Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

Studies relating to C.G. Jung

 

C.G. Jung is the Swiss psychologist who founded analytical psychology. Jung has had a profound influence not only in the field of psychology, but also in studies of comparative religion. But Jung's psychology is open to differing interpretations. And many popular presentations of Jung's ideas are not in accordance with what he actually wrote. Ken Wilber has said, "But the Jungian light is one we must use with much caution, I now believe" (Ken Wilber: The Eye of Spirit, Boston, Shambhala, 1998, p. 267). Perhaps the same caution needs to be exercised with respect to Wilber's own work.

Here are three areas where I think that we must use Jung's work with caution:

(1) I agree with Wilber's criticism of the way that Jung's idea of archetypes is used. Wilber points to a confusion between the pre-personal sense of archetypes–as archaic images from our common past–and the transpersonal sense of archetypes, as those forces that pull us towards self-realization and individuation. Wilber calls this "the pre/trans fallacy"–the confusion of the pre-personal with the transpersonal. Not to make this distinciton is to end up with a regressive use of Jung's psychology.

The entire manifest world arises out of the Formless (or causal Abyss), and the first forms to do so are the forms upon which all others will rest – they are the "arche-forms" or archetypes. Thus, in this use, the archetypes are the highest Forms of our own possibilities, the deepest Forms of our own potentials – but also the last barriers to the Formless and the Nondual.
From Ken Wilber, The Eye of Spirit (Boston: Shambhala, 1997), p. 266.

(2) Jung's explanation of evil as something inherent within God. If Jung is speaking of the God-image, or man's supratemporal and transpersonal psyche, then this has an important truth, since humanity is fallen. But if Jung is purporting to speak of God as he is in himself (something which he himself says he wants to avoid doing), then I must disagree. This issue of how Jung viewed evil, especially in his book Answer to Job, was the subject of intense discussion between Jung and Fr. Victor White. See the discussion of the dialogue between Jung and Victor White in the article by Jim Arraj, "Jungian and Catholic?"

(3) Jung has been interpreted as saying that God requires creation in order to himself become conscious. For example, John P. Dourley has interpreted Jung in this way, relying on certain works of Meister Eckhart and Jakob Boehme. See John P. Dourley: “Revisioning Incarnation: Jung on the Relativity of God,” Shim-Song Yon-Gu: Journal of the Korean Jung Institute (2001) Vol 16, no. 1, p. 1-29, available online. I agree with Franz von Baader's interpretation of Eckhart and Boehme: that the dynamism within God's trinity is distinct from the dynamism within our own selfhood and creation. To confuse the two dynamic movements, and to say that creation is necessary for God, amounts to pantheism (instead of panentheism).

Jung himself was influenced by both eastern and western religious traditions. My interest is in exploring these influences on Jung so as to better understand his work.

In May, 2004, I presented two lectures at the C.G. Jung Institute, Küsnacht, Switzerland. The lectures concerned the influence of the eastern mystical tradition on Jung, and in particular, the influence of the Hindu nondual sage Ramana Maharshi. My lectures were entitled, "Jung, Ramana Maharshi and Eastern Mysticism." The lectures show how Jung was influenced by Paul Brunton in his evaluation of Ramana Maharshi. Brunton was the one to make Ramana well-known to the Western world.

I have since included additional articles on Ramana Maharsh and Paul Brunton:

Ramana Maharshi: Hindu and non-Hindu interpretations of a Jivanmukta

Paul Brunton and Ramana Maharshi

In June, 2005, I presented series of three lectures at the C.G. Jung Institute entitled "Jung and Western Mysticism."

Jung and the Philosophy of Totality: Individualism or Individuation?

Theosophy and Gnosticism: Jung and Franz von Baader

The Relation of Jung's Psychology to Meister Eckhart and Jakob Boehme

Jung influenced several of the philosophers and mystics discussed on my website.

The Benedictine monk Henri Le Saux (Abshiktananda) was strongly influenced by Jung, as I have shown in the appendix to my 2001 doctoral thesis, "Abhishiktananda's Non-Monistic Advaitic Experience" (University of South Africa). I have made my entire thesis avaialble online. The part dealing specifically with Jung is Thesis Part 4 (380 kb).

In his Divergentierapport [Report of Divergences], D.H.Th. Vollenhoven said that Herman Dooyeweerd's emphasis on the supratemporal might lead people to connect his philosophy to the ideas of Jung. Although Dooyeweerd certainly does emphasize the supratemporal selfhood, and also writes about the unconscious, I believe that there are also significant differences from Jung's psychology. This can be seen in Jung's denial of the Archimedean point, an idea that is important for Dooyeweerd's view of the self. Jung says,

There is no Archimedean point from which to judge, since the mind is indistinguishable from its manifestations. The mind is the object of psychology, and-fatally enough-also its subject. There is no getting away from this fact. - (Psychology and Religion, CW 11, para. 18).

However, Jung may only have been objecting to an Archimedean point outside of the psyche (See Psychology and Relgion, 1938, para. 140, fn 27). The psyche itself does act as an Archimedean point. In comparison with the temporal ego, the supratemporal psyche does provide an Archimedean point from which we can view our suffering This Archimedean point outside the ego is "the objective standpoint of the self, from which the ego can be seen as a phenomenon. Without the objectivation of the self the ego would remain caught in hopeless subjectivity and would only gyrate round itself."("Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," CW 11, para. 427-428).

Perhaps in denying an Archimedean point outside of the psyche, Jung was reacting against Freud, who in 1908 had searched for an Archimedean point by which individuals could be understood against a universal pattern. See The Freud-Jung Letters: The Correspondence between Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung (W. McGuire, Ed.: R. Manheim & R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.

Although both Jung and Dooyeweerd emphasize a supratemporal selfhood, they use the term in different ways. Jung's approach involves a reciprocal approach between the selfhood and a temporal ego, whereas Dooyeweerd follows Franz von Baader in the idea of the supratemporal heart as our true selfhood, for which our body is the temporal instrument. Perhaps we can make some analogy between a temporal ego and the temporal act structure, which for Dooyewerd is one of the four enkaptically interlaced individuality structures that together make up the body. Our transcendent selfhood should not be identified with any of these structures.Dooyewerd denies that the selfhood can be an "object" that can be investigated by psychology or any other theoretical discipline; rather, the supratemporal selfhood is the ontical condition for any theoretical thought at all. Here, Dooyeweerd follows Baader's critique of the autonomy of theoretical thought. Although he is sometimes ambiguous, Jung generaly remains within the Kantian acceptance of such autonomy. In my 2005 series of lectures on Jung, I argue that Baader provides a clearer explanation of several ideas where Jung is ambiguous or incorrect (such as his interpretation of Boehme and Eckhart, particularly with respect to the issues of God and evil, and whether the dynamic movement within God is to be pantheistically identified with development of man's consciousness). I believe that Dooyeweerd follows and expands upon Baader's tradition of Christian theosophy, and that these ideas provide the basis for significant insights in psychology.

Revised Sept 10/09