It is only through the psyche that we can establish that God acts
upon us, but we are unable to distinguish whether these actions emanate
from God or from the unconscious.
We cannot tell whether God and the unconscious are two different entities.
Both are border-line concepts for transcendental contents.
But empirically it can be established, with a sufficient degree of
probability, that there is in the unconscious an archetype of wholeness
which manifests itself spontaneously in dreams, etc., and a tendency,
independent of the conscious will, to relate other archetypes to this
center.
Consequently, it does not seem improbable that the archetype of
wholeness occupies as such a central position which approximates it to
the God-image.
The similarity is further borne out by the peculiar fact that the
archetype produces a symbolism which has always characterized and
expressed the Deity.
These facts make possible a certain qualification of our above thesis
concerning the indistinguishableness of God and the unconscious.
Strictly speaking, the God-image does not coincide with the
unconscious as such, but with a special content of it, namely the
archetype of the self.
It is this archetype from which we can no longer distinguish the God-image empirically.
We can arbitrarily postulate a difference between these two entities, but that does not help us at all.
On the contrary, it only helps us to separate man from God, and prevents God from becoming man.
Faith is certainly right when it impresses on man’s mind and heart
how infinitely far away and inaccessible God is; but it also teaches his
nearness, his immediate presence, and it is just this nearness which
has to be empirically real if it is not to lose all significance.
Only that which acts upon me do I recognize as real and actual.
But that which has no effect upon me might as well not exist.
The religious need longs for wholeness, and therefore lays hold of
the images of wholeness offered by the unconscious, which, independently
of the conscious mind, rise up from the depths of our psychic nature.
~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Paragraph 757
Showing posts with label self. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self. Show all posts
Saturday, April 1, 2017
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Alan Watts: Carl Jung and Variations of the Self
"The Christ-symbol is of the greatest importance for psychology in so far as it is perhaps the most highly developed and differentiated symbol of the self, apart from the figure of the Buddha." - Carl Jung
Thumbnail: Via Carl Jung's "The Red Book"
Monday, September 19, 2016
Identity, self, and the secret of life
Introduced by NASA Apollo astronaut Ed Mitchell and narrated by philosopher Alan Watts. A media compilation featuring Apollo mission footage and music from The Cinematic Orchestra and Tomáš Dvořák (Machinarium OST).
Monday, July 25, 2016
Mista'peo
via Carl Jung Depth Psychology
Marie-Louise Von Franz: Dreams give the Naskapi complete ability to find his way in life
This inner center is realized in exceptionally pure, unspoiled form by the Naskapi Indians, who still exist in the forests of the Labrador peninsula.
These simple people are hunters who live in isolated family groups, so far from one another that they have not been able to evolve tribal customs or collective religious beliefs and ceremonies.
In his lifelong solitude the Naskapi hunter has to rely on his own inner voices and unconscious revelations; he has no religious teachers who tell him what he should believe, no rituals, festivals, or customs to help him along.
In his basic view of life, the soul of man is simply an "Inner Companion, " whom he calls "my friend" or Mista'peo, meaning "Great Man."
Mista'peo dwells in the heart and is immortal; in the moment of death, or shortly before, he leaves the individual, and later reincarnates himself in another being.
Those Naskapi who pay attention to their dreams and who try to find their meaning and test their truth can enter into a deeper connection with the Great Man.
He favors such people and sends them more and better dreams.
Thus the major obligation of an individual Naskapi is to follow the instructions given by his dreams, and then to give permanent form to their contents in art.
Lies and dishonesty drive the Great Man away from one's inner realm whereas generosity and love of ones neighbors and animals attracts and give him life.
Dreams give the Naskapi complete ability to find his way in life, not only in the inner world but also in the outer world of nature.
Thel help him to foretell the weather and give him invaluable guidance in his hunting, upon which his life depends.
I mention these very primitive people because they are uncontaminated by our civilized ideas and still have natural insight into the essence of what Jung calls the Self.
~Marie-Louise von Franz, Man and His Symbols, Pages 161-162
Marie-Louise Von Franz: Dreams give the Naskapi complete ability to find his way in life
This inner center is realized in exceptionally pure, unspoiled form by the Naskapi Indians, who still exist in the forests of the Labrador peninsula.
These simple people are hunters who live in isolated family groups, so far from one another that they have not been able to evolve tribal customs or collective religious beliefs and ceremonies.
In his lifelong solitude the Naskapi hunter has to rely on his own inner voices and unconscious revelations; he has no religious teachers who tell him what he should believe, no rituals, festivals, or customs to help him along.
In his basic view of life, the soul of man is simply an "Inner Companion, " whom he calls "my friend" or Mista'peo, meaning "Great Man."
Mista'peo dwells in the heart and is immortal; in the moment of death, or shortly before, he leaves the individual, and later reincarnates himself in another being.
Those Naskapi who pay attention to their dreams and who try to find their meaning and test their truth can enter into a deeper connection with the Great Man.
He favors such people and sends them more and better dreams.
Thus the major obligation of an individual Naskapi is to follow the instructions given by his dreams, and then to give permanent form to their contents in art.
Lies and dishonesty drive the Great Man away from one's inner realm whereas generosity and love of ones neighbors and animals attracts and give him life.
Dreams give the Naskapi complete ability to find his way in life, not only in the inner world but also in the outer world of nature.
Thel help him to foretell the weather and give him invaluable guidance in his hunting, upon which his life depends.
I mention these very primitive people because they are uncontaminated by our civilized ideas and still have natural insight into the essence of what Jung calls the Self.
~Marie-Louise von Franz, Man and His Symbols, Pages 161-162
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Eight weeks to a better brain
Participating in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress. In a study that will appear in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Harvard-affiliated researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) reported the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain’s gray matter.
“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology. “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.”
Previous studies from Lazar’s group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced meditation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.
For the current study, magnetic resonance (MR) images were taken of the brain structure of 16 study participants two weeks before and after they took part in the eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. In addition to weekly meetings that included practice of mindfulness meditation — which focuses on nonjudgmental awareness of sensations, feelings, and state of mind — participants received audio recordings for guided meditation practice and were asked to keep track of how much time they practiced each day. A set of MR brain images was also taken of a control group of nonmeditators over a similar time interval.
Meditation group participants reported spending an average of 27 minutes each day practicing mindfulness exercises, and their responses to a mindfulness questionnaire indicated significant improvements compared with pre-participation responses. The analysis of MR images, which focused on areas where meditation-associated differences were seen in earlier studies, found increased gray-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.
Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress. Although no change was seen in a self-awareness-associated structure called the insula, which had been identified in earlier studies, the authors suggest that longer-term meditation practice might be needed to produce changes in that area. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time.
“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” says Britta Hölzel, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany. “Other studies in different patient populations have shown that meditation can make significant improvements in a variety of symptoms, and we are now investigating the underlying mechanisms in the brain that facilitate this change.”
Amishi Jha, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates mindfulness-training’s effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says, “These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based training. They demonstrate that the first-person experience of stress can not only be reduced with an eight-week mindfulness training program but that this experiential change corresponds with structural changes in the amygdala, a finding that opens doors to many possibilities for further research on MBSR’s potential to protect against stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.” Jha was not one of the study investigators.
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/
“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology. “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.”
Previous studies from Lazar’s group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced meditation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.
For the current study, magnetic resonance (MR) images were taken of the brain structure of 16 study participants two weeks before and after they took part in the eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. In addition to weekly meetings that included practice of mindfulness meditation — which focuses on nonjudgmental awareness of sensations, feelings, and state of mind — participants received audio recordings for guided meditation practice and were asked to keep track of how much time they practiced each day. A set of MR brain images was also taken of a control group of nonmeditators over a similar time interval.
Meditation group participants reported spending an average of 27 minutes each day practicing mindfulness exercises, and their responses to a mindfulness questionnaire indicated significant improvements compared with pre-participation responses. The analysis of MR images, which focused on areas where meditation-associated differences were seen in earlier studies, found increased gray-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.
Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress. Although no change was seen in a self-awareness-associated structure called the insula, which had been identified in earlier studies, the authors suggest that longer-term meditation practice might be needed to produce changes in that area. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time.
“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” says Britta Hölzel, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany. “Other studies in different patient populations have shown that meditation can make significant improvements in a variety of symptoms, and we are now investigating the underlying mechanisms in the brain that facilitate this change.”
Amishi Jha, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates mindfulness-training’s effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says, “These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based training. They demonstrate that the first-person experience of stress can not only be reduced with an eight-week mindfulness training program but that this experiential change corresponds with structural changes in the amygdala, a finding that opens doors to many possibilities for further research on MBSR’s potential to protect against stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.” Jha was not one of the study investigators.
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Barbelith
Sunday, February 15, 2015
The God Helmet - lectures by Todd Murphy
God and the Brain - The Persinger 'God Helmet', The Brain, and visions of God.
Reincarnation in Human Evolution - The New Science of Darwinian Reincarnation.
Enlightenment, Self, and the Brain. How the brain changes with final liberation
Psychic Skills & Miracles - technology used for telepathy and remote viewing
The Sacred Body. Kundalini, Subtle bodies, Chi, Yoga, and the brain.
Practical neurotheology - using Neuroscience for prayer and meditation
Michael Persinger's site: http://shaktitechnology.com/
Reincarnation in Human Evolution - The New Science of Darwinian Reincarnation.
Enlightenment, Self, and the Brain. How the brain changes with final liberation
Psychic Skills & Miracles - technology used for telepathy and remote viewing
The Sacred Body. Kundalini, Subtle bodies, Chi, Yoga, and the brain.
Practical neurotheology - using Neuroscience for prayer and meditation
Michael Persinger's site: http://shaktitechnology.com/
Essential Carl Jung
The following short films are excerpts from Jung's book, Man and His Symbols:
On synchronicity:
Shadow projection:
Anima projection:
The self:
Dreams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08BCIIJ4SOs
On the Nature of Four - Jung’s Quarternity, Mandalas, the Stone and the Self
During a difficult period in his life in which he withdrew from his teaching position and devoted much of his time investigating the nature of the unconscious, Jung frequently painted or drew mandalas, but only learned to understand the mandala symbology many years after he had begun creating the images.
He understood only that he felt compelled to make the figures and that they comforted him, “Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is: “Formation, Transformation, Eternal Mind’s eternal recreation”. And that is the self, the wholeness of the personality, which if all goes well is harmonious, but which cannot tolerate self-deceptions” (MDR 195-196). Mandalas are defined by Jung as magic circles, containing certain design motifs that he found to have a universal nature, across cultures and across time, whether they are the transiently created mandalas from Tibet, sand paintings from the American southwest, or illustrations from ancient, medieval, and Renaissance alchemical works.
Jung believes that his mandalas were “cryptograms” of the state of the self as it was on the day the mandala was created. Each mandala that he spontaneously created was different from their predecessors and the paintings were precious to him, he “guarded them like pearls” (MDR 196). He also believes that mandalas appear in connection with dreams, chaotic psychic states of disorientation or panic (CW 9i 645) as they did in Jung’s own life, and that a function of the mandalas is to bring order out of chaos. Edinger agrees, “Quaternity, mandala images emerge in times of psychic turmoil and convey a sense of stability and rest. The image of the fourfold nature of the psyche provides stabilizing orientation. It gives one a glimpse of static eternity.” (Edinger 182). Jung eventually came to believe that the mandala itself is an image of “squaring the circle” and as such could be called an archetype of wholeness (CW 9i 715)...
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=1722
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