It’s just that the jaundiced eye really caught my eye. So when the GoT has Jesus saying, “the Father’s kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don’t see it,” He, Jesus, was attributing that blindness to jaundiced eyes? Moreover, “spread out upon the earth” means no chaos “on the earth” to the eye enlightened by gnosis… or seeing synchronicity, both in the night sky, and on this earthly plain too … lo and behold, “the father’s kingdom,” in its entirety. You almost didn’t see it. You were blind but now you see.
And your revision is interesting and deep. There’s a lot to unpack in it. Namely gnosis, or lack of it ; so, first comes gnosis, then comes eyes that can see synchronicity in the night sky? That brings in Gnosticism, in all it’s multifarious permutations.
But thanks for further explanation of your jaundiced eye metaphor.
Jung found confirmation for his psychic investigations in world mythology, Taoism, gnosticism, alchemy, and quantum physics. In these diverse sources and more, he found wholeness, the unitary world that is also represented by the archetypal images of the Self.
The traditional Chinese worldview that the activity of nature is a whole governed by a single principle the Tao provides a clear context for envisioning synchronicity. The sinologist Richard Wilhelm , who was the close friend and collaborator of Jung’s wrote that "all Chinese philosophy…
"The swirl of a galaxy and the swirl of a gown resemble one another not
merely by accident, but because they follow the grain of the universe.‘’
"Hunting for Hope’’ Scott Russell Sanders
Synchronicity assumes that meaningful connections occur because we live in a unitary cosmos where everything is meaningfully connected. Coincidence assumes that meaningful connections occur randomly by accident in a meaningless universe where meanings are projected by human observers.
Are there agents behind synchronicity and coincidence that determine their meanings, or is it our projections of meanings, or lack thereof, on them both alike?
Which leads to Awarenesses question above, and at times above it seemed like you were arguing there was some kind of objective connection between all consciousness and things (perhaps a collective unconscious).
And then as a side issue: even if there is no connection (or meaning) it might be a very good heuristic.
Me, I think disconnections is the presumption that needs justification. I don’t think everything is one is the only truth. I think things are both separate and connected.
That’s a critical question. According to the dominant modern world view they are psychological projections. Jung equivocated on the issue for years as he sought acceptance for his theories among the psychological community. However, In his later work particularly in relation to his study of synchronicity, Jung began to move toward a conception of archetypes as autonomous patterns of meaning that appear to structure and inhere in both psyche and matter, thereby in effect dissolving the modern subject-object dichotomy. In either case, “agents” is a good word for the archetypes. They operate below ego consciousness like autonomous subpersonalities.
You’re not actually hearing from Jung in those quotations. In the first one you’re hearing from M.-L. von Franz. In the second you’re hearing from Jolande Jacobi.
Hi Felix,
Goethe’s Faust was Jung’s inspiration of the concept of wholeness if I recall correctly. I’ve been reading that book every year for a decade now. Faust, with the devil’s help, goes for love, power, alcohol, beauty, but what gives him that transcendent experience is the idea of freedom, as he pushed back the ocean to give his people land so they can reconquer freedom each day. That’s when he experienced wholeness, and God saved him from the clutches of the Devil.
At the beginning he was bored to tears, nothing really meant anything, and contemplated suicide until he heard the Easter bells. I always thought of Mephistopheles as a quasi shadow within himself, like a daemon, “the spirit that negates” is similar to Socrates Daemon described in the Apology. Maybe I’m just having fun with it.
“In Faust 2, Act V, Goethe has Faust build a city on land reclaimed from the sea. In order to accomplish this task, Faust tells Mephistopheles that he wants Philemon and Baucis, who lived on this land, moved. To Faust’s ultimate horror, instead of doing so, Mephistopheles decides to burn their cottage with Philemon and Baucis inside. Goethe’s Faust made a tremendous impression on Jung and held a life-long significance for him. He felt personally implicated by the destruction of these humble and reverent figures and felt that it was his responsibility to atone for this crime and to prevent its repetition. Healing this Faustian split would become a central theme in Jung’s life work.” [It became for him a symbol for the Faustian bargain made by modernity that brought so much “progress” but resulted in the horrors of the 20th century.]
"At his tower in Bollingen, Jung commemorated Philemon. Over the gate, he carved the inscription, “Philemonis Sacrum – Fausti Poenitentia” [Philemon’s Shrine – Faust’s Repentance]. In one of the rooms at Bollingen, he painted a huge mural of the winged Philemon, essentially reproducing the painting from the Red Book. In a letter to Paul Schmitt in 1942, Jung wrote: “I have taken over Faust as my heritage, and moreover as the advocate and avenger of Philemon and Baucis, who, unlike Faust the superman, are the hosts of the gods in a ruthless and godforsaken age.” "
Thank you so much for these elegant words. I always thought maybe the search for transcendence, or in Faust part ! how Faust talks to Wagner about his two souls, and how one is a romantic soul that longs for greater. I do remember the philemon and Baucis house being burned. They were the last remanences of the old religion.
So let me try to understand this: So the destruction of the pious old religion was bad because we should hold onto some form of the old religions because not just for their usefulness, but because that religion is mapped onto our souls in a way, and to burn it is to forget part of ourselves? So we must keep it, and have reverence to appreciate that part of ourselves?
Metaphorically the soul seems to be a container in which the archetypes of the collective unconscious are the contents. This is an image which should not be taken literally.