts like Wilhelm Reich, Sabine Spielrein,Toni Wolff, Karl Abraham, Sandor Ferenczi and Anna Freud. Neo-psychoanalysts like Erich Fromm and third generation psychoanalysts like Alexander Mitscherlich followed. Then already existentialist and phenomenalists like Erwin W. Strauss took over.

The promise of Psychoanalysis

Eli Zaretsky agues that psychoanalysis was created and meant as a liberating and emancipating movement to fulfill the promise of enlightenment – and that would mean Kant, Voltaire and Hume. However, even he grudgingly accepts the fact, that it was abused both in capitalism as in communism as means of social control – of the masses. Tellingly, to him the three promises were autonomy, emancipation of women and democracy .While this may be include this is a very narrow view, with which I beg to differ. The intellectual movement of Enlightenment was a very complex movement. It has 4 main points. First is that it believes in the idea of the existence of natural laws. It also believes in natural rights (Life, Liberty, Property, political and religious freedom) of individuals, human reason, as well as sociological and scientific progress. The autonomy of individuals meant moral (decide what is good and bad) and political autonomy (democracy), not personal unlimited and unconditional autonomy, beyond self control and moral conditionality. Zaretskyis is too smart to make such an error, so this is by purpose or – I believe – a Freudian slip. On base of Zaretsky’s facts one could argue, that Freud, even if conservative, created a theory which instead perverted the promise of enlightenment to a hydra of psychologization of authority, narcissistic individualism and personal self exploration. Descartes “T think so I am” became Pascal Bruckners “I suffer so I am” which he argues ia a conformity now a stifling orthodoxy in the West, instilling within us the desire to “practice self-flagellation” and “culture of permanent disadvantage and inequalities”. At the personal level, the politics of guilt is a perfect accompaniment to another dubious legacy of the (late) Sixties —what even Eli Zaretsky calls a culture of narcissism; an infantile and regressive and therapeutic culture of the self, self, self in a constructed social reality ruled by a new class of social workers, self-support group and self-appointed counselors who took over. This “Temptation of Innocence” changed the age of Enlightenment into an ” Age of Entitlement” (again French philosopher Pascal Bruckner) – with mother centered psychological underpinnings for an welfare state (until it had been abolished too by globalism).

Psychoanalysis and Marxism

The first world war was a total war, which not only killed six thousand of the brightest and the best in per day (!) over 4 years but also the old Europe and Russia civilization. The war had triggered a high demand for psychoanalysts (for instance to cure shell shocks). It is often said, that this war was reflected by Freud’s “death instinct, but that had com e from a brilliant paper of Sabine Spielrein, patient, lover and pupil of C.G. Jung (and later working with Freud) before WWI. Like in Europe, also in Russia the charismatic avantgarde movement flirted with another utopian movement, not only because the had a common enemy – the family and patriarchism. The Bolsheviks printed Freud’s writings, although they had a different concept of personal autonomy. Under patronage of Trotsky who was close to Adler, the Russian psychoanalysis (strictly speaking Freudian) experienced at the beginning of the twenties a short bloom. Like in later in America, Trotsky saw it primarily as mean to control the subconsciousness of the underlings, the mass . The Bolshevik revolution, already ruthless by Lenin’s design, succumbed after Lenin’s death to evil and inhuman Stalin. Under his rule, the USSR degenerated into a brutal tyranny of its own, aptly symbolized in George Orwell’s book “Animal Farm”. After the (too) brilliant Leon Trotsky (chosen by Lenin as his successor) had to emigrate to Mexico, all intellectuals in the Soviet Union were in great danger. Trotsky was killed 1938 with an ice pick by a Stalinist agent, in Mexico-City. Intellectuals, who stayed, had either to adapt totally and opportunistically or perish in a niche. After 1925, when Stalin began repressing psychoanalysis, would have been risky. Spielrein, on advice of Freud and for private reasons had moved to Russia 1924 and worked as school medical psychologist in Moskow and later practical-therapeutic in Rostov on Don. In Moscow Spielrein founded together with Ivan Ermakov Dimitrievitch and Moshe Wulff, the first Institute for Psychoanalysis in the Soviet Union. It was also the first state psychoanalytic training institute in the world. 1921-1924 of the Psychoanalytic Institute experiments were performed with liberal collective education in early childhood in the orphanage Laboratory, which served the ’68 movement as a model for their sexually charged socialist children shops. All three brothers of Spielrein were arrested and killed under Stalin’s reign of terror by the National Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) like many other intellectuals and/or Jewish.

Psychoanalysis and capitalism

Post homous praise Time Magazine 1956b

The promise of psychoanalysis, was essential aligned to Fordism, as “a manufacturing system designed to flood you with standardized, low-cost goods and afford its workers decent enough wages to buy them. Although Fordism was a method used to improve productivity in the automotive industry, this principle could be applied to any kind of manufacturing process. Major success stemmed from three major principles
1. The standardization of the product
2. The use of special-purpose tools and/or robots.
3. Trickle down economy – workers are paid higher “living” wages, to allow them to purchase the products they make.
The deal was called off several times and according to the Time of this week has been called off open ended. However, Fordism initially broke down European class barriers creating a convergence between Freud and capitalism. Complex systems need well educated managers. Those managers were ordered to pay attention to the individual (worker) and that meant also psychology played a certain role. On the demand side, ever good advertising uses archetypal symbols. Furthermore sex sells. 1926, that is 75 years before Madonna. Gramsci, an Italian communist wondered in one of his letters
from prison whether it really meant anything ‘that many of the so-called theoreticians of historical materialism have fallen into a philosophical
position similar to mediaeval theology and have turned “economic structure” into a hidden god is probably demonstrable’, while capitalism emphasises the sexuality to enforce conformity in their workers and consumers. Fordism needs Freudianism to decipher the hidden wishes and desires of the masses, since enforcement alone does not suffice. He praises Fordism, to create new females which are employed in the (capitalistic or communist) factory.

To some may occur, that this alliance resembles closely todays alliance between neocons, the hapless EU and feminists. Today relentless individualism became a mass product, but on a positive the side effect of destructed gender roles contributes to less breeding, helping with the fact that workers are redundant today. For the high inequality of todays economy, Freud (and Ford) would have been to human, too fond of animal instincts. We are living in the century or millennium of fracking, micro trading, robots, drones and narcissism – feudalism was only outgunned for a short while. Absolute super-national power can be achieved, whiteout paying attention to the underlings. The noble savage of the French philosopher, revived by Freud has been killed again. Freud emphasized like Rousseau on early experience, believing that children are born with a conscience corrupted by morals and society. Both had the idea of the “noble savage” living a moral life in the state of nature.

Today – Psychoanalysis as Business of Restoring the Dream Post in post-modern culture of narcissism

PsychologyofNarcissm

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines narcissism as the act of “egocentrism,” where a person is full of love for self. Many experts think that, because of what are being hailed as advances in media and technology, we became a world of narcissistic children and adults. A most recent American Freshman Survey, which has gathered data from some 9 million young adults, reveals “that college students are more likely than ever to call themselves gifted and driven to succeed, even though their test scores and time spent studying are decreasing.” Make yourself into something you’re not. Though users may actually know a lot of people they connect with on Facebook, the social media site allows most of them to make a lot more “friends” than they actually have – perhaps hundreds or thousands more. They are able to delete unflattering comments or “unfriend” or “block” anyone who upsets them or disagrees with them or otherwise “pokes holes in their inflated self-esteem”. It seems we can pick and choose the media and what we want to see the world. However, major media outlets today are highly concentrated and block out anything undesirable as well. Yesterday, elites misused God to keep the masses obedient. Or so it seems to revolutionaries and atheists. Science has replaced myths and media has replaced sermons. Money used to be only object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value. Today money is the only value, the only benchmark for the individual and sole power. Michel Foucault advanced a critical perspective on the modern experience of individuality as the result of power relations in his essay “The Subject and Power”:

“this form of power applies itself to immediate everyday life and which categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him. It is a form of power which makes individuals subjects. There are two meanings of the word subject: subject to someone else by control and dependence, and tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge. Both meanings suggest a form of power which subjugates and makes subject to.” The very possibility of a narcissistic decision is itself a product of power relations. The collapse of community is a systemic symptom of societal impoverishment. No personal choice to go back to church can undo this institutionalized alienation, however much religion may give solace to the faithful.

According to Jung one must overcome the Ego to reach the unconsciousness realm to reach his or her Self. But that s a very different Self than in todays self-entered ideology. Actually meant is the “I” (Ich) or Ego, which has been replaced with the term “Self” by American Freudian, the “Ich” of course only a small part of one’s personality – consciousness and more or less congruent with C.G. Jung’s “Ego”.

The Ego, the Self and God – Individuation and Transcendence

The Ego and the Self are terms which are often interchangeably used. Likewise often no distinction between personality and Self is made nor taken into account the subconscious anymore. The psychological term Ego is the center of consciousness and ensures the physical survival . Ego often has an extended meaning in the spiritual language and referrers in general terms to an obstacle for Self realization. You may go deeper in the model her, but critical to me is, that according to the model C.G. Jung must distinguishes sharply between Ego and Self. The unconscious thoughts and dreams are both types of memories: the ones we can remember easily and those who are suppressed for some reason. In addition Jung introduced the collective unconscious, which belongs to the common humanity, as part of an individual psyche. Ego is the correct translation of the German “Ich (I)” used by C.G. Jung and Freud. The term Ego is also common in esoteric writings often distinguishing the Ego as a centre of the personality of a higher or true Self not unlike as in C.G. Jung’s psychoanalytic model. The term Ego is widely used In translations of Buddhist texts for the “I” to overcome. So it boils down to that the Freud’s kills want o narrow down a personality only the conscious Ego, renamed to Self, which used to attend a negative meaning: to characterize, for example people with a selfish narcissism. According to C.G. Jung the Ego can be equated with the conscious mind and includes all thoughts we think at that moment and also our current feelings. In the center of this consciousness we find that “I” or Ego. It guarantees the unity of (thinking, feeling, acting) is focused on physical survival and dealing with everyday demands. All religions (according to the Benedictine monk Anselm Gruen), demand more or less that we must become free from the Ego. This especially applies to our relationship with God. If we do not let go of our Ego we stay materialistic (at best). Today’s self-centered psychology is essentially reviving narcissism as a norm.

Jung’s answer to Freud

C.G. Jung The wise old man Time Magazine

In the Freudian world, the human being stands alone, bound and hunted by mysterious urges and traumas over which he has no control. Religion is usually seen a form of neurosis and God is a projection of the Father image. But Jung was a “homo religious” bitingly said once about Freud: “The brain is viewed as an appendage of the genital glands”, He was more interested on the unconsciousness, and as a source of energy and channel to transcendence, particularly in the pool of archetypal common knowledge, the collective unconsciousness which he differentiated from the personal unconsciousness. It is, argues Jung, is not merely a trash basket for disagreeable experiences, but a vast source of energy full of both good and evil. For the most part the eternal human affections, aspirations and fears are just what they seem to be. Religion is not a neurosis, in Jung’s view; it is a timeless and universally felt human need. Freud was the Copernicus who discovered the nature of the solar system. Jung may well be the Kepler to circumscribe correctly the whole sphere of the psyche.

The ultimate value of psychoanalysis cannot alone be measured by practical standards. But it must be a psychology for human beings who reach out toward the unknown, the intangible, the spiritual. arguably both todays narcissism nor the goal of psychological adjustment for the unsuccessful adapted lead to unbearable boredom, infernal sterility, and hopelessness. Jung has suggested to mankind a way of “adjustment” not merely to his animal instincts and social pressures but to his individuation and his eternal religious needs, “Individuation means to become what one is really meant to be”, like meditation in Zen Buddhism.

Conclusion

So what can we see today that we didn’t see during the last century? We know that Freud never seriously dealt with the problem of “suggestion,” which totally compromised his clinical findings and, by extension, his theories. Amazingly, these critical insights were buried under Freud’s rhetoric of denial and by his growing fame. Today we know better than to trust to paid consultants, or in benefit, that supposedly issue from the “therapeutic alliance” between analyst and patient. I have one primary aim for psychoanalysis in mind, and that is; “The Business of Restoring the Dream.” Many on our planet live on the “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”. The psychological problem is clearly illustrated in the Hollywood dream factory film “The Matrix”, in which the narcissistic character Cypher wants his old life in the Matrix where he can be rich and famous and “where ignorance is bliss”.

Bibliography

Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis, 2004 by Eli Zaretsky

Time magazine 1924-today (subscribers archive)
May 13, 2014
The Black Swan as Acausal Connecting Principle

No, this essay is not about the movie, Black Swan with Natalie Portman. By chance I recently picked up Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan, and it reminded me on C.G. Jung’s Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a mathematician who has made a fortune by betting on highly improbable market events. Those markets, which symbolize repressed ambition, greed, ignorance, which undo our society. Carl Jung warned, that if societies do not attend to their collective shadow, a world crisis may result. Our era is one of failing elites and broken social covenants, which is fraught with the dangers of unleashed economic and social chaos. We each can do our part to safeguard each other by understanding black swans. I want to apply C.G. Jung’s wisdom, an intuitive thinker, on Taleb’s book (The Black Swan) beneficial to analyze external events – and yes, I am afraid this has something to do with the financial crisis and current geopolitical risks.

The Black Swan

As an engineer, interested not only in C.G. Jung but also in economic theories I have read NN Taleb’s book (The Black Swan). Both C.G. Jung and Taleb contain the same message: the assumptions underlying modern science models are wrong. Ever since nuclear experts said that a fatality due to radiation exposure from an accident at one of nuclear facilities should happen less than once per million years. That was the standard by which they were managing the reactors. From my profession, I never bought that. Today everybody and anybody knows, what can go wrong at nuclear facilities, does – or did (Murphy’s Law). We were also told alpha, beta and gamma radiation differ in that alpha particles do not travel far through air, and thus were not easily picked up. Until Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) struggled to bring the leaks under control and after a string of blunders over the past few months released hundreds and thousands of liters of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. Three of the Fukushima plant’s nuclear reactors were damaged by an earthquake-triggered tsunami on March 11, 2011, which caused multiple meltdowns, most likely open fissions, and the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The risks posed by nuclear energy, both personally and to society, seem to be a classic case of black swan logic: so unlikely as to be unintelligible through normal statistical methods, but occurring often enough that they cannot be treated as outliers and ignored as spurious.

Uncertainty

Uncertainty is building pattern of nature as the unlikely cross-disciplinary relationship of psychoanalytic (and often alchemist) C. G. Jung and theoretical physicist Pauli discovered. Pauli, a “Wunderkind” may be called a pioneer of quantum physics and leading member of the group of theoretical physicists, including Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger. The group transformed our understanding of the way matter behaves at the subatomic level encountering a new world where Einstein’s theories (and Newtons Laws) do not apply. Exploration of the Pauli-Jung collaboration is particularly interesting because of the holistic view of his major scientific work, which won him the Nobel prize.The Pauli exclusion principle explains how matters form and a variety of astrophysical effects. On the psychic side, the Pauli effect was named after the anecdotal bizarre ability of his to break experiments simply by being in the vicinity and his sarcastic remarks toward colleagues. Despite his Jewish origins Pauli was baptised catholic. Pauli met with Jung, whom he consulted regularly till 1934 in a deep psychological crisis. Especially Pauli’s dreams, which were full of symbolism from alchemy, were extensively discussed.

That brings me to currently greatest alchemist experiment the Euro and FIAT money in general. There are some parallels evident in economic history, over thousands of years currencies failed, but according to experts Euro and Dollar will stay. “The Euro is irreversible, declares European Central Bank president Mario Draghi a Goldman & Sachs alumni. The European Central Bank will do ‘whatever it takes’ to preserve the currency. Ever since the 2008 financial experts tell us the economy is under control. Looking in financial history, I think we ought to know better, there was always a black swan.

Why didn’t I stock up food and emergency kits yet? Because, we tend to underestimate both the probabilities and the damage and, what is worse, we do not follow our intuitions or hunches anymore. Discovering black swan risks, create tremendous anxiety within us. And Western do not see not Paulis quantum physics world without an individuation process. Jung felt that our journey in life was one of striving for completion, or wholeness. This is also a difficult journey for there is so much that we are called to integrate within ourselves. But there is an important difference here. On the journey towards completeness or wholeness we become more aware and more open as we travel the road. With each step along the journey we enlarge consciousness. Becoming conscious of the suppressed knowledge of risks is beneficial. Instincts work through us whether we are conscious of it or not. If we remain unconscious of the process, then we find life more difficult to understand. We are at the whim of the Fates (or markets). If we consciously work to make the unknown known, then we are part of (CW 9i, par. 278), “the production and unfolding of the original, potential wholeness…” within.

Shadows on the Wall

Right now our Europe leaders (more the ECB) claim they solved the Euro Crises this week and US did not default yesterday. The US “leaders” are hopelessly divided and the European leaders scary brought in line, but both chase the black swan back to the backwaters of their unconscious and ours. Depth psychologist Carl Jung called it the “shadow” It’s the weaknesses, imperfections, faults, and instincts which we hide from others and ourselves by repressing them into our unconscious. The elites’s shadow is the sinner within; the ctizens’s shadow is the saint within. The shadow or black swan is the disowned part of our psychological wholeness.

SwanChaser

What we see today is not criminal stupidity of statistical science but an arrogant élite overpowered by a collective shadow. Financial and technical models told them something about normal events (that was the basic assumptions on financial weapons of mass destructions), but they cannot deal with unexpected, high-impact events. Some guy probably measured the risk according to a formula and said, “Well, it meets the one-in-a-million standard.” But we are incapable scientifically of measuring the risk of rare events. As Warren Buffet stated on Derivatives in the Berkshire Hathaway annual report for 2002: The derivatives genie is now well out of the bottle, and these instruments will almost certainly multiply in variety and number until some event makes their toxicity clear. Central banks and governments have so far found no effective way to control, or even monitor, the risks posed by these contracts. In my view,derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal…Another problem about derivatives is that they can exacerbate trouble that a corporation has run into for completely unrelated reasons.

Because the world has become so connected, a crisis today quickly becomes global. As the nuclear situation in Japan, the EU crises and the US dept ceiling soap opera continues, you’re going to see a major disturbance of supply chains. When the interest rate goes up, and it will, one “butterfly can cause an earthquake”. Our connected world appears only to be more efficient. We have economies of scale, and layers of oversight which generate an organized inacountability bordering on synchronicity. But when there is a disturbance, the setback is much harder to handle. Not only are we building riskier systems, but also the risks involved in failure are a lot larger. C. G. Jung published an famous essay on Wotan, the Norse (and German) god of the war in the , Neue Schweizer Rundschau (Zurich March, 1936)

En Germanie naistront diverses sectes,
S’approchans fort de l’heureux paganisme:
Le coeur captif et petites receptes
Feront retour a payer la vraye disme.
— Propheties De Maistre Michel Nostradamus, 1555

When we look back to the time before 1914, we find ourselves living in a world of events which would have been inconceivable before the war. We were even beginning to regard war between civilized nations as a fable, thinking that such an absurdity would become less and less possible on our rational, internationally organized world. And what came after the war was a veritable witches’ sabbath. Everywhere fantastic revolutions, violent alterations of the map, reversions in politics to medieval or even antique prototypes, totalitarian states that engulf their neighbours and outdo all previous theocracies in their absolutist claims, persecutions of Christians and Jews, wholesale political murder, and finally we have witnessed a light-hearted piratical raid on a peaceful, half-civilized people.

No all swans are white

The term “black swan” is philosophical in nature. Eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume once stated, “No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion.” Today the black swan definition is: An event or occurrence that deviates beyond what is normally expected of a situation and that would be extremely difficult to predict. In laymen’s terms, black swans are events that are typically random and unexpected

There is no way to know that somewhere out there a black swan is not hiding, disproving the rule and nullifying our “knowledge” of swans. Induction tells us that we cannot really learn from our experiences. It makes knowledge very problematic, if not impossible. And yet, we humans do behave almost without exception as though they believe that experience teaches us mono-causal lessons. This is forgivable; like classic physics it works but as science showed later not in quantum physics. C.G. Jung showed that humans seem, at every turn, have this critical self-awareness of collective archetypes.

Taleb shows an similar skepticism in the story of a trader who insisted that he should not worry about the fluctuating values of economic indicators. Indeed, Taleb proudly declares that, to this day, he remains blissfully ignorant of supposedly crucial “indicators” like housing starts and consumer spending and cholesterol level I might add. Even if these “common knowledge” indicators were predictive, they would be useless because everyone else is already accounting for them. They are “white swans,” or common sense. Regardless of their magnitude, white swans are basically irrelevant sometimes. In todays environment, one can only profitably concern oneself with those bets, which others are ignoring systematically. Bets on those highly unlikely, but highly consequential events that utterly defy the conventional wisdom. Black swan’s we have to worry about not the prospect of a quarter-percent rise in interest rates.

The thing with Black Swans is that they cannot be foreseen – only the ones, who chase him up. In the apocalypse – where chaos reigns, the wholly unexpected happens, power laws and quantum physics apply but the bell curve does not. We need to understand the risks we face more accurately. Risks can be framed in a certain way. When they tell us something could happen once every 1 million years (or we fix a problem by the same means it has been created), we’re going to take that chance, thinking the risk is periodic and we are safe in the short term. But C.G. Jung knew the world within is as real as the world outside. The risk of interrupting events hasn’t changed since mankind crawled out of cave . The archetype of the apocalypse has been always there.

Pauli himself had written an article called “The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler” which appeared later in a volume with an essay of Jung’s on synchronicity. The Pauli-Jung collaboration aimed at explication of a unifying or connecting principle bridging the gap between mind and matter or (quantum) physics with psychoanalysis. Jung’s theory of synchronicity stipulated that certain events-often called coincidences-actually reveal the operation of a non-causal connection between mental and physical events through meaning. The history of Jung’s reception by the scientific and scholarly communities is cautious – they largely discredited theories of Freud are considered scientific, but although many Jung’s concepts are widely used his overall work is labeled often as unscientific. Synchronicity has been the prime target for criticism of Jung, but is for me a natural extension of Jung’s view of the intuitive function.

Synchronicity and the Black Swan

Jung coined the word to describe what he called “temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events” or “meaningful coincidence” and “acausal parallelism in which archetypes and the collective unconscious are governing a dynamic that underlies the whole of human experience and history — social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual.

Synchronicity does not admit causality in the analogy between terrestrial events and astrological constellations … What astrology can establish are the analogous events, but not that either series is the cause or the effect of the other. (For instance, the same constellation may at one time signify a catastrophe and at another time, in the same case, a cold in the head.) … In any case, astrology occupies a unique and special position among the intuitive methods… I have observed many cases where a well-defined psychological phase, or an analogous event, was accompanied by a transit (particularly when Saturn and Uranus were affected). – Carl G. Jung

Jung’s paradigmatic example of a synchronicity occurred during a therapy session, and the connecting meaning in a synchronistic event is subjective, related to the individual’s psychological maturation, or individuation. Jung and Pauli believed, events like this occur too often enough to be only meaningless coincidence. Jung noted taking as usual phenomenological stance, while it would be “absurd” to consider the conjunction of dream material and life events to be causal, “it is wise to consider the fact that [these coincidences] do happen…The East…considers coincidences as the reliable basis of the world rather than causality. Synchronism is the prejudice of the East; causality is the modern prejudice of the West.”

Jung mentioned the concept again in his commentary to Wilhelm’s translation of “The Secret of the Golden Flower”. He concluded that “the causality principle” cannot explain “psychic parallelisms” that must somehow be connected but are not causally related and equated synchronicity with the Chinese Tao. Jung would write about this concept again, and when he did, his focus would shift from the empirical and phenomenological aspects of synchronistic phenomena to the ontological and archetypal nature of such events. Pauli thought that the probabilistic nature of quantum theory and the Uncertainty Principle offered the possibility of discovering something beyond the mind-matter gap which transformed Jung’s understanding of synchronicity. As a result of his interaction with Pauli, Jung gradually came to see this non-causal connecting principle as an explanatory theory must be seen in combination with causality to lead to a better understanding reality, rather than having only a subjective meaning. To me that is the narrative of Talib’s Black Swan.

However, swans can be chased up. “When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money”, apparently an Indian Chief said.

October 17, 2013
Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” from a Jungian view

When they all know the good as good, there arises the recognition of evil.

This article explores the psychological underpinnings of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” from a Jungian view. Carl Jung left a great deal of ambiguity surrounding his work. He understood, as long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity and everybody must accept his or her “Shadow” during the individuation process. Ambiguity between good an evil, and a failed individuation is the core theme in the tragedy Macbeth: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” say the three witches in the beginning of the play and this paradox is touched again by Macbeth: “So foul and fair a day I have not seen”. The enemy and death is “foul” – bad – but the outcome of the battle is “fair” – good, only because he has won.So the play Macbeth is about the evil, but as we see mostly the evil in us, and this evil is first impersonated by the witches. That is why Macbeth is also called the “Scottish play” by the superstitious theater folk. The play has gotten a reputation for being bad luck in terms of productions and those who act in it, and so it is referred from them to as “the Scottish play” to avoid naming it. The play is about the good consumed by the evil. However, Tao says Tao is eternal and so are the two principles Yang and Yin, so that good and evil must be eternal, as necessary elements of our world.

Secularism, particularly relativism has tried to blur the line between good and evil where belief systems and philosophies used different approaches to mask the ambiguity between “evil and good”. Dualistic has the view that the world consists of or is explicable as those two fundamental entities. It is God, love, death, suffering and infinity that open us to the non-dualistic mind, or contemplation. Dualism means eliminating everything that is not like you (or projecting all your rejected attributes to others). Lao-Tse and Jesus were masters of non-dualistic thinking. The Jungian System is a fine example of an non-dualistic psychology : the more inflated your self-image (Ego), the bigger your shadow will be. Macbeth looses his soul (his Self) failing to differentiate between Persona and his inflated Ego and overwhelmed by his shadow and his anima utilized by the ambitious Lady Macbeth.

Jung’s vastly varying influences have helped shape a psychology that has influenced a great many scholars, theorists, psychologists, and artists of various specialties. While still maintaining an empirical stance Carl Gustav Jung has taken the influential elements of literature, symbolism, religion, and the alchemy and has formed these raw, primordial factors into a unparalleled psychoanalytic system. Jung’s view of literature was ambivalent. He was fascinated by Nietzsche, and lectured on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, Besides of German literature C. G. Jung appears to have been influenced by Shakespeare. In particular Jung was interested in the mythic and archaic elements in literature. Hermann Hesse’s novel Demian was inspired by Jung’s theory of individuation whereas Macbeth seems to be the prototype of a failure to achieve successful ego-individuation.

The play Macbeth

title_macbeth

Jung found literature to be a psychological process which includes the process of materials being “drawn from man’s conscious life; and the visionary dealing with primordial images that transcend human understanding.” Jung found that the archetypal symbols he worked with could, quite naturally, be found in the works of various ages. “It is to be expected… that the poet will turn to these mythological images to give suitable expression to his own experiences.”

Macbeth, when you analyze it, is a psychological battle between good and evil, and between evil ambition and order. Darkness is a symbol of the characters forgetting all about honor or goodness. The play demands that the audience think about how we make excuses in our life to pursue false ambitions that are wrong. Macbeth makes this mistake and ultimately it leads to his death. Darkness in Macbeth is a key theme. The play begins with the brief appearance of a trio of witches and then moves to a military camp, where the Scottish King Duncan hears the news that his generals, Macbeth and Banquo, have defeated two separate invading armies—one from Ireland, led by the rebel Macdonwald, and one from Norway. Macbeth and Banquo encounter the witches who prophesy that Macbeth will be made thane (a rank of Scottish nobility) of Cawdor and eventually King of Scotland. Macbeth and Banquo treat their prophecies skeptically until some of King Duncan’s men come to thank the two generals for their victories in battle and to tell Macbeth that he has indeed been named thane of Cawdor. Macbeth is intrigued by the possibility that the remainder of the witches’ prophecy—that he will be crowned king—might be true, but he is uncertain what to expect. It remins me a little bit of Wagners Rhinemaidens, who have a magical gold treasures with magical powers. Alberich an ugly dwarf, trys to score on them but they laugh at him. So he robs their treasure with the ring (the key to power and wealth). To do this, he must renounce love. I think Macbeth never could love, neither himself nor others.

Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband’s uncertainty. She desires the kingship for him and wants him to murder Duncan in order to obtain it. When Macbeth arrives at Inverness, she overrides all of her husband’s objections and persuades him to kill the king that very night. He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan’s two chamberlains drunk so they will blame the murder on the chamberlains. While Duncan is asleep, Macbeth stabs him, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural portents, including a vision of a bloody dagger. When Duncan’s death is discovered the next morning, Macbeth kills the chamberlains—ostensibly out of rage at their crime—and easily assumes the kingship. Duncan’s sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and Ireland, respectively, fearing that whoever killed

C_G_JUNG_MALE_FEMALE_ARCHETYPES

Duncan desires their demise as well. Fearful of the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s heirs will seize the throne, Macbeth hires a group of murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance. They ambush Banquo on his way to a royal feast, but they fail to kill Fleance, who escapes into the night. Macbeth becomes furious: as long as Fleance is alive, he fears that his power remains insecure. At the feast that night, Banquo’s ghost visits Macbeth. When he sees the ghost, Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests, who include most of the great Scottish nobility causing Macbeth’s kingship to incite increasing resistance from his nobles and subjects. Frightened, Macbeth goes to visit the witches in their cavern. There, they show him a sequence of demons and spirits who present him with further prophecies: he must beware of Macduff, a Scottish nobleman who opposed Macbeth’s accession to the throne. Macbeth orders that Macduff’s castle be seized and, most cruelly, that Lady Macduff and her children be murdered. It should be clear by now, that Macbeth represents the archetypes of weak king and becomes a cruel sadistic warrior, whereas Lady Macbeth seems to own foremost frigid witch qualities.

When news of his family’s execution reaches Macduff in England, he is stricken with grief and takes revenge and with Prince Malcolm, Duncan’s son, and the support of the Scottish nobles, who are appalled and frightened by Macbeth’s tyrannical and murderous behavior. Lady Macbeth, meanwhile, becomes plagued with fits of sleepwalker in which she bemoans what she believes to be bloodstains on her hands. Before Macbeth’s opponents arrive, Macbeth receives news that she has killed herself, causing him to sink into a deep and pessimistic despair.

He is struck numb with fear, however, when he learns that the English army is advancing on Dunsinane shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood. Birnam Wood is indeed coming to Dunsinane, fulfilling half of the witches’ prophecy. In the battle, Macbeth hews violently, but the English forces gradually overwhelm his army and castle and he realizes that he is doomed, Macbeth continues to fight until Macduff kills and beheads him.

Failed Individuation in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

macbeth

Macbeth has not begun to deal with the adult developmental task of individuation. According to Jung, in the process of individuation “unconscious potentials are explored and reintegrated with the “Self”. The exploration of certain parts of the unconscious brings to consciousness unacknowledged ” missing pieces. Macbeth’s failure to individuate successfully is reflected by the distance between his rigid Persona and his real personality, and his inability to confront the shadow aspects of his psyche, and the complete rejection of his anima. Tellingly those developmental issues only seem able to get Macbeth’s attention through his hallucinations and visions. Jung said that “only through the adult development of individuation can the person become truly an ‘individual’ and not simply a carrier of unconscious images and other people’s projections”. This “carrier of unconscious images” and receptacle of “other people’s projections” is exactly how Shakespeare paints Macbeth: Macbeth is Duncan’s “O worthiest cousin” (I, iv, 17), the murderers’ “Highness,” “liege,” “lord” (III, I, 81, 102, and 131), and Malcolm’s “tyrant” (Iv, iii, 14). Throughout the play Macbeth’s identity is formed by Shakespeare’s other characters. The tragedy of Macbeth is that he has failed to explore his unconscious and discover and accept his true identity. Because he has not individuated, he can be molded and pushed into identities and actions that others project onto him. Macbeth is very conscious of his persona and of the positive reputation he has cultivated, and he enjoys thinking of himself in this way. According to Jung, the Persona (literally the mask) is the aspect of personality that adapts to the world to be accepted in society. Throughout the play Macbeth attempts to put on a “false face” (I, vii, 9 5) so that he can hide what his “false heart doth/know” (I, vii, 95-96). When he has plotted Banquo’s death and is preparing to make merry with his guests, Macbeth believes that he can cover not only his conscious knowledge of his role in Banquo’s death from others but keep his unconscious feelings of fear, shock, and guilt at arranging a murder from himself. During dinner Macbeth has a hallucination. He sees the ghost of Banquo come to haunt him and denies his guilt: “Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake/ Thy gory locks at me” (III, iv, 61-62). Throughout the play Macbeth refuses to own his unconscious; he places supreme importance on appearances (Persona), his consciousness and refuses to deal with any desires and actions which challenge his idealized Ego.

Shadow- instinctive powerful, beast

His rejection and disregard of this “shadow” keep him ignorant of its motivational power and the gulf that develops between his persona and real personality. Jung described the shadow as “those aspects of the psyche that are rejected from consciousness by the ego (during sozialization in the first half of life), because they are inconsistent with one’s self-concept. Macbeth’s history of denying his shadow is detailed throughout the play. In Act I, after learning of Duncan’s intention of having Malcolm succeed to the throne, Macbeth rejects his ambitiously motivated ability to become a traitor. Jung says that as we show our persona to others and conceal our shadow from ourselves, “the shadow gets more and more ugly, and the split between persona and shadow … widens”. For Macbeth, this is true. After he kills Duncan, Macbeth refuses to believe that he could be a murderer – one although this ability to murder is present in Macbeth’s character. After his second meeting with the Weird Sisters, Macbeth resolves to kill Macduff’s family in the Thane of Fife’s absence Macbeth has progressed from ambitious regicide to familial mass murderer. Because Macbeth has not confronted his shadow and haven’t taken the effort caused by introduction of the shadow to consciousness, Macbeth cannot follow an intrinsic moral compass. This allows him to commit his atrocities without having to justify them. Ironically, part of Macbeth’s anima is positive, but it is repressed because he believes it to contain negative qualities.

anima

According to Jung, men have “repressed feminine-typed qualities” (their anima) and women have “repressed masculine-typed qualities” (their animus). While this area of Macbeth seems cloudy, I believe that Macbeth cannot explore what Jung would call the inner feminine qualities of empathy and emotion because Lady Macbeth is constantly questioning his identity as a man, struggling herself to be a women and with her animus. Two passages support this theory. When Macbeth begins to vacillate between killing Duncan and maintaining his honorable reputation, Lady Macbeth chastises him for not being man enough to take what he wants (I, vii, 3 9-49). She also calls him to task for not being a man of his word (I, vii, 53-67). Lady Macbeth claims that she, a woman, is more manly than Macbeth. Macbeth is expressing fear and guilt, emotional inner controls, and Lady Macbeth makes fun at him. Later, when Macbeth is confronted with his hallucination of Banquo’s ghost, he expresses fear and revulsion at what he has done to Banquo through the ghost’s horrible appearance. Lady Macbeth tells him to stop acting like a hysterical woman and to live in reality. She even asks Macbeth, “Are you a man” (III, iv, 70). While Macbeth clearly rejects his “inner woman,” as shown by the ease with which he is manipulated by gender role identification (making him vulnerable to Lady Macbeth evilness), he is severely hampered in uncovering his anima by her disparaging of his male identity.

Personal Layers

Macbeth’s strict adherence to his inflated Ego a false Persona, his unwillingness to deal with his shadow. According to Jung rejecting anima have psychological consequences – sometimes the shadow and anima merge and overpower the consciousness (Ego); he has hallucinations. Jung interpreted psychotic hallucinations and delusions as expressions of the collective unconscious archetypes, which can be interpreted as visions or a type of dream, manifesting their meaning from his personal unconscious. Act II’s floating dagger can be read as a symbol forcing its way into consciousness. Through his visions, Macbeth’s unconscious is trying to show him the issues he must deal with. One of the sadder aspects of the tragedy is that he is constantly dissuaded from looking at them. The moral conflict needed to mitigate his personal not to speak collective un consciousness is not present. This is why poor Macbeth (like many powerful men and women) is so far from the mark with his comments on life. They does not know enough about themself to allow anything but a shallow, two-dimensional interpretation of life, letting them be directed by passions unseen, greed and manipulative persons around them.

Anima and Animus in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Lady Macbeth

There appears to be some critical discord in connection to the classification of Lady Macbeth, whether she qualifies as an innocent, supportive wife, or, in Malcolm’s words, as a “fiend-like queen.” (Shakespeare V. ix. 35) However, Shakespeare’s text simply does not support the idea that the Lady Macbeth did not play a serious role in the murder of King Duncan and. The concept which seems to lie at the core of critical discussion in relation to Lady Macbeth, is gender. Lady Macbeth herself, makes the argument about gender in her famous speech, wherein she appeals to the powers of dark spirits to “unsex” her, and replace any feminine tendency in her with “direst cruelty” (Shakespeare I. v. 42-43). She wishes to take all that she perceives as weak and feminine in herself, and seeks to substitute it with an evil. Jung believed that all men and women were made up of masculine and feminine energies, the former being called the animus and the latter being called the anima and this unconscious selves of individuals can be used to understand Lady Macbeth’s actions. It can be argued, that Lady Macbeth’s vehement denial of her feminine self (or her anima) that causes her to manipulate her husband into committing the murder of Duncan, affected her relationship with her husband (unable to maintain it) and ultimately led to her insanity and death.

Conclusion

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” : What the line points to is the play’s concern with the discrepancy between appearance and reality: that is, the difference between how someone seems and how someone really is. It is a central concern of Shakespeare’s, and obviously one that fits well with the medium of theatre, which relies on actors seeming to be something that they most definitely aren’t. This is one of the last lines in Act 1 Scene 1 when the witches are foreshadowing events to come in the play. With these words, they are predicting the evil that will cloud Macbeth’s judgments and that those judgments will appear to Macbeth as fair and just. This line also could refer to the witches believing that things some consider to be foul and ugly are just and beautiful to them because they embody evil.

August 5, 2013
Number, Pattern and Kabbalah Symbols – from a Jungian view
The interpretations which Jung places on Gnosticism and the texts which Jung refers to on alchemy, were often Number, Pattern and Kabbalah Symbols , so much so that one would be more justified in calling the Jung of the Mysterium Coniunctionis or Kabbalistic in contemporary disguise.

Red Book Tree of Life

Jung has been often (rightfully) seen of being a contemporary Gnostic.One of the most serious and arguably criticisms against Kabbalah and the early Gnosticism of C.G. Jung is, that they may lead away from monotheism, and instead promote dualism, the belief that there is a counterpart to God: The good power versus an evil power. Gnostic-dualistic cosmology having roots in Zoroastrianism, believes since creation good and evil forces are divided; Neo-Platonism (which found its way in Christianity), argues that the universe knew a primordial harmony, disrupted by an evil force. This second model influenced the cosmology of the Kabbalah.

According to Kabbalah cosmology, an infinite number of ten Sefirots are emanated from the representing ten different ways the one God reveals his will and also represent the different aspects of Morality. To Jung, profoundly influenced by Catholicism God is in us, to Taoism God is in the nature. The goal of this essay is therefore to find the Tree of life in C.G. Jung’s view of our psyche, Astrology and contemporary Physics. The article appreciates the affinities between Jungian psychology and Jewish mystical thought in particular Jung’s use of Kabbalistic symbols and ideas as well as his usage of numbers and Alchemist thoughts. It is just draft, and sketchbook and interested primarily on three (trinity), four (quaternary) and ten (as well as their multiples).

Number, Pattern and Jewish characters

Practical Kabbalah

The Hebrew Alef-Beit (alphabet, can be mapped to a number and symbol representing the deepest secrets of Creation. In one monastery I say recently an exhibition which visualizes those numbers and characters as symbols. The Kabbalistic classic Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation) teaches that creative consciousness exists in three states (space, time, and soul), which are reflected in the form, name and numerical equivalent of each letter.

In practical Kabbalah the Rabbis counted every word and letter, and as their numbers were represented by their letters, they counted the numeration of all God names and titles, and all proper names, and the numeration of he phrases recording Divine commands. The Hebrew letters and numbers were :
- Aleph A 1
- Beth B, V 2
- Gimel G, Gh 3
- Daleth D, Dh 4
- Heh H 5
- Vau O, U, V 6
- Zayin Z 7
- Cheth Ch 8
- Teth T 9
- Yod I, Y 10
- Kaph K, Kh 20
- Lamed L 30
- Mem M 40
- Nun N 50
- Samekh S 60
- Ayin Aa, Ngh 70
- Pe P 80
- Tzaddi Tz 90
- Qoph Q 100
- Resh R 200
- Shin Sh 300
- Tau T, Th 400
Dogmatic Kabbalah

In Dogmatic Kabbalah the conscious God is the awakened decade of Sephira. The primary human conception of God is the Boundless, whereas the Conscious God has awaked.

Tree of Life

Kether, the Crown, the First Sephira, First Emanation of Incomprehensible Deity will be followed by the Second Sephira, Chokmah, Wisdom, The King, and the Third Sephira Binah, Understanding, The Queen. Then follows the forth Sephira Gedulah, also called Chesed, Mercy, and its contrast Geburah, Severity, also called Pachad, Fear. That triangle is completed by the Sixth Sephira, the Sun named Tiphareth, or Beauty. The third triangle is formed of the seventh, eighth, and ninth Sephiroth; Netzach, Firmness or Victory, Hod or Hud, Splendour and Yesod, Foundation. Finally, all these ideals are resumed in a single form, the Tenth Sephira, MLKUT, Malkuth, the Shekinah, the Kingdom, also sometimes called Tzedek, Righteousness. The whole Decad form “Adam Kadmon,” “The Archetypal Man,” and the “Tree of Life.”

The word “Sephir,” from which “Sephira” is derived, is usually translated as “Book” “Letter” or “Number” but the underlying idea is “Information” or “Pattern”. Those pattern represent culture interconnections or in a Jungian sense symbols, i.e. manifestations of archetypes.

The sephiroth operate on a numeric progression. The ideas corresponding to the number one naturally lead on to the ideas corresponding to the number two, and so on. The Sephiroth, when referred to by number, are always shown in their descending order, referring to their order of emanation. However, the task of the mystic is to move his consciousness in their reverse order, this process being called “The Way of Return”
- The left column is called the Pillar of Severity. This represents the female side of man and contains three sephira: Binah (Understanding), Geburah (Severity) and Hod (Splendor).
- The right column is called the Pillar of Mercy. This represents the male side of man and also contains three sephira: Chokmah (Wisdom), Chesed (Mercy) and Netzach (Victory).
- The middle pillar is called the Pillar of Equilibrium. It represents the balance between the male and female pillars. It contains four sephira: Kether (Crown), Tiphareth (Beauty), Yesod (Foundation) and Malkuth (Kingdom).
The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth Sephira are called, respectively, Hesed (Strength, Red), Gevurah (Beauty,Yellow), Netsah (Firmness,Green), and Hod (Splendor, Blue) and represent four of the component colors of Light: Red, Yellow, Green and Blue.

Tifereth, Hesed and Gevurah form the second Triad, and Yesod, Netsah and Hod the third; these two Triads combined constitute the Hexad, which is the Soul of the World, and of it are derived the souls of all individualized existences.

(1) Finding its Soul

The Primary Archetype the Self which is neither known nor can be known to consciousness – Kether

The First Cause, timeless and eternal, the first emanation of diety as our universe is Kether. Like the Chinese Tao, talking about it too much, evaporates your understanding of it.
- English meaning: Crown
- Sphere: Primum Mobile/Uranus
- Gem: Diamond
- Plants: Almond
- Magical Tool: Crown
- Divine Name: Eheieh
- Archangel: Metatron
- Angelic Choir: Chayoth ha-Qadesh
(2) Soul and God

To Jung is the union of every thing and its opposite, of male and female, good and evil, Animus – Chokmah and Anima

While Kether is timeless, the action of Chokmah is completely dynamic. It is the Lingam of creation, the “bang” part of the big bang, the massive Yang exploding outwards in all directions with the energy of Kether. This explosive nature is admirably suited to the astrological character of Pluto, to which it has now been assigned
- English meaning: Wisdom
- Sphere: Zodiac/Pluto
- Gem: Star Ruby/Turquoise
- Plants: Amaranth
- Magical Tool: The Inner Robe of Glory
- Divine Name: Yah
- Archangel: Raziel
- Angelic Choir: Auphanim
.

(3) On the Service of the Soul

The primal unconscious is concealed from awareness through a primal opposite, the Animus – Binah

The Yin to the Yang of Chokmah, Binah receives the projective force of Chokmah and limits it to give it form. It is the last of the supernal powers, which are beyond manifestation. Saturn was placed upon this sephira, but with the discovery of the three outer planets, it is more effectively associated with Neptune. Binah is also the Great Mother, the ocean that gives birth to the life of the universe.
- English meaning: Understanding
- Sphere: Saturn/Neptune
- Gem: Star Sapphire, Pearl
- Plants: Cypress, Poppy
- Magical Tool: The Outer Robe of Concealment
- Divine Name: YHVH Elohim
- Archangel: Tzaphquiel
- Angelic Choir: Aralim
(4) The Dessert

The boundless, chaotic, Personal Unconscious which lies at the heart of the human psyche – Chesed / Gedulah

The first sephiroth below the supernals is Chesed, which means “Mercy.” This is a sephira of merciful power, benevolence and generosity. The influence of this sephira is kingly and mystical.
- English meaning: Mercy
- Sphere: Jupiter
- Gem: Amethyst/Sapphire
- Plants: Olive, Shamrock
- Magical Tool: Staff, Sceptre, or Crook
- Divine Name: El
- Archangel: Tzadiquiel
- Angelic Choir: Chashmalim
(5) Descent into Hell in the Future

Here there is the smallest element of awareness of the conscious and the Ego – Geburah

The primary influence of this sephira is strength. Specifically, the strength of the righteous against the forces of evil like warrior gods.
- English meaning: Severity
- Sphere: Mars
- Gem: Ruby
- Plants: Oak, Nux Vomica, Nettle
- Magical Tool: Sword,Spear, Scourge, or Chain
- Divine Name: Elohim Gibor
- Archangel: Kamael
- Angelic Choir: Seraphim
(6) Splitting of the Spirit

A primal Self emerges – Tiphareth / Tiferet

At the center of the Tree of Life lies Tiferet, the sephira of the sun. It is the main connection between the Divine and the mundane, and is the only sephira below the supernals which has a direct path with Kether. The gods attributed to this sphere are the child, and the sacrificed god, as well as the more obvious solar dieties
- English meaning: Beauty/Harmony
- Sphere: Sol
- Gem: Topaz/Yellow Diamon
- Plants: Acacia, Bay, Laurel, Vine
- Magical Tool: The Lamen or Rosy Cross
- Divine Name: YHVH Eloah Ve-Daath
- Archangel: Raphael
- Angelic Choir: Melekim
.

(7) Murder of the Hero

From the interaction between the Ego and the world the original, unmodified structures of the Persona emerge – Netzach

The sephira of nature is Netzach. Its nature is ecstatic, the joyous play of the divine energy. It is also the first sephira of emanation that operates without “ethics,” It contains within its meaning the process of negative feedback. To this sphere are attributed the gentle gods of life and beauty, of which some are Venus, Aphrodite, and Bast. Their terrible aspect comes from their inhuman natures with respect to justice or morality. To note that the most successful are often those unworthy of it is to operate within the laws of this sphere
- English meaning: Victory
- Sphere: Venus
- Gem: Emerald
- Plants: Rose
- Magical Tool: The Lamp and Girdle
- Divine Name: YHVH Tzabaoth
- Archangel: Haniel
- Angelic Choir: Elohim
(8) The Conception of the God

(8) These structures are the archetypal values and tendencies of humanity which are embodied within the conscious realm – Hod

Hod is the sephiroth of the scientific intellect, which operates here in a passive sense to the emotional Netzach. Instead of unintelligible ecstasy, we have wonderful ideas, words of knowledge and poetry, and inspirations. All gods of the intellect are represented here
- English meaning: Glory/Splendour
- Sphere: Mercury
- Gem: Opal/Fire Opal
- Plants: Moly, Anhalonium Lewinii
- Magical Tool: The Names, Versicles, and Apron
- Divine Name: Elohim Tzabaoth
- Archangel: Michael
- Angelic Choir: Beni Elohim
.

(9) Mysterium encounter

Will or Desire, the fundamental motivating force of the Shadow – Yesod

The sephiroth of Yesod is the process of crystalization, where energy becomes definable as forces. The action of Hod and Netzach comes together before its final projection into Malkuth.
- English meaning: Foundation
- Sphere: Luna
- Gem: Quartz
- Plants: Mandrake, Damiana
- Magical Tool: Perfumes and Sandals
- Divine Name: Shaddai El Chai
- Archangel: Gabriel
- Angelic Choir: Kerubim
(10) Instruction

A new Self must emerge by restoring and restructuring the elements of the old ego that has been shattered by crisis. This is the process of individuation – Malkuth

The last emanation of creation is Malkuth, which represents the final solidification of the energy of Kether. It is result of all the work done through the preceding sephiroth. This sephira is totally passive; all energy directed to it works it’s change and is grounded. The titles of Malkuth are “Malkah,” the princess and “Kalah,” the bride, when considered as the Spouse of Zauir Anpin, the Microprosopus
- English meaning: Kingdom
- Sphere: Elements/Saturn/Earth
- Gem: Rock Crystal/Salt
- Plants: Willow, Lily, Ivy
- Magical Tool: The Magical Circle and Triangle
- Divine Name: Adonai ha-Aretz
- Archangel: Sandalphon
- Angelic Choir: Ashim
(0) The Incantations

DA’ATH – Knowledge – is not a Sephira. It is not on the Tree of Life: that is, there is in reality no such thing. Da’ath is the crown of the Ruach, the Spirit and its place is in the Abyss. “Da’ath like the evil number zero, has a dual aspects, on one hand it is our knowledge of the world of appearance, the body of facts which constitute our beliefs, identity and ego. On the other hand it is revelation, objective knowledge, what is often referred to as gnosis. The transition between the knowledge of the world of appearance and revelation entails the experience of the abyss, the abolition of the sense of ego, the negation of identity. From within the abyss any identity is possible. It is chaos, unformed. It contains, as it were, the seeds of identity.

“sacred whore;”

The sphere of knowledge Daath is invisible and the Random chaos of thought and conceptionbecause it contains both accessible and hidden knowledge. This sphere has no archangel but is used as an entrance and exit point to the Yetzirah (the third world of formation), the realm of the angels. Daath is often called the Abyss, the gulf between the phenomenal world of manifestation and its source. Only by passing through the Abyss can we realize out innermost spiritual nature. Daath is the primary junction where various forces on the Tree of Life – femal and male – come together, yet it is also a barrier that you must pass beyond if you wish to scale the Tree of Life.

In Christianity the male and female archetype is the celibate Jesus and the Virgin Mary. In Babylon however, the High Priestess, however, a priestess is essentially a “nun”, whereas the role of the priestess in the mystery cults of the ancient world was essentially that of what has been derogatorily (but correctly) described as a “sacred whore” of Babylon.

Kabbalah and C.G. Jung

In Messianic Kabbalah relevations it represents the mystical relevation of God’s secret and mysteries in effect knowledge of god and the infinite. C.G. Jung loved quaternities (multiples of them are of course 8 and 16) and says this about numbers and their relation to the unconscious in his book “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle”:

Number helps more than anything else to bring order into the chaos of appearances. Remarkably enough, the psychic images of wholeness which are spontaneously produced by the unconscious, the symbols of the self in mandala form, also have a mathematical structure. They are as a rule quaternities (or their multiples). These structures not only express order, they also create it.

The Red Book

The Kabbalah, regarded by many as a Jewish form of Gnosticism , the Kabbalah achieved its own unique expression in the anonymous Sefer HaBahir, generally regarded as the earliest extant text in this mystical genre. It is in this work that the theory of the ten Sefirot, the value archetypes (Will, Wisdom, Understanding, Kindness, Judgment, Beauty, Glory, Splendor,Foundation and Kingship) which the Kabbalists all held to be the essence of creation, takes distinctive form. The Zohar, which is written as a loose and far-reaching commentary on the Torah (the Five Books of Moses), is the source of much of the “wedding symbolism” (unifications of the various Sefirot) which preoccupied the alchemists studied by Jung. Its homilies on the nature of the unknowable infinite, the integration of masculine and the feminine, and the relationship between good and evil can provide much of interest to analytic and archetypal psychologists. Jung himself quoted a number of Zoharic passages. Mysterium Coniunctionis includes citations of the Kabbalistic symbols and ideas found in non-Hebrew reference on the Kabbalah and had correspondence with a number of sholars who had first-hand knowledge of Kabbalistic texts and certain Kabbalistic symbols, such as the Sefirot. The major Kabbalistic ideas which concerned Jung were those that had clear parallel formations in Gnosticism and alchemy: the notion of a spark of divine light contained within humanity, the concept of Primordial Adam who contains within himself in coincidentia oppositorum the various conflicting tendencies within the human spirit, the theory of divine unifications, particularly the unifications of good and evil and masculine and feminine.

Quaternio series: Moses – Shadow – Paradise – Lapis Quaternio

Jung’s interpretation of Gnosticism, indeed his interpretation of religious phenomena in general, rests upon his theory of the history of the human psyche in which humankind has historically moved from a condition in which it projects the contents of its unconscious onto the world and heavens but fails completely to recognize the archetypes of the unconscious mind “loosing its religion. Jung writes:
Psychology, specifically Jungian psychology, is in a position to provide individuals with a direct awareness of the archetypes within their own psyches. This, Jung believes, can be accomplished through an interpretation of the spontaneous symbolic projections of the unconscious in fantasy, art, and dreams, guided by a new psychological understanding of the basic archetypal images which have presented themselves in the history of myth and religion. Jung’s interpretation of Gnosticism is critical to his understanding of the Kabbalah. Traditionally Gnosticism was viewed as a Christian heresy which developed along-side the early Catholic Church in the second and third centuries. The discovery in 1945 of a library of Gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi along the Nile River in Egypt, and their eventual publication, has led to a view of Gnosticism as a multifaceted religious phenomenon with roots (and foes) not only in Christianity. Scholars have also differed in opinions regarding the identity and defining characteristics of Gnosticism, some pointing, for example, to its dualism of good and evil, others to its theories regarding the aeons, and the demiurge. Jung’s comments on Gnosticism are scattered throughout his writings (See Segal, 1992), but his major statement on the subject is contained in his essay “Gnostic symbols of the self” (Jung, 1969). However, long before he had
systematically considered Gnosticism from the point of view of his own analytical psychology, Jung had been familiar with Gnostic theology and even constructed, in 1916, his own “Gnostic Myth” entitled “Septem Sermones ad Mortuos” (Seven Sermons to the Dead). A variety of other typically Gnostic themes make their appearance in “The Seven Sermons”. Amongst these are the doctrine that humans, as finite creatures, are characterized by “distinctiveness,” and the natural striving of humankind is towards distinctiveness and individuation. Years later, when Jung comes to take a second look at Gnosticism through the eyes of a more fully developed archetypal psychology, he reverses himself and interprets it in a manner which is far more friendly to the world and the individual, and, as I will argue, far more Kabbalistic than Gnostic. Jung sees in the Gnostic (and Kabbalistic) symbol of Primordial Man a symbol of the goal of his own analytical psychology.

Kabbalah and Alchemy

Jung provides a daring and far reaching interpretation of alchemy and was aware of the strong relationship between the Kabbalah and late alchemy. He wrote of specific Kabbalistic influences on the alchemists of the 16th century and later. “Directly or indirectly”, Jung writes in the Mysterium, “the Kabbalah was assimilated into alchemy. Relationships must have existed between them at a very early date, though it is difficult to trace them in the sources”.Jung points out that by the end of the 16th century the alchemists began making direct quotations from the Zohar. He also notes that Paracelsus had introduced the sapphire as an “arcanum” into alchemy from the Kabbalah. While Jung clearly recognizes the relationship between Kabbalah and alchemy, the spiritual aspects of alchemy, which interested Jung, were to a very large extent Jewish in origin. He regarded the various metals in the alchemical work to be analogous to aspects of humanity, hence one famous maxim “Join the male and the female and you will find what is sought” could well serve as a motto for much of Jung’s individuadion. The interested reader is referred to works by Suler (1972), and Patai (1994).

Kabbalah and Science

Although its origins are rooted in deep antiquity, from the time of ancient Babylon, the science of Kabbalah has remained virtually hidden from humanity since it appeared more than four thousand years ago. Newton, Leibniz, and Pico della Mirandola, have investigated and tried to understand the science of Kabbalah. It is impossible to comprehend the invisible, the imperceptible, and that which has not been experienced. For thousands of years, humanity was offered a wide variety of things under the name “Kabbalah”: spells, curses, and even miracles, cluttered with misconceptions and misinterpretations. Therefore, first and foremost, the numers of Kabbalah needs to be made clear. There exists the upper force or the Creator, and governing forces descend from this upper force into our world. We are familiar with various forces in our world, such as gravity, electromagnetism and the power of thought. This upper force gave birth to the upper worlds. There are five worlds in total. The so called Machsom—a barrier that separates the upper worlds and our world—follows them. From the upper force—the Creator, also known as “the world of Infinity”—mathematically the turned eight. There was a wonderful article about Hod, Hebrew for 8. Indeed the 8 is well used in the archetypical knowledge in all cultures. In Hebrew every letter has a numerical value, or gematria. The gematria of Chet ח is 8 and is referred to as ‘the letter of life’. i.e. the Life Dynamic – Run and Return.

Quantum physics

Lets not forget the three and the hexagon. Six (and twelve) are important to science and its early sisters – astrology and alchemy. Also the Kabbalah system of ten sephiroth, is comprised in three pillars of three with twenty-two paths interconnecting them: – “The Tree of Life”. The three is prominent in physics, especially in quantum physics.A unique scientific conference was held in San Francisco, California 2005, introducing Kabbalist Rav Michael Laitman, PhD and quantum physicists William Tiller, PhD, Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, and Fred Alan Wolf, PhD. The theme of the conference was “Quantum Physics Meets Kabbalah”.

Isaac Newton proved through a series of experiments that white light refracted with a prism, resolved it into its component colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet (being red, green and blue primary). Two times three. Then there are six quarks who form matter. This Standard Model of six flavors of describe all the currently known elementary particles, as well as the Higgs boson: (q), named up (u), down (d), strange (s), charm (c), bottom (b), and top (t). Again two times three.

Now, a term “color” was introduced to label a property of the quarks which allowed apparently identical quarks to reside in the same particle, for example, two “up” quarks in the proton. To allow three particles to coexist and satisfy the Pauli exclusion principle, a property with three values was needed. The idea of three primary colors like red, green, and blue making white light define symbolic three distinct quantum states.

Unfortunately that das not match with the four colours of those for Kabbalah Sephiras have also pretty consistent cross cultural meanings.
- Green nature/wisdom: Egyptians believed that a god named Thoth led the souls of the dead to “a green hill of everlasting life and eternal wisdom.” Romans based their god Mercury on Thoth, and the planet Mercury was in turn based on the god. For this reason, in astrology,”green is sometimes said to be the color of the planet Mercury, which is the planet governing the mind and conferring knowledge knowledge. Christians often tied the archangel Michael to Roman mythology’s Mercury. The color green is often said to forebode death. This idea may be a survival of the ancient worship of Mercury, and even of St. Michael in Christian times, both of whom were messengers of death.”
- Blue truth/sadness The primary association of the color blue for most of recorded history was with truth a meaning that leaves a remnant in our language in the phrase “true blue.” This was because blue is the color of a calm and clear sky, and it is calm reflection that leads to truth.
- Red passion: Red has a range of symbolic meanings, including life, health, vigor, war, courage, anger, love and religious fervor. The common thread is that all these require passion, and the “life force” that drives passion blood is red.
- Yellow happiness/cowardliness It isn’t surprising that yellow symbolizes happiness, warmth and sunshine in most cultures; these are characteristics of the yellow sun and its effects.In ancient cultures where a god or gods were associated with the sun, such as Egypt and China, yellow was the highest and noblest of colors and thus, the color of religious figures and royals (who were thought to be descendants of the gods or semi-gods).
The quest for the unified theory

Science, in its quest to reveal the underlying unity within nature, constantly finds itself returning to the origins of the universe — to the primordial “day one” (yom echad) of Creation or Big Bang. The universe, in its present state, is too cool and solid for one to find within it an intimation of such unity. Only amid the energy and heat that reigned at the very inception of time and space, could all the forces and elements of nature meld into one. Such are the premises that underlie the unified field and “big bang” theories. Should one seek the even deeper unity that binds “existence” to “non-existence,” then it becomes necessary to propose even more obscure theories — such as string theory — which an meta-physical character and somewhat discared today.

The cosmological process that produced this space-time continuum is presently understood by many to have taken place in four stages — derived from the “string” theorists and the “big bang theory”. First, the mathematical properties and relations governing space-time had to be defined or “created”. Next, in a single quantum leap, “something-ness” emerged spontaneously out of that “abstraction”. At that point, a great “inflation” of the universe occurred. Finally, the “big bang” unleashed the full thrust of its force from within a single point inside that inflated universe.

In Kabbalistic terms, these four stages could be viewed as corresponding to the four-letter sequence of G-d’s ineffable Name — Yud Hei Vav Hei, the model upon which all meditation directed at G-d and Creation is based. Thus, any return to the primordial unity of creation would seem to imply a corresponding return to maximal symmetry.

Uncertainty principle

The uncertainty principle of quantum physics, discussed by Paul and Jung establishes the impossibility of simultaneously determining certain pairs of subatomic phenomena (such as position and momentum), implies that the very act of human observation — or “consciousness” — irrevocably affects one of the properties which one is observing. Physicists disagree as to what degree of consciousness is necessary to the measurement of physical reality. Nevertheless, the implication remains — as supported by the corresponding meta-physics of Kabbalah — that consciousness can determine of its own the nature of the world we seek to know.

The litany of modern physics is replete with constants: the speed of light remains constant regardless of the circumstances surrounding its measurement; energy-changes in the universe occur at fixed “quantum” intervals (Planck’s constant) rather than in contiguous increments. These two “constants” in nature — “c” (the speed of light) and “h” (the quantum-energy unit) — change forever the way we conceive classical concepts such as “infinity” and “zero”.

Position of Rest

Another foundation of modern physics is cited as the postulate stating that all physical structures tend toward their lowest possible energy level. This fundamental principle is reflected in the Kabbalistic doctrine of “descending worlds” whereby Creation is viewed as descending from the infinite energy of Divine Being into the stasis of material reality.

In Kabbalah, the property of “descent” associated with the material realm achieves its ultimate expression in water — which by nature flows downward, seeking out the lowest ground. The opposing property of spiritual ascent is modeled in the flame of fire, consuming matter in its attempt to ascend upward. Ultimately, the force of gravity associated with water supersedes the force of lightness connected with fire — just as the world’s grounding in materiality over-rides its inner desire to be consumed within Divinity. According to most physicists, the universe has already achieved its lowest level of energy distribution. This would mean, according to Kabbalistic faith, that the world is about to enter into a new state of symmetry.

In conclusion, we now see how fundamental tenets of modern science — the underlying unity of nature, the uncertainty built into subatomic reality, and the universe’s tendency toward increasing dissipation — found in Kabbalistic belief at three junctures: the primordial past (belief in the initial Divine unity out of which Creation was conceived), the continuous present moment (belief in the ongoing construction of reality through refined consciousness), and the developing future (belief in the higher unity that will assert itself once every last element within Creation is illuminated by the soul).

Kabbalah and Sufism

Sufi is a form of Islam which typically places less emphasis on literal interpretations of Qur’an and hadith but instead focuses on mysticism and spirituality. Typical practices include dhikr (reciting the names of God) and some forms of mystical dance. It can rightfully been argues as to whether Sufis are even Muslim, a separate Islamic denomination to Sunni/Shia or whether Sufi practice is included in normal Muslim beliefs. Despite the repeated protestations to the contrary, Sufism was infused from Kabbalah and may be more Gnostic than Islam in the inside. Sufism was endemic around the Mediterranean basin, surrounding Kabbalistic philosophers. Islamic mystics were not only ubiquitous in the areas where the Kabbalah emerged, but they had used as Gnostics the trail of mystical which the Kabbalah showed. While Jewish mysticism of the visceral, prophetic sort had been a decentralized, flaccid affair over the several hundred years prior to even Christianity, Sufis had been assiduously following a path of personal union with God.

Sufis became inspired by Jews such as Moses, Abraham and Obadyah Maimonides, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Judah Halevi and many other philosophical ideas of Jewish mystical conceptions, thereby taking their first steps in this journey towards a mystical symbiosis.

Kabbalah and Alchemy

Since ancient times the close correlation between the kabbalistic Tree of Life and astrological charts, which could interpret personal paths of absolutely different individuals, was carefully studied by a great number of kabbalistic and astrological interested. Together they combined their wisdom and learned to see the signs sent by cosmos and understand them from the deeply kabbalistic point of view. These signs affect every living and not-living matter, every creature and object on the planet. Here the mapping is:

kabbalahl_spheres
1. Kether – Primum Mobile
2. Chokmah – Zodiac (Fixed Stars)
3. Binah – Saturn
4. Chesed – Jupiter
5. Geburah – Mars
6. Tiphireth – Sol
7. Netzach – Venus
8. Hod – Mercury
9. Yesod – Luna
10. Malkuth – Earth
There were seven classical planets including the sun and the moon, seven days in a week. Below we see a hexagram with the planets displayed on it.

In the Old World it was taught that the soul ‘descends from and returns to the stars’ via the planetary spheres. The order of descent was as you see above, from Saturn, to Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. The Moon, at the bottom is the last sphere before reaching the earth plane, and since the moon rules Cancer, this was called the Gate of Birth. Saturn, at the top, rules Capricorn and is the last sphere before the stars, and is the Gate of Death.

Conclusion

NWO

Today, many people believe that humanity’s progress is approaching a dead end. Our past hopes for a better, happier life through scientific and economic progress have been overshadowed by a growing pessimism over what seems to be an impasse.

We see that more and more people in the world are unable to find fulfillment. Once, we thought of ourselves as making great leaps forward, believing we were making substantial progress, but now we appear to be facing some kind of a wall.

Humanity seems to be plunging into depression, greed and violence abound, and people are trying to disengage themselves from the world, and suppress their feelings. Terrorism and a rapid upsurge in natural disasters are symptoms of a global crisis, and all these states are leading humanity to one fundamental question: “What is the meaning of life?”

It may be found in the Book of Zohar, that at the end of the twentieth century humanity will start asking about the meaning of life, and that the answer to this question, hidden in the ancient science of Kabbalah, can only be revealed in our time, precisely because of these challenging circumstances of the new world order.

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Stephan A. Hoeller “Der gnostische Jung und die sieben Reden an die Toten

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Pictures: Taken from a pdf published and freely available on the internet under public domain.
June 6, 2013