Hi Robert and Karen,
Yes, I agree that this notion of the Self is a symbolic language not indicative of specific, material thing. I believe Jung called the unconscious a "process" (as opposed to a thing) . . . at least in his later years. There seems to be a tendency among Jungians to conflate the archetypal with the material . . . and to base the measurement of value on how "material" these archetypal manifestations appear to them.
I think this sets up a false paradigm for relation to the unconscious/Self. It is effectively an attempt to value a thing (the unconscious) for what that thing specifically is not (material). This contradiction is bound to lead to "egoic intrusions" . . . which would most likely show themselves in the anthropomorphization of the Self (the seeing of egoic qualities in the Self). This is, of course, prevalent in the archetype of the godman and the various systems of thought based on this archetype.
Principally, these are the ancient Mystery religions . . . of which Christianity appears to be a later development. Jungian psychology is also based on these Mystery/transformation symbols . . . and in Jungian psychology, the Self archetype does seem to have a dual form: as both the whole of the psyche and as the godman, who is the bridge between the ego and the Self or a representation of the Self-devoted ego.
But there is a major complication in this archetype, one which is definitely indicated in the Christian mythos, but which, at least to my satisfaction, Jung does not adequately explore. He was aware of it, and he wrote of it frequently enough, but he did not explore it. That is, the godman archetype comes with its own specific and rather potent shadow. In Jungian terms, this would be archetypal inflation. In alchemy, it is associated with the Old King.
I would describe this figure as the element of the shadow that does not clearly differentiate between the ego and the Self and hopes to use or channel the Self to promote egoic interests and desires. It wants, for instance, immortality . . . and also adulation from others. It wants the Self to come through the ego and materialize to the outer world (where the ego can "get the credit").
Jung's approach to this inflation was (at least in his professional writings) to advise the ego/individual to resist it, to form a little fortress against the darkness of the unconscious. Yet, from what we know of Jung's personal life, he took a less resistant approach, allowing himself to express the unconscious through his painting and play and stonework . . . and also in "inflation texts" like the "Seven Sermons" and in the so called Red Book with its "high flown language" . . . or so we might gather from Jung's own descriptions of this text.
There's a major discrepancy here, I think. And it's a problem that imbues the Jungian shadow in such a way that the individual "goal" of Jungian psychology (i.e., individuation) is undermined by the very formulation of the process itself. In my opinion, inflation is the major obstacle to individuation, and individuation is itself a process of sorting out inflation (as opposed to denying, repressing, or controlling it).
But Jung's written theory of individuation falters in much the same way the Christian mythos (especially as interpreted through Church dogma) falters. That is, it doesn't adequately differentiate and formulate a method of dealing with the inflation shadow, the alchemical Old King. But if we just squint slightly when looking at the Christian mythos, we can see a story about the inflation. Jesus is put to death for "pretending to be God". The guilty part of him must be punished, and punished in the material, collective world. It is only in his sacrifice of this God-identified ego that he can be reborn.
But in the crushing of more-Gnostic interpretations of the Christ mythos, this kind of interpretation was shoved into the shadow. Catholicism (the anti-Gnosticism) became a religion defined by its denial of this sacrificial act in which the earthly godman (the Self-identified ego) surrenders to death and the non-personal unconscious. The dogma of the Church deterred Christians from pursuing the true imitatio christi while at the same time trying to raise the figure of Jesus as both man and God up into an unquestionable totem. The inflation of the godman paradigm was then left to the shadow of the Christian power structure, the priests and bishops. They were to be the representation of God on earth.
It is no surprise then that the history of the Church is filled with all manner of atrocities and sins: the priestly class was endowed with the Satanic shadow of the godman while it consciously fought against the Gnostic ideas that pointed to a potential resolution to this inflation (through the death/rebirth Mystery rite).
When Jung takes on the shadow of the godman in Aion, he recognizes, but does not resolve the fundamental Christian error. That is, he sees the need for shadow . . . and depicts this as the complementary Antichrist archetype . . . but doesn't really address the incorporation of this shadow. Nor does he connect it sufficiently to inflation. Instead, he connects it to evil itself . . . which is a very remote, abstract concept. Evil is non-personal by nature. Even when Jung says that we are all capable of evil, he doesn't adequately demonstrate that evil manifests as a personal trait. He leaves it as a remote archetype. In this sense, it is much like the Christian God, i.e., up there, far away in heaven, remote from the personal world of the individual.
Thus Jung's notion that Christ/Antichrist make up the Christian archetype . . . making the Christian archetype very remote and non-personal (whereas the godman archetype created through the Mystery religions was specifically personal in that the god became human and the human died, albeit temporarily, through the Mystery rite; which is to say that Christianity is a totemization or distancing of the godman symbol into something remote and abstract, which is then tabooed and worshiped rather than lived). Despite Jung's interest (even origin) in Gnostic thinking, this act strikes me as very non-Gnostic. Gnosticism was considered a heresy by the Church largely because it took a personal or individual approach to Christ. The alchemical philosophers carried this even farther in their magnum opus, which is specifically preoccupied with the inflation, the Old King/New King dichotomy.
Of course, Jung was an expert on Gnosticism and alchemy, so this discrepancy (as it emerges in Aion) is odd. The only way I can make sense of this is by assuming that, personally, Jung's approach to individuation was Gnostic/alchemical, but professionally, Jung prescribed a more Christian approach. I'm not sure why this is, but I think it definitely qualifies as an unresolved conflict in the Jungian mindset.
As a Jungian, which approach to individuation do I follow? The one Jung prescribed or the one he actually employed?
I think this has never been adequately differentiated by the Jungian community. It remains a piece of the Jungian shadow. And it seems to result in a breed of Jungians who consciously uphold Jungianism as a dogma while keeping the archetype of the "ideal individuant" (the individuant who manages to sort out the inflation by living/working through it) in their shadows. Jung, then, becomes a mystic, a special guru who descended into the unconscious and was reborn out of it in a way that can only be admired (and fetishized), but never emulated.
It is the problem of Church Christianity all over again. Except Jung is put in the place of Christ. We cannot be like Jung, therefore all we can do is worship him.
Through this breakdown of Jungian thinking, the entire process of individuation is fetishized and made into a totem. It becomes entirely non-practical, a thing done only in the spiritual imagination or a thing that is intuited but never actualized.
This is a major disagreement I have with the conventional Jungian mindset . . . and perhaps the major source of conflict with some of the Jungians I've encountered "on the battlefield", as it were.
-Matt
