I write about Jung and things Jungian for a reason. It is not out of theoretical enquiry, or because of philosophical preferences or ideological bias. It is not because of 'ideas' about life. It is because Jung and things Jungian have spoken to me about my actual experience when pretty much everything else has failed to do so. In particular, in times of crisis, of real personal need, Jung-type stuff has come to the rescue.
Way back in February 2013, I wrote a piece called 'How Lou Reed Saved My Life'. About how, when on the far side of the planet (for me), in New Zealand, I fell into a deep dark hole. Light became dark, up became down: you get the picture. The only voice which spoke to me, echoing the host of newfound feelings and perspectives which overwhelmed me (murderous, suicidal, utter hopelessness, and a bucketload of similar delights) was that of Lou Reed. Some time later I came across Jung: his 'nekyia', the night-sea journey. Here, at last, was another human being who had been there,
investigated it thoroughly, and lived to tell the tale. What's more he managed to place the ordeal within a broader context of, in his terminology, unfolding individuation. It was a necessary step in my own adventure of life. 'Confrontation with the Shadow' is the neat package in which it is often presented today; or demythologised into 'mid-life crisis'.
I have written about, and pointed out ad nauseam, the female figures that would turn up on the shamanic journeys, and with whom, following an exchange of greetings, I would take off, along with my 'power animal', on adventures into unknown, magical worlds. And how, following research by a co-journeying friend of mine, I began to see some of these female persons as what Jung referred to as 'anima figures'. Figures that mediate between our normal conscious lives and what Jung calls the unconscious, especially the collective unconscious. Which is precisely the function that the figures in my journeys seemed to be undertaking.
So, to repeat, really. I have embraced some, at least, of Jung and his successors in archetypal psychology, not out of idea or theory. It is as the consequence of direct and personal experience, and wishing to find resonating spirits who might bring shape and illumination to my own experience - which is all that I have to go on......
Part Two
I recently purchased a copy of a remarkable book. It had better be remarkable: I coughed up over £20 for the privilege (the full illustrated edition is £195. Dream on.....). Remarkable it indeed is. 'The Red Book' by Carl Jung is his kind-of diary of his visionary experiences around 100 years ago, when he decided to undertake the 'experiment' of deliberately descending, into what he terms the unconscious, to find out what lurked there. 'The Red Book' finally became available for the general public to read in 2009.
Jung is recorded as saying in 'Memories, Dreams, and Reflections': "The years when I was pursuing my inner images were the most important in my life - in them everything essential was decided....... It was the prima materia for a lifetime's work." It was easy to take this statement a bit figuratively, or with a pinch of salt. Until 'The Red Book' was published, that is. Jung hadn't wanted the book to come into the public arena until after his death, if at all, and a read of some of its pages demonstrates why. It is over 500 pages-full of his visions and experiences as he regularly sat of an evening in his study, imagined himself digging a deep hole, entering, and going down. The parallels with shamanic journeying as practised by myself along with friends and acquaintances are unavoidable and many. Different 'philosophical' framework, same manner of exploration, same kind of result.
I am only halfway through the book; it may well take a time. But it is remarkable for a number of reasons. I would venture that, without acquaintance with 'The Red Book', a person only knows certain sides to the multifaceted Jung. Day after day he goes down that hole, meets all kind of characters (many of whom he has an uneasy relationship with), and proceeds to engage them in lengthy conversation about religion, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy.
Amongst all this, the experiential, visionary basis of much of Jung's later writing becomes clear. In his first descents, he encounters three main characters: his 'Soul', 'the Spirit of the Times' and 'the Spirit of the Depths'. In a vicious nutshell, 'the Spirit of the Depths' informs Jung that all his professional ambition and striving to date has been a waste of time, and tells him to stop thinking - he thinks about things too much. In these encounters is found the germ of Jung's notion of 'the Shadow'. Additionally, his being thirty-eightish when he undertook these adventures leads to the observation that his 'night-sea journey', nowadays trivialised into 'mid-life crisis', when the second half of life takes on a radically different trajectory to the first, also originates in these journeys, where his values are turned well-and-truly upside down.
In the next series of meetings, the increasingly stupified Jung encounters Elijah, the prophet from the Old Testament, along with Salome, famous for having John the Baptist's head on a plate. A serpent also turns up in these adventures. Here are the seeds of Wise Old Man and Anima as focal archetypal characters in the evolving mythology of Jung.
I don't find 'The Red Book' particularly easy reading. Jung sometimes writes in prophetic style, and, despite the 'Spirit of the Depths' exhortation to stop thinking, spends a lot of time turgidly discussing and debating the meaning of the meetings and conversations. This stands in contrast to the treatment meted out in my own shamanic journeying diary, It is a notebook full of weird happenings. Some have been seriously absorbed by me, but much has had a "cor blimey, there's a load of archetypal stuff there, and I've got no idea what it's about" treatment from me, and little more.
Another element making for less-than-easy reading for me is the pervasive smell of Christianism. While my own shamanic journeys were populated by wizards, witches, princesses, and other characters mainly from fairy stories and myths, Jung sees an Old Testament prophet and a naughty girl from the New Testament. Later on he engages in extended conversation with an anchorite who comes in distinctly Christian garb. Jung is frequently moved to torment and anguish in his archetypal conversations, recalling those tortured saints out in the desert or stuck in their damp little study. Once more in solar Christian fashion, he reserves his greatest suspicion and incredulity for the main female of the piece, Salome. She turns up blind, and tells Jung that she loves him. He is not well pleased with this revelation. In fact, he is completely confused and horrified. "Leave me be, I dread you, you beast" are Jung's first words at Salome's profession of love for him.
There is something amusing, not to say life-affirming, about the way that an edifice such as modern Jungian psychology has been in good part built upon such non-rational and visionary foundations. It is not so different to the way that a person might spend years trying to work out and live out their psychedelic visions: "What did that all mean? How can I live my life in accordance?" Or the two-a-penny non-dualists who have an experience of oneness while shopping for aubergines in the supermarket, and before you know it are teaching their own exclusive method for liberation from separate selfhood on the internet.
Jung's descents took place for a couple of years before ceasing to be productive. This is in accord with my own experiences, along with those of a few other people I know. It is as if the message is 'This is the map; these are the stories; this is the work to do. Now get on with it.' It seems that the voyages provide the raw material for the remainder of ones life. You can't spend all your time down a hole, or in the lowerworld of shamanism, after all. You need to collect the jewels, the prima materia if you will, come back to the surface and, without every forgetting, get on with everyday living.
Images: Lou Reed 1972
Naughty Salome (Caravaggio)
Elijah (18th century Russia)
