Professor David Peimer
Perspectives on Jung Today: His Life and Ideas, Part 1
Professor David Peimer - Perspectives on Jung Today: His Life and Ideas, Part 1
- And today I’m going to look at Carl Jung. Today and next Saturday as well because the amount of ideas and thoughts that originated from Jung, from his life, his experience, his working with Freud, obviously, and then his own imagination, I think this is, you know, spans quite an extraordinary range. And to try and ask the question, you know, what is still relevant today? What perhaps isn’t? But what we can sort of glean from his life and what it really offers in terms of understanding human nature, cultures and some history, some aspects of history as well. I’m also going to show a very short clip of Freud speaking in English. Jung speaking in English as well, from a really good interview that was done with him. And then a little bit of, a brief little clip from Einstein as well. Because it strikes me, well, you know, what Einstein was saying in 1945 as the archetype of the wise man, not just the archetype of the trickster or the inventor or creator, but Einstein as, for my money, one of the wisest men to have lived, certainly in our, you know, last century or two. So, and then looking at some of the main ideas of Jung and pick up next week as well. I think what is important, if we can go on to the next slide, please. I don’t think we can really see Freud, see Jung, without the context of Freud first. And I want to talk a little bit about the relationship between the two, and some of the key ideas and the key influence, and of course, the difference. And then go much more into Jung forging his own path, quite distinct and sometimes in opposition, of course, to Freud.
This is a picture of some of, some really, really wonderful and superb minds. Obviously, Freud on the bottom left and Jung on the bottom right. If we go on to the next slide, please. Little bit older in life. Jung on the right, naturally, and Freud on the left over there. It strikes me that these two figures, and of course there’s Adler, there’s Melanie Klein, there’s a whole host of others. But these two in terms of originating, so many ideas, the quantity of ideas, the quantity of rigour and thought and originality that comes from these two I think is quite extraordinary. Many, of course, add on here their five, six more ideas, Melanie Klein in particular, a lot in terms of psychology. But the originating impact of these two I think cannot be denied for a minute. If we can show the next slide, please. Okay, so this is obviously a picture taken of Jung, you know, much later in his life. Pardon me. So the one or two of the main ideas from Freud that I think often missed as we get obsessed with some of the detail, you know, whether Freud was right about this or right about that, or whether Oedipus complex actually is real, or it’s just, you know, imagination. You know, that sort of detail. But, you know, if we step back for a moment, the main idea of Freud’s revolution into human thinking and human culture, and how he profoundly changed our understanding of humanity, not only human nature, but humanity. Human nature in existence, in society’s cultures, history, is, I think it starts with the revolutionary, probably quite simple thought, or simple today, or taken for granted today, that a lot of illness may not be physically caused. A lot of illness may not have the body or the physical components necessarily as the originating cause.
Today we can debate this of course. DNA, you know, studies of neurology, the mind, biochemistry, et cetera. A debate, and a very welcome and hot debate. But I think, and I don’t want to get into the idea of free choice versus, you know, versus destiny. That’s something else. But the simple idea that not necessarily all illness is rooted in a purely physical cause. Maybe physical components, maybe physical aspects, of course, but it can be linked to what Freud and others, but Freud crystallised in the word that we take for granted today, psychology. So that’s a revolutionary change in human thinking. It’s as profound for me as relativity. Or as Maxwell or, you know, of electricity and electromagnetisms. I think these things are so deep and so profound how they really change our way of thinking. So it permeates all the way through. And then Jung comes along later ‘cause he’s of course younger than Freud, comes along later and adds a whole lot of things. Let’s just quickly get a sense. Some of the ideas of illness that are not necessarily originating only in the body. Words like trauma, repression, projection, ego, the id, conscious, unconscious, anxiety, denial, depression, superego, conscious and unconscious minds. The bringing back of the idea of eros and thanatos, the life force and the death force from the Ancient Greeks. All of this, in a way, comes from Freud.
All these words, which we can debate, whether, you know, how depression works or denial or trauma, repression, whatever, that’s for debate. But the originating ideas are really from Sigmund Freud. And this guy, Jung, taking and developing so much of his own stream afterwards. The very idea of the distinction between conscious and unconscious, you know, that such become so solidified in Western thinking, let’s say. That a person, and Foucault much later in his book, “Madness and Civilization,” for me, a fantastic French theorist. Much, much later in the late '70s and '80s, that a person is not necessarily mad in themselves, but it is a link between the society, their conditions, the way of living, upbringing, influences, community, whatever, that may actually define their madness, what he goes into in his one book, Foucault, of “Madness and Civilization.” So I wanted to begin with that because I think it’s often, should we say like, you know, glossed over or forgotten that these words themselves, which have become so much part of everyday vocabulary. We don’t even think twice when we use these words. The very phrase mental health, which I don’t really like. But, you know, all of this wasn’t taken seriously in the slightest really until Freud really came along, and Freud knew it. The very idea of complexes. Inferiority complex and superiority complex so we go on. The vocabulary of daily life, which means the vocabulary of daily thought, is what Freud and Jung, I think, changed and influenced so much and expanded in terms of an understanding of human nature in humanity and in societies. Okay, I want to play a very short clip of Freud speaking in English. Of course, this is done in the late '30s when he managed to escape the clutches of the Nazis and get to England. Very short clip of Freud, speaking of, thinking back to his very origins as he speaks towards the end of his life. You can show it, please. Thanks, Emily.
[Freud] I started as a neurologist trying to bring relief to my neurotic patients. I discovered some important new facts about the unconscious, the role of instinctual urges, and so on. Out of these findings grew a new science, psychoanalysis, a part of psychology, and a new method of treatment of the neuroses. I had to pay heavily for this bit of good luck. People did not believe in my facts and thought my theories unsavoury. Resistance was strong and unrelenting. In the end, I succeeded. But the struggle is not yet over. Sigmund Freud.
Okay, thanks, Emily. If we could just hold it there for a moment. Okay, so we could show the beginning of the next one. Okay.
You see, I finished my studies in 1900.
Sorry, we can just hold it.
And I.
We can just hold that there. I’ll come into that in a moment. Okay, this is now going to be an interview with Jung. So the one key point I want to make is that Freud, of course, it’s interesting that towards the end of his life, thinking back, he understands what he’s originated, of course. They are facts to him, it’s a new science. Very important that he saw it as a science, obviously, and facts. And I think the deepest part is that he saw himself as obviously constantly in struggle with the status quo of conventional thinking. And that makes him, it gives us a sense of he welcomed the battle, he took it on. And, you know, for all the ups and downs and highs and lows, one can imagine for a moment of life and of course his ideas in all his books and so on is this unrelenting search for knowledge. You know, Freud spoke, in 1910, he spoke about the intensity of man’s craving for authority. Adler, of course, power and so on. But, you know, and I think that Freud symbolises in a way the intensity of the craving for knowledge. And I think Jung as well. I think the craving to understand, to learn, to gain more insight, whether half believe or not, you know, in the end is for other people to decide. It’s interesting that at the end of his life that’s a primary thought that he should choose to speak about in an interview when he got to England just before the war. Okay, I’m going to show this interview with Jung. And this part is where he first talks about himself and Freud. And then I’m going to go on, you know, a little bit with, as we take Jung’s ideas much further, that context, of course, of his work with Freud. And that original thinking is, you know, where it all began is, I think, crucial. One can’t just take Jung in isolation. Okay, if we can show it please.
That Freud only very much later by, I read, well I, in 1900, I already read his history interpretation and, by Freud studies about hysteria. But that was merely literally, you know. And then in 1907, I became acquainted with him personally.
[Interviewer] Will you tell me how that happened? Did you go to Vienna?
Oh, well, I’d written a book about the psychology of dementia precox, as we called schizophrenia then. And I sent him that book and thus became acquainted. I went to Vienna for a fortnight and then we had very long and penetrating conversations, and that settled it.
[Interviewer] And this long and penetrating conversation was followed by personal friendship.
Oh yes, it soon developed into a personal friendship.
[Interviewer] And what sort of man was Freud?
Well, he was a complicated nature, you know. I liked him very much and, but I soon discovered that when he had thought something, then it was settled. While I was doubting all along the line. And it was impossible to discuss something really of form. You know, he had no philosophical education. Particularly, you see I was studying Kant, and I was steeped in it. And that was far from Freud. So, from the very beginning, there was a discrepancy.
[Interviewer] Did you in fact grow apart later partly because of a difference in temperamental approach to experiment and proof and so on?
Well, of course, there is always a temperamental difference. And his approach was naturally different from mine because his personality was different from mine. That led me into my later investigation of psychological types. There are definite attitudes. Some people are doing it in this way and other people are doing it in the other typical way. And there were such differences between myself and Freud too.
[Interviewer] Do you consider that Freud’s standard of proof and experimentation was less higher than your own?
Well, I, you see, that is an evaluation I’m not competent of. I’m not my own history, or my historiographer. I… With reference to certain results, I think my method has its merits.
[Interviewer] Tell me, did Freud himself ever analyse you?
Oh, yes, I had submitted quite a lot of my dreams to him, and so did he.
And he to you, yes, yes.
Oh yes, yes.
[Interviewer] Do you remember now at this distance of time what were the significant features of Freud’s dreams that you noted at the time?
Well, that is rather indiscreet to ask. You know, I have, there is such a thing as a professional secret.
[Interviewer] He’s been dead these many years.
I, yeah, yes, but these regards last longer than life. I prefer not to talk about it.
[Interviewer] Well, may I ask you something else then, which perhaps is also indiscreet. Is it true that you have a very large number of letters which you exchanged with Freud, which are still unpublished?
Yes.
[Interviewer] When are they going to be published?
Well. Not during my lifetime.
[Interviewer] You have no objection to them being published after your life.
Oh no, not at all.
[Interviewer] Because they are probably of great historical importance.
I don’t think so.
[Interviewer] Then why have you not published them so far?
Because they were not important to me enough. I see no particular importance in them.
[Interviewer] They’re concerned with personal matters.
Well, partially, but I wouldn’t care to publish them.
[Interviewer] Well, now can we move on to the time when you did eventually part company with Freud? It was partly, I think, with the publication of your book, “The Psychology of the Unconscious.” Is that correct?
That is, that was the real cause.
[Interviewer] Well, now before you part–
Oh, I mean, the final cause because it had a long preparation. You know, from the beginning I had a reservation with all this. I couldn’t agree with quite a number of his ideas.
[Interviewer] Which ones in particular?
Well, chiefly his purely personal approach and his disregard of the historical conditions of Man. You see, we depend largely upon our history. We are shaped through education, through the influence of the parents, which are by no means always personal. They were prejudiced, or they were influenced by historical ideas, or what I call dominance. And that is a most decisive factor in psychology. We are not of today or of yesterday. We are of an immense age.
[Interviewer] Was it not partly your observation, your clinical observation of psychotic cases, which led you to differ from Freud on this?
It was partially my experience with schizophrenic patients that led me to the idea of certain general historical conditions.
[Interviewer] Is there any one case that you can now look back?
Thanks. If we can just show the beginning of the next one please? Just hold it for, yeah, to freeze it. Thank you. So what stands out for me here is the sheer rigour, the seriousness of thought, the life of the mind, the respect for each other, Jung for Freud, et cetera. And that sense of he’s coming from philosophical, you know, very German philosophical background of studying Emmanuel Kant and others. But a respect for knowledge, the respect for study, the life of the mind. I think also, what’s that as he talks towards the end there. You know, there’s no cliche when he says, no, the main difference between the two of us is there’s detail of A, B, C, but the lack of Freud and the sense of history, that we are of an immense age. We are not just of our immediate age, our immediate family, our immediate parents, but we go back hundreds, thousands of years possibly in culture, in community, in religion, in ethnicity, in a community. All different ways, we go way back. And I think that phrase in a non-cliched way of Jung’s captures the key difference between the two. We are of an immense age. Not just, you know, the brief history of our lifetime or our parents or even grandparents. We go way back. And that is a fundamental shift in thinking about, understanding human nature in the context of society and the context of any group. As I say, whether nationality, religion or wherever. It’s that quality of an historical immensity, an historical enormous river that we are part of. And that distinction that he’s drawing between himself and Freud. Okay, if we can show this clip, please.
Your things. Now that gives you all the necessary data for the diagnosis.
[Interviewer] During the 1930s when you were working a lot with German patients, you did, I believe, forecast that a Second World War was very likely. Well, now looking at the world today, do you feel that the Third World War is likely?
I have no definite indications in that respect, but there are so many indications that one doesn’t know what one sees. Is it trees or is it the wood? It’s very difficult to say because the dreams of, people’s dreams contain apprehensions, you know, but it is very difficult to say whether they point to a war because that idea is utmost in people’s mind. Formerly, you know, it has been much simpler. People didn’t think of a war. And therefore it was rather clear what the dreams meant. Nowadays, no more so. We are so full of apprehensions, fears, that one doesn’t know exactly to what it points. One thing is sure, a great change of our psychological attitude is imminent. That is certain.
[Interviewer] And why?
Because we need more, we need more psychology. We need more understanding of human nature because the only real danger that exists is Man himself. He is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of Man. Far too little. His psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil.
[Interviewer] Well, does Man do you think need to have the concept of sin and evil to live with? Is this part of our nature?
Well, obviously.
[Interviewer] And of a redeemer?
That is an inevitable consequence.
[Interviewer] This is not a concept which will disappear as we become more rational. It’s something–
Well, I don’t believe that Man ever will deviate from the original pattern of his being. There will always be such ideas. For instance, if you do not directly believe in a personal redeemer as it was the case with Hitler, or the hero worship in Russia, then it is an idea. It is a symbolic idea.
[Interviewer] You.
Okay, I wanted to show this because there’s a sense not only of a foreboding and what you might be seeing in terms of relating it to today, but the bigger picture overall, talking about war, the sense of apprehensions. And of course this is all after, quite a while after the Second World War, that this interview takes place with Jung. And he’s trying to talk about it from a collective unconscious, from that sense of that vast span of history in societies and communities, obviously, you know, influenced massively by the Second World War, you know, and the extreme horror. But he’s also going all the way back and trying to sense and understand the nature of these apprehensions through the sense of collective unconscious, the sense of types and archetypes. Through the sense of the role war plays in societies, you know, and how pitifully ignorant we still are at, just at the beginning of study of really of the human psyche. And poets and writers and many others and philosophers have written and written.
But how much truly most human beings really have a broader sense of understanding, which he regards… And I think it’s this passion for the knowledge of the life of the mind, the life of the human soul, the human nature, that, you know, is what drives him and drove Freud. I want to play one clip, which is very brief. And it’s a slight deviation from talking just about Jung, which I’ll come back to in a moment. And obviously we have next week as well to get much more into Jung’s ideas specifically. But it’s a clip of Einstein in 1945 where his English is really good. And I want to show what he was talking about coming out of this context of history and war and apprehensions that Jung gives us in a sense. We imagine, if we imagine for a moment being on the stage with these characters, Jung, Einstein, Freud in the background, and imagine a dialogue of rigour of the mind between them. And I find it fascinating what he’s saying in relation to today and obviously what is going on, you know, for so many of us. Okay, if we can show the next clip, please. This is a picture of Jung in 1910. This is Einstein, 1945. On radio.
- The case of my own people, the Jewish people, as long as Nazi violence was unleashed only, or mainly against the truth, the rest of the world looked on passively. And even treaties and agreements were made with the patently criminal government of the Third Reich. Later, when Hitler was on the point of taking over Romania and Hungary, at the time when Mironice and Oosthuizen were in Allied hands, and the methods of the gas chambers were well known all over the world, all attempts to rescue the Romanian and Hungarian Jews came to naught because the doors of Palestine were closed to Jewish immigrants, and no country could be found that would admit those forsaken people. They were left to perish like their brothers and sisters in the occupied countries. We shall never forget the heroic efforts of the small countries, of the Scandinavian, the Dutch, the Swiss nations, and of individuals in the occupied parts of Europe who did all in their power to protect Jewish lives. We do not forget the humane attitude of the Soviet Union, who was the only one among the big powers to open her doors to hundreds of thousands of Jews when the Nazi armies were advancing in Poland. But after all that had happened and was not prevented from happening, how is it today?
While in Europe territories are being distributed without any qualms about the wishes of the people concerned, the remainder of European Jewry, one-fifth of its prewar population, are again denied access to their haven in Palestine and left to hunger and cold and persisting hostility. There is no country even today that would be willing or able to offer them a place where they could live in peace and security. And the fact that many of them are still kept in degrading conditions of concentration camps by the Allies gives sufficient evidence of the shamefulness and hopelessness of the situation. These people are forbidden to enter Palestine with reference to the principle of democracy. But actually the Western powers in upholding the ban of the bad people are yielding to the threats and the external pressure of five vast and underpopulated Arab states. It is sheer irony when the British foreign minister tells the poor lot of European Jews they should remain in Europe because their genius is needed there.
And on the other hand, advises them not to try to get at the head of the curve lest they might incur new hatred and persecution. Well, I’m afraid they cannot help it. With their 6 million dead, they have been pushed at the head of the curve, of the curve of Nazi victims, most against their will. The picture of our postwar world is not right. As far as we the physicists are concerned, we are no politicians, and it has never been our wish to matter in politics. But we know a few things that the politicians do not know, and we feel the duty to speak up and to remind those responsible that there is no escape into easy comfort. There is no distance ahead for preceding little by little and delaying the necessary changes into an indefinite future. There is no time left for petty bargaining. The situation calls for a courageous effort, for a radical change in our whole attitude, in the entire political concept. May the spirit that bonded Alfred Nobel to create this great institution, the spirit of trust and confidence, of generosity and brotherhood among men, prevail in the minds of those upon whose decisions our destiny rests. Otherwise, our civilization will be doomed.
- I wanted to, if we can hold that, just to freeze that for a moment. Thanks, Emily. I wanted to share this because although it obviously is not direct in relation to Jung and Freud, there is something of the archetype for me clearly of the wise man, the sage, the wise individual of our times, the kind of person. Secondly, what Jung talks about, we are part of an immense age. We are ancient, we’re history. The big difference between him and Freud. We are part of a collective unconscious. Freud’s… Jung’s phrase, which goes way back. It goes deeper and deeper. And I think Einstein, consciously or not, is tapping into something of that when he is speaking here about courage, about the, you know, his own times, but when he speaks, we have the echo of something going way back, you know, in terms of talking about 1945, before the establishment of Israel, of course, and you know, but after the war, that interim period between the two. The apprehensions that Jung talks about, you can feel it in Einstein, in the way of speaking. And you know, but he has that sense of courage and determination as well. And I want to choose this picture because it’s not the usual picture of, you know, just Einstein sort of the, you know, the nutty mad scientist or the trickster, you know, or the joker, all of that. But something profoundly, for me, sage-like. And I don’t want to over romanticise, but I mean it’s in the rigour of the archetype of the wise figure that Jung, you know, articulated. Okay, if we can go on to the next slide, please. This is just, you know, some of the specifics that I was taking out, which come from that Einstein speech that he gave there. Okay, if we go on the next slide. So the main Jungian archetypes, and before going into this, I want to just talk about, for me, the two main ideas that separate Freud from Jung. I think to get, building on this idea of history and the collective unconscious. And the collective memories in societies and groups. You know, I remember as a child first hearing the story of, you know, of Pesach and other stories and you know, so many of the festivals. And being a sense of this goes way back. Does it relate to me now, doesn’t it? You know, all those questions we all have.
You know, I think the first thing that Jung felt was that Freud put too much emphasis on personal history at the expense of the collective human history of groups, religions, societies, and secondly, that Freud put too much emphasis on libidinal or sexual desire. Whereas for Freud, it was about other things. It was all these ideas related to the collective unconscious. And perhaps thirdly that Freud put too much emphasis for Jung on the idea of the personal unconscious. My unconscious or my family or my parents. As opposed to, and I think Jung sees that as incomplete. There is, of course, a personal unconscious, but there’s also a collective unconscious. And that is the crucial thing that I think Freud, that Jung wanted to bring in, together with the idea of it’s not only the libidinal or the sexual drives, but there’s a personal history, and there’s a collective human history. Personal unconscious, and a collective unconscious. And I think as we are shocked and challenged by what’s going on at the moment, so powerfully, and I think it hits us, obviously, on a personal level, on a personal history level, and also on a collective unconscious level, or collective partly unconscious level, which goes back to the immense age of the past and that collective memory, you know, of Jewish people. And, you know, I don’t want to ignore anybody else in the world who have their own collective memory and history. So I think that’s an example of where I’m trying to tie all of these together. And Einstein’s articulation for me tries to articulate something of that in a very modern way, in a sort of non-obvious biblical language or, you know, other kinds of trying to sound sort of sage-like, if you like. But a modernist version of that kind of archetype.
So it would be for, and this process of individuation that Jung spoke about, which is the aim of not only psychotherapy, but the aim of human growth as an individual in life, would be when I, as a person, can be, say I’m a mother with children. I’m not only in touch with my mother or my mother’s mother, but the very notion of mother in history, of the archetype in my own collective group or collective memories, mother. Or father. I am a father with two, you know, two daughters I love to the bits, love to the hilt. But I’m not only a father myself. I am a father in relation to my collective unconscious of what the archetype of the father might mean. Or as a Jewish person. Or as an educator. Or as a thinker, or as a military, you know, leader or a political leader. I’m always in reference to the collective unconscious of the memory of the tribe, of the group, the community, the ethnicity going way back. And that is the process of individuation for me, for Jung, when we can take these roles that we have, and may be leader, it may be, you know, business, it may be in military, it may be in education, whatever, and our roles as fathers, mothers, grandfather, grandmother, but that we are also in touch with something deeper. And what these attacks, I think, recently did, it hits that so powerfully and horrifically, and hence, of course, the references to the Holocaust and to other things. You know, not only the Yom Kippur War or other cultures, 9/11, et cetera, but it goes, and the Holocaust, it goes way back or pogrom. The words, you know, are these words from the collective unconscious. And I think there is the role of the Jungian to combine that together with the personal, very individual unconscious. I, myself, as a Jewish man who is a father, you know, et cetera, and going way back. And I think that’s what Jung is trying to say. That is the process of maturity.
That is the process of individuation to realise that because then one can try and see events from an historical broad perspective. For me, Churchill embodied that brilliantly. All his speeches are imbued with history, the past. There’s a sense of an overwhelming, you know, to use, immensity, to use Jung’s phrase again. An immensity of English and British history going way back. In Churchill, you look at the speeches, the writings, you know, it’s… He ultimately wrote, you know, “The History of the English-Speaking Peoples” going back, you know, over 1000 years. He understood, and that’s the way to think. That’s a way to understand and help many others understand something of what’s going on. We are pitifully unaware, as Jung says. And I think to help broaden it is to bring in these ideas, not only of Jung’s, but these broader, deeper ideas. If I talk about a leader, it’s in relation to that. A mother, a father, et cetera. And these are really what the archetypes are. You know, I don’t want to hold the archetypes up as some mystical, strange sort of character out there, or they only exist on stage or between the pages of a novel. They don’t. You know, they… He’s trying to say they exist in our lives. It may be the innocent, you know, just to go through a couple here. The orphan, the hero.
You know, what is the hero in rela… We go way back to Achilles, Odysseus in Homer of two and a half thousand years ago. We look at unsung heroes today. We look at the nurse, we look at COVID. The pandemic, the doctors. We look at the person who’s the neighbour who just came to help with, expecting no payback, no recompense or no, you know, gratification. We look at the unknown soldier, you know, all of this. We look at, you know, very modernist versions of the idea of the hero. We look at the caregiver who is going to care, who’s going to help, not necessarily expecting some emotional or financial payback, just caring. The explorer archetype, the rebel, the lover, the creator. I’m going to come back to this a little bit more next Saturday as well, go into some of these in a bit more detail. The magician. Okay, to make things happen, to understand, to realise dreams, becoming manipulative. How he understood these is not just the colloquial sense of these words. The very notion of the sage, the one I’m putting Einstein in. “The truth will set you free.” To find the truth, to use intelligence. Maybe afraid of action, maybe not. I would disagree with that about Einstein. You know, it’s not that these are the 10 commandments written down and, you know, every single idea of Jung’s is, we have to follow it, but to take the basic ideas and forge our own understanding of them. The jester, which is obviously the trickster. You only live once. Cavalier attitude. To live in the moment, have a great time, frivolous, et cetera, you know. And to have fun, to enjoy the moment.
The ruler, you know, power, control, create a community. Being authoritarian to a degree. You know, all of these are just ideas thrown out by Jung, again, to debate the detail. But he’s just trying to identify overall archetypes, if you like. And for us to say, well, I disagree with this or I disagree with that. But he is originating this to help further and deepen our understanding of obviously what’s going on now, but of, you know, of the very fact of living in human nature and in human societies. So I think there’s something in all of this that aspects can speak to our times. The rebel, to break the rules. Revolution, to overturn. A revolution may not necessarily just be armies in the night sort of fighting each other in battles. It can be revolution of the mind, revolution of, you know, in other things. In sports, whatever. To break the rules, revolution, to overturn. The darker side can be crime. These are all options thrown out by the archetype of the rebel, goes against the status quo. The explorer, don’t fence me in. I want to explore the world. A better life. Becoming a misfit. Because the very definition of the explorer is you’re going to live in the margin because you want to explore and push the envelope, push boundaries. So all of these I think become fascinating. If we start to see our lives in relation to some of this in history, we can perhaps have richer lives, have deeper lives, which can give us a sense of understanding us, ourselves and going further. It’s not to just put on the abstract label. Okay, now I’m going to act the hero, and I’m going to be the hero, or I’m going to be the caregiver or the explorer. You know, sort of like a character.
Here’s the script, get on stage and act. Act one, act two, scene, act, scene, act three, scene three. It’s an internal journey to find what may connect with us from any of this. And of course, two or three archetypes, three or four in one person, we’re human. You know, it’s, we are multidimensional. We are, our identities are constantly in production in a way. You know, I don’t believe in fixed identity. We are constantly in production, constantly shifting and evolving, you know. So what may have been archetypes when we were 25 maybe very different 40, 50, 70, and so on. It’s not to see these as the 12 commandments. It’s to see them as porous, as moving between some and the other so that we can try and deepen the understanding of the human psyche that Jung talked about in that one interview. We are at the beginning perhaps of trying to understand more about this extraordinary phenomenon between the ears of all of us that’s going on. And then incorporate all the fantastic developments of neurology and biochemistry that have been going on. You know, it can only enhance and deepen. And I want to say this not in a naive spirit of romantic idealism, but in a spirit of, as Einstein says at the end of that speech, if we don’t, we might be doomed. And I don’t want to be alarmist or, you know, ridiculous about, well, the Third World War is coming 'cause what’s happening in Ukraine or the Middle East, obviously elsewhere, you know, but I think most people have had at least that thought. What if? In the 75-odd years since the war, the Second World War, what if, can it, could it? There is that at least. And we have to find a way to face it, to look at it, as opposed to retreat into the cupboard from it. So I want to share these in that way, not in, you know, as I say, sort of these are the fixed 12 commandments and we fit or we don’t.
It’s a much more fluid interaction with the idea of archetypes and how they may work. It’s the personal unconscious with a collective unconscious. And in that of our memory of our own tribe, our own group, our own society, find some things which may link. May be the scholar, it may be the military leader. It may be the business leader, the hero. It may be the rebel, the sage, the magician, a little bit of each, the ruler, you know, and find what enriches our understanding of ourselves and the people that we know. Because then I think we get a deeper understanding of human psyches. And we can begin to take the next step in our own lives and perhaps in our society’s life. So he called, these things he called universal, and he encouraged this in the study of myth. That’s why none of these are tied to a particular culture, the ones that we are showing here. You know, to look at myth, to look at folklore, to look at religious stories. You know, what role does Moses play? You know, whether, whatever one imagines, but was he ruler? Was he sage, magician? Was he rebel, hero, mixture of all of this? Where to understand and deepen a sense, you know. And we can look at, as I mentioned, a contemporary version. You know, Churchill in many different ways for me. So these archetypes. And that to get this from the collective unconscious together with the personal unconscious of our own very individual lives, families, parents, we can then go on a path of self-realization, which he called individuation. I don’t want to give the sense of any perfect answer.
We’re human, it’s messy. It’s by nature, by definition of being human. It’s a messy business, but it’s an exhilarating one. Frustrating and exhilarating, exhausting as well. Melanie Klein, interestingly, in essence, amongst many of her, I think, brilliant ideas was that the unconscious is formed of a complex set of projection and interjection where we will project onto others a whole lot of things, and we will internalise a whole lot of things. You know, and that constant dynamic, which is always with other people. We will project onto our parents, project onto our lover, our partner, our sibling, our children, our political leaders, our history leaders of all, you know, going back hundreds of thousands of years. We will project what we want, and we will also interject or internalise as well. And I think that’s a fascinating way. I just wanted to bring that idea of Melanie Klein into this process of Jung between the personal and the collective. Because I don’t, they are not dichotomy. He wanted to add that on to Freud, who was much more concerned, of course, with a personal unconscious in individuals. And, you know, coming out through dreams, through fantasies, through images, in all sorts of ways. How we could dimly, you know, go on that search in the darkened simulatus of our own unconscious. People also refer often to the darker side of humanity, you know, which goes way back, you know, hundreds if not thousands of years. But for, interestingly, that Jung had another word for it. He called it the shadow self. The darker side is not only, you know, the criminal or the murderers or the torturing or the, you know, the classic side.
Sort of Jekyll and Hyde. He called that darker side the shadow self. Not only that we might want to keep hidden from public view, but the shadow self is a part of our unconscious. We have no choice, it is part of it. We can show the next slide, please. Okay. Sorry, if we’re going, skip this one and the next one. We’ll go to the one after. I want to go onto the shadow. And then the one after. After that, and we can go on again. Okay, thank you. So this is the shadow side. What Jung meant by the shadow side or the shadow self is an instinctive part of our psyche that we try to repress. It may be the shadow is to love or to trust love or trust compassion, you know. Because we have such a distrust, for whatever reason, that may be the darker side. It may be the side that doesn’t want to show love. Put some protective defensive walls around it. It may be the side that wants to go out and rage and kill like Achilles and murder and slaughter and get the hell revenge. I don’t care. I’ve been damaged, I’ve been hurt. I want revenge, end of story. You know, we go way back to Achilles in Homer’s “The Iliad” two and a half thousand years. We go in many, many other examples. It may be the shadow side is my cunning, my calculating, my thinking, outwitting side, which goes back to Odysseus and the, you know, the wooden horse story of, you know, the Greeks defeating the Trojans. It’s maybe cunning, outwit in business, in daily life, in world of work, of family. You know, all of this is the shadow self that we do not want to show in our public persona. And he called that the public face. We like to project, to use Melanie Klein’s phrase. We like to show the world is our persona.
The shadow self are those other aspects of our instincts, which may be in inverted commas morally good or morally debatable, questionable. But they, we want to keep them hidden from the public persona we present to life. And I think that’s a very different just idea between just the goodie and the baddy. You know, these terrible murderous instincts, I just want to kill or be cruel or whatever. That’s always the shadow. And what’s, the other side is always the light. That to me is very simplistic. And I think Jung understands a better sense of using these words, of course, from the German translation, but of persona. This is the image I wish to project outwardly where there’s a leader, political leader, military leader as a educator, as a business person, artist, an actor, whatever. A father, a mother. And then the shadow self is not just the dark side, the sort of cruel, amoral instincts of human beings, but the shadow side of those ones that I’m scared to express. The instinct that I may be scared. It may be love, compassion. It may be hate, it may be anger, but I don’t want to express, I don’t want to show in public. And that’s what I think is fascinating with Jung. It’s much more nuanced and complex than just the goody side and the baddy side.
As he wrote, “One does not want to be… "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures "of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” So whatever I may be scared of expressing in my shadow self, I find a safe space to express it. And I can do that. I can be enraged, I can be a teenager and furious with my mother or father. Found a safe space to slam the door and express it. I can be a child screaming for attention, not getting. I’m not going to filter it, I can just express. And as an adult, I can make my own darkness conscious. Finding the safe spaces to articulate it and express it. And I think this takes the courage. This takes, you know, that sense of I’m going to be aware of both the shadow self and the persona, public image self, if you like. And I think these are fascinating ideas of Jung, which he, in a very nuanced way, really does challenge us to try and understand in order to evolve as human beings and evolve as ourselves. Okay. I think that I… Because by showing the shadow itself we would show all the sides of our characters, you know. And I may be a very tidy person, and that may be the persona I want to show in public. Very tidy. And along comes somebody who’s very untidy. It may be a teenager, it may be a grandchild, whoever. What do I do? Do I want to love them because they’re untidy, the opposite to me? Or do I want to say, “Okay, that’s great.” Or, how am I going to shape my response? Because I’ve got an untidy side in my shadow self as well, which I’ve obviously held back. Okay, so I think I’m going to hold it here for now. And you know, just wanted to share some of these beginning thoughts and obviously go into it much more. And I’ll go into a lot more detail next Saturday about Mr. Carl Jung as well. Okay, we can go into questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Stan. You should share the Einstein speech more broadly to the present Jewish societies. More of the same today. Yeah, I find that it’s, he wrote that in 1945, just after the end of the war. And it’s before '48 obviously, but there’s such an understanding, I think, of that moment in history. But I really believe it. Connected to the immensity of the collective memory of Jewish people in that brief speech of his.
Q: Romaine. Does Jung confuse spiritual awareness with psychological intelligence?
A: Great question. I’m going to talk more next week about Jung’s sense and understanding of spirituality, which is not just this sort of, you know, I don’t think, just the tabloid version of what spirituality means. I think it is in this sense of history and collective unconscious and collective memory through the archetype. That is where the spirituality is located. It’s not just suddenly putting on the mask of, hello, I’ve read a few books on spiritualism and now, you know, I’m a spiritual person. I think it goes there. If one wants a bit of depth to understanding Jung and spirituality, really. It’s not just looking at the Zulu chief or the chief of the Navajo and you know, putting the label of spiritual. Projecting it, to use Klein, you know, onto these people. But understanding it from this point of view that I’ve been mentioning. The collective unconscious in the archetypes.
Q: Nicky, where did Jung spend the war?
A: As far as I know, he was mostly in Switzerland, but need to check. With regard to Einstein’s speech should be in the public domain. What I’ve always felt because, you know, the Einstein archetype, and he has become collection of archetypes 'cause the iconic figure is so remarkable in so many ways and global. I’ve always felt that, you know, there’s obviously the trickster, the nutty, you know, like a wizard or out, sort of way out there. Outlaw professor almost, you know. Not nutty professor, but outlaw professor. You know, or this sort of great mind, you know. But when one hears him actually put words together and articulate clear and precise, and yet so understanding.
Romaine, Jung’s perspective is monumental, but cannot facilitate for me self-awareness. Great. That’s very honest and I appreciate, and this is part of the debate. Some people may say, “Absolutely.” Some, and a lot of, you know. A part of me thinks this is, can it really be practical? Is it just theoretically exciting and interesting, or is it actually practical in one’s own life? And I think like with many things, you know, we have that constant debate with ourselves about whether it facilitates self-awareness or not, as you’re saying. You know, great point.
Q: William. Those archetype figures look to be all male. Did Jung or Freud consider female psychology?
A: Yeah, but that would require another whole series of one or two talks, I think, you know, to go into that whole area. And I think others might be better qualified than me to talk about that aspect specifically. But great question, William.
George, Jung treat patients through psychoanalysis. Yes. And they would add in his own sense of, you know, what in your collective history goes back to the archetype. You know, it’s fascinating, Alexander the Great, you know, because I love Ancient Greek history. Alexander the Great been taught by Aristotle for four or five years, and Aristotle giving him Homer to read again and again, again. And Alexander talked about Achilles. Nobody actually knows of Achilles that he really lived, or he was just a mythical figure. Probably mythical, but in Alexander’s imagination, it was Achilles that he had to emulate to be the great heroic leader of all of this. For Julius Caesar, it was Alexander. Caesar went to where he thought was where the tomb of Alexander and thought Alexander did all this, but he died by the time he was 33. And Caesar thinks, “What have I done?” You know, in my, “I’m already in my late '20s, early 30s. "What have I done?” So, you know, people, we all do refer back to archetypal massive historical icons and figures. And there’s a reason why. And I think what Jung is saying, that’s in our collective memory, our collective unconscious. How do we bring that to help our own lives be forged a little more. You know. For Churchill, it was the Duke of Marlborough, you know, and others.
Okay, Rita, the archetype caregiver refers to female. Great point, thank you. But of course, you know, that’s written in a different times. They’re trying to be literal to Jung. Rita, thank you.
“I love the work of Jung.” Okay, great. I think the work of Jung is there to challenge. It’s there to throw out provocative and exciting questions. To disturb, you know. And I think there is something of the archetype of the rebel inside. Okay, I’m going to hold this here today and pick it up, go further with Jung next week. Thanks very much, everybody. Thank you, Emily. And hope everybody has a good rest of the weekend. And all prayers and thoughts to everybody, whether with family or not, as to what’s happening, obviously, in Israel. Take care.