2012/05/04

get psyched


... the individual as the only carrier of life and existence is of paramount importance. He cannot be substituted by a group or by a mass. Yet we are rapidly approaching a state in which nobody will accept individual responsibility any more. We prefer to leave it as an odious business to groups and organizations, blissfully unconscious of the fact that the group or mass psyche is that of an animal and wholly inhuman. What we need is the development of the inner spiritual man, the unique individual whose treasure is hidden on the one hand in the symbols of our mythological tradition, and on the other hand in man's unconscious psyche. CGJUNG

From Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology by Sonu Shamdasani [Cambridge Univ. Press]:

In his [Jung's] social vision, the individual was suspended between the collective consciousness and the collective unconscious. In 1947, he stated that ego consciousness was dependent upon the conditions of the collective or social consciousness, and the unconscious collective dominants, or archetypes. This dual dependency resulted in a conflict, for there was an "almost unbridgeable" opposition between the "generally accepted truths" of the collective consciousness and the contents of the collective unconscious. From the standpoint of the former, the latter were rejected as irrational. The individual was caught in this opposition (CW 8, § 423). Thus if subjective consciousness identified with the ideas and opinions of the collective consciousness, the contents of the collective unconscious became repressed. This tendency led ultimately to the absorption of the ego by the collective unconscious, which gave rise to the "mass man", who is always enslaved by an 'ism'" (§ 425, trans. mod.). The identification with the collective consciousness and the apotheosis of the masses inevitably led to a catastrophe. The only solution was the avoidance of identification with the collective consciousness, and the recognition of the "existence and importance" of the archetypes, as "these latter are an effective defence against the might of social consciousness and the mass psyche corresponding with it" (§ 426 trans. mod.). In this respect, contemporary religion failed the individual, due to the fact that in as much as religion for the contemporary consciousness still essentially means a denomination, and hence a collectively accepted codified system represented in dogmatic precepts of religious statements, it belongs more to the sphere of collective consciousness, even though its symbols express the originally effective archetypes. (Ibid., trans. mod.). p.339