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Christopher Meesto Erato's avatar

Enjoyed your synoptic breakdown of some of Jung’s biggest ideas. I have a BA in Psychology and have to disagree that Psychology and especially Jung or Freud or any of the pioneers hypothesis were ‘empirical’. In the mid 2000s there was a meta study that revealed that most psychology studies cannot be replicated. Humans are complex and so cannot be summed up based on small sample groups of mostly college students. I am much more of a Jungian based n my spiritual beliefs and only a few of Feud’s ideas still hold up - Defense Mechanisms and Early childhood development’s importance, which actually has been proven empirical, thus government sponsored Head Start programs. Yet Jung’s concept of archetypes were inspired by Plato’s Theory of Forms and the idea of ego has also been around for thousands of years and so has the idea of getting a grip on it and the monkey mind in general. This was the central theme among Hindu gurus and ascetics in ancient India which gave birth to the first great psychologist Buddha - who provided great cognitive tools like mindfulness to tame our mysterious ever active and sometimes nonsensical monkey mind. I personally love the concept of Synchronicity - still an another unproven collective psychic aspect of an unseen universal archetype universe. I believe such a psychic field does exist and even have an idea for a technical invention that could prove it, but it would cost millions to make and I do not have those kind of resources. Any serious Jungian needs to read Atom and Archetype, a great book-30 year letter correspondence between Jung and his friend Wolfgang Pauli, one of the brilliant early Quantum physicist pioneers. Jung was picking his brain trying to see if there were any answers in the quantum realm for consciousness and his concept of Synchronicity. Pauli was skeptical early on but based on unexplainable experiences in his own life over time, eventually warmed up to Jung’s collective psychic realm concept. We can’t see gravity or the electromagnetic field or flying neutrinos with the naked eye, but they all exist and are as real as the nose on our face. Later physicist Roger Penrose who was mentor to Steven Hawkings, pursued a similar micro-tubule in neurons idea of consciousness’ origin. Anyhow - Jung or Buddha or Christ or Confucius or whatever prophet/sage folks follow provide mental and spiritual tools and guidance on how to be a healthy and decent human. There is still so much mystery as to who and why we are - works in progress I think most smart folks agree. Evolution toward higher consciousness hopefully. I think Love is the glue that everything together.

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Alyssa Polizzi's avatar

Appreciate you shinning light on these areas of self-work and Jungian psych. It is easy to find ourselves slipping into the pitfalls if we aren't vigilant. This work would be best done through lineage, containment, and at the very least, a secure dyad. Alas, we've become so unrooted from these traditions that we're left wandering through the process without much guidance. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

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