Usless Science Forum
The Psyche => Depth Psychology => Topic started by: Matt Koeske on March 21, 2007, 08:44:16 AM
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It's interesting that almost all animus fairytales are about "redeeming" the animus (accepting his darkness or lifting him out of it) . . . whereas anima fairytales are usually about rescuing or "winning" the anima. I wonder what this says about our culture and its gender/sex differences.
-Matt
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At the risk of sounding sexist (God help me!), I think it might have to do with a difference in masculine and feminine psychology. Men have to fight the dragon and all that, whereas women seem to have to accept or endure more. Anyway, something like that, don’t you think?
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At the risk of sounding sexist (God help me!), I think it might have to do with a difference in masculine and feminine psychology. Men have to fight the dragon and all that, whereas women seem to have to accept or endure more. Anyway, something like that, don’t you think?
I'm just not sure if this dynamic is innate. It is definitely supported by culture . . . and perhaps even created by culture. I suspect it has a great deal to do with the "Patriarchal Mindset" . . . which, among many other things, strikes me as an attempt by men to aggressively seize the "rights" to ego psychology for themselves, but not for women (or anyone else they deem other). What I mean is that the patriarchy claims that men, in effect, have an ego separate from the Self/unconscious . . . whereas women are thought to have an ego still bound to and confused with the unconscious (I completely disagree with this, by the way).
So, when we look at the dragon/monster slaying myths, what we are seeing (in my opinion) is not a male or masculine rite of passage. More fundamentally, we are seeing the dramatization of the ego's severance from the unconscious. From this act on, the patriarchal ego becomes increasingly dissociated from the the unconscious and begins to fall in love with its own imagined power and supremacy.
My reasoning behind the claim that this is not male-specific, is that, obviously, men and women both share this construction of ego psychology. Women don't have submerged or partially developed egos. But part of the patriarchal construction of gender is to imprison women by chaining them to the unconscious like a dog might be chained to a tree (The Goddess Tree, perhaps?).
This act not only subordinates women to men, but it allows patriarchal men to have a kind of "controlled relationship" to the unconscious . . . through the chained woman. His sex drive (confused terribly with his power drive) continues to draw him to the woman, where he can not only sate his sexual desires, but also touch the unconscious briefly through her. He then becomes dependent on the woman (and by extension, the Feminine) for his contact with the unconscious . . . which is the ultimate source of libido renewal and recycling.
We can logically extrapolate from this proposed paradigm that the myth of the man who wants to make a deeper, ego-sacrificing communion with the unconscious/Self must first learn how to unchain the woman/Feminine from the role of "gateway" (was it Tertullian or Origen who referred to women as the "Devil's Gateway"?). This freeing of the Feminine allows it to rise up to equal status with the masculine. But this act usually requires the battle with and defeat of the patriarchal shadow, who is the archetypal jailer of the Feminine.
Also, there is an umbilically linked complication to this freeing process (which is where men really stumble): the freed woman/Feminine no longer acts as the gateway to the unconscious. The man then has to become his own gateway. But what happens typically (and this would be called "anima-obsession or possession" in Jungian terms) is that the man cannot envision himself as such a gateway; he cannot see communion with the unconscious as possible without the woman/Feminine. So he rushes to free her . . . only to immediately imprison her again (this time with his "love"). Or else, he frees her, but then she disappears or "dies", and he is left depressed and bereft in a puddle, not knowing what he can do for himself, merely longing for her return one day.
In this sense, the anima-obsessed man has begun valuing the Feminine, but cannot throw off the patriarchal mindset . . . and so he can't progress any farther.
But this would seem to give a psychological reason for the preponderance of myths and fairytales that involve the male hero rescuing the imprisoned princess from some sort of monster.
But from a woman's perspective, the battle against patriarchalism, the battle for consciousness is fought from a different perspective. There she is, imprisoned. What is she to do? Well, she might fantasize of a Prince Charming coming to rescue her . . . but that ends up being a patrairachal myth. It keeps her in the position of object, of will-less creature, of raw material. As it turns out, Prince Charming is an element of the very patrairachal force that imprisons her.
So, to get beyond that, she has to seek out the "anti-Prince Charming". She has to find the masculine that has been lost and largely destroyed by patriarchal consciousness. Sometimes, this dark masculine or shadow-animus is associated with her imprisonment (as in "Beauty and the Beast" . . . or King Kong). But her quest is to find the humanness in this shadow . . . to make an act of differentiation between the the imprisoning patriarchal masculine and the imprisoned patriarchal masculine (somewhere, buried in the animus is a masculinity just as imprisoned as she is).
So we see a lot of beasts, ogres, gnomes, and animal or part animal bridegrooms in women's individuation myths and dreams. It isn't that the woman need to learn to love the patriarchy (I'm reminded of the subtitle of Dr. Strangelove: "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb") . . . it's that she needs to delve into the shadow of the patriarchy to rediscover the lost masculine, the masculine that has been buried and wounded by the patriarchy as much as she has. There she finds her twin, and in healing him, forgiving him, or lifting him up, she redeems the animus . . . allowing him to become what I sometimes refer to as the "True Masculine". That is, the Masculine that is not opposed to the Feminine or its power.
This True Masculine was an element of the Goddess religions in which it was represented by the Goddess's consort. He is the vegetation god, the prototype of the godman who dies and is reborn like the sown seed. He does not connect to nature through the feminine, but directly. He is a "natural" thing, functioning by nature's principles . . . unlike the ego, which is non-corporeal and abstract.
But what is interesting (and maybe worth reiterating) is that the act of redeeming the animus is done, typically, through an act of conscious differentiation. In myths and fairytales we sometimes see this as sorting impossible numbers of beans or peas, as in Cinderella or the myth of Psyche and Eros (where the heroines must rely on some assistance from their unconscious . . . as this differentiating intelligence is just being born out of the Other). But this differentiation might also be simply an innate ability of the heroine to recognize the good in an animus figure who appears monstrous and evil on the outside.
Not to overly complicate this, but I think it's also worth noting that many women's individuation stories portray the heroine's jailer as a devouring mother figure or wicked stepmother (ususally in these the father has died or "lost his soul" and first wife and lovelessly remarried). This dark mother figure is every bit as patriarchal as the demonic male jailer . . . and it is a sad "truth" that most of the patriarchal conditioning women receive is handed down to them from their mothers or from other women.
My apologies for meandering here, I had to think through this . . . but I believe this analysis above is pretty sound. What do you think, Rohche (and anyone else, for that matter)? Does any of this seem plausible to you?
Also, Maria, if you read this, I think you will have some reflections to add.
Yours,
Matt
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My apologies for meandering here, I had to think through this . . . but I believe this analysis above is pretty sound. What do you think, Rohche (and anyone else, for that matter)? Does any of this seem plausible to you?
Yours,
Matt
Matt,
you are not alone to think/feel along that line. What you say is sound indeed. By this I mean that though I would use different words I share this with you.
I am too tired at the moment to say more.
Best
Roger
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Matt,
you are not alone to think/feel along that line. What you say is sound indeed. By this I mean that though I would use different words I share this with you.
I am too tired at the moment to say more.
Best
Roger
Thank you, Roger. I appreciate that.
I have an "extruded" way of writing/posting. If I only had it all figured out and a little note card with my personal dogmas in my breast pocket at all times, I could probably express my intuitions and feelings with concision (-)elchalo(-).
But the unconscious refuses to lend me the brainpower needed to "master" knowledge. I end up having to rethink and rediscover ideas every time I use them or get an intuitive notion. I have to go to it and say, "OK, what is it you are trying to tell me?" And it will reply, "Pick up you pen or sit down at your keyboard and write, and I will show you where I am."
It's like the children's game we used to call "Marco Polo". The blindfolded seeker tries to locate the others through a process of call and response. He says, "Marco" and the others must reply, "Polo" even as they move around. Talking to the Self is like that. You can't think with your ego. The ego has to be blind. Instead, you think in terms of relationality ("where am I in relation to It? Now where am I . . . and now?").
What a shame for Jung that, upon seeing his blind Salome anima, he decided her blindness meant "she does not see the meaning of things."
Yours,
Matt
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What a shame for Jung that, upon seeing his blind Salome anima, he decided her blindness meant "she does not see the meaning of things."
Yours,
Matt
Yes, definitely, but Salome was not his anima... She was much more than that. (http://www.psychovision.ch/hknw/holy_wedding_alchemy_jung_quaternity_ch5p35_e.htm (http://www.psychovision.ch/hknw/holy_wedding_alchemy_jung_quaternity_ch5p35_e.htm))
I am working on something in reply to your 'Illness as a dream figure'
Love
Roger
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(Dear Matt,
Also, Maria, if you read this, I think you will have some reflections to add.
oh yes, Matt, surely I do! And, although not a real film, only an adaptation of a musical, I would like to add The Phantom of the Opera to the list.
But from a woman's perspective, the battle against patriarchalism, the battle for consciousness is fought from a different perspective. There she is, imprisoned. What is she to do? Well, she might fantasize of a Prince Charming coming to rescue her . . . but that ends up being a patrairachal myth. It keeps her in the position of object, of will-less creature, of raw material. As it turns out, Prince Charming is an element of the very patrairachal force that imprisons her.
Yes, Prince Charming and the Warden or Oppressor are the same (just as Christine first believes the Phantom to be the Angel of Music), as they are called to life by the same inner dynamic, which can go on and on for years “I am imprisoned and I need to be saved, I am saved and I am imprisoned again and need to be saved” and so on ad finitum. Until one accepts to have a power of her own, one can wait forever in the subway station waiting for Prince Charming to descend and “elevate” us, instead of climbing the steps ourselves.
So we see a lot of beasts, ogres, gnomes, and animal or part animal bridegrooms in women's individuation myths and dreams. It isn't that the woman need to learn to love the patriarchy (I'm reminded of the subtitle of Dr. Strangelove: "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb") . . . it's that she needs to delve into the shadow of the patriarchy to rediscover the lost masculine, the masculine that has been buried and wounded by the patriarchy as much as she has. There she finds her twin, and in healing him, forgiving him, or lifting him up, she redeems the animus . . . allowing him to become what I sometimes refer to as the "True Masculine". That is, the Masculine that is not opposed to the Feminine or its power.
And I understood it only now that it is not by chance that Christine is helped by Raoul, her lost-re-found childhood friend...
and yes, the animus seems to be a figure not only split, but dispersed in the unconscious... and also, perhaps, the stages of one’s perception of the father as the first model for the animus, how he changes from, eg, the omnipotent-omniscient benevolent protector (early childhood) to the controlling patriarch (teenage years) or the cruel, sadistic one who tortures by his distance, and so on, are not or not necessarily perceived as “change”, but each of these phases, like snapshots, stay as they are and have their own lives until they are consciously united. Just musing, of course.
So, to get beyond that, she has to seek out the "anti-Prince Charming". She has to find the masculine that has been lost and largely destroyed by patriarchal consciousness. Sometimes, this dark masculine or shadow-animus is associated with her imprisonment (as in "Beauty and the Beast" . . . or King Kong). But her quest is to find the humanness in this shadow . . . to make an act of differentiation between the the imprisoning patriarchal masculine and the imprisoned patriarchal masculine (somewhere, buried in the animus is a masculinity just as imprisoned as she is).
And also, the wounded beast is a beast, not a fluffy little rabbit. I mean that it does have potential power and strength, the beast is not a harmless, unprotected creature per se. That is something those women who want to save men forget about. That their own animus is wounded, and not born or destined to be an eternal child. It is not a mother the wounded animus needs, as he was wounded exactly by the mother. “Healing” is not bending down to an inferior being out of charity. Healing is a task one has to elevate herself to, so to say.
Not to overly complicate this, but I think it's also worth noting that many women's individuation stories portray the heroine's jailer as a devouring mother figure or wicked stepmother (ususally in these the father has died or "lost his soul" and first wife and lovelessly remarried). This dark mother figure is every bit as patriarchal as the demonic male jailer . . . and it is a sad "truth" that most of the patriarchal conditioning women receive is handed down to them from their mothers or from other women.
I completely agree, Matt!!!
Love,
Maria)
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“Healing” is not bending down to an inferior being out of charity. Healing is a task one has to elevate herself to, so to say.
Maria)
I love so much when people talk out of their guts, letting the flow of their experience piss... :)
Love, Maria!
Roger
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Whoa! Whoa! Matt, Roger, Maria, I wasn’t talking about the battle of the sexes on an ego or cultural level, or about jailers or half submerged egos, or anything like that. I was getting at a possible difference in modes of transcendence, about a possible difference in how the light out of the darkness is derived. My thought was that one of the ways of achieving this is in the act of joining the opposites, of joining the light to the dark, from which something new is gained. The other is more an enduring the tension of opposites, a containing the light and darkness, until some thing new comes about.
Am I wrong? Are these these modes of transcendence the same or are they different? I really don’t know. If they are different, could one be considered masculine and the other feminine? The tales seem to support a difference in mode of transformation.
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(Dear Roche,
;)
My thought was that one of the ways of achieving this is in the act of joining the opposites, of joining the light to the dark, from which something new is gained. The other is more an enduring the tension of opposites, a containing the light and darkness, until some thing new comes about.
I imagine this not as an either-or thing. I would rather say that these are parallel, and, instead of masculine-feminine, perhaps I would call them transforming-assimilating, or something like that.
I am just musing here, but as an INFP, I would say that my "heroic" functions are intuition and feeling, my primary functions, they fight, discover, differentiate and "join the light to the dark", while in the background, my inferior functions, thinking and sensation, are processing and assimilating the experiences, struggle to "contain the light and darkness", so that my heroic functions can take me further.
this is just an idea that came to my mind while staring in the rain this morning. tell me what you think.
Love,
Maria)
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I am just musing here, but as an INFP, I would say that my "heroic" functions are intuition and feeling, my primary functions, they fight, discover, differentiate and "join the light to the dark", while in the background, my inferior functions, thinking and sensation, are processing and assimilating the experiences, struggle to "contain the light and darkness", so that my heroic functions can take me further.
this is just an idea that came to my mind while staring in the rain this morning. tell me what you think.
Love,
Maria)
Well actually i don't know where to post that for it relates also with my reply to Matt http://uselessscience.com/forum/index.php?topic=92.msg294#msg294 (http://uselessscience.com/forum/index.php?topic=92.msg294#msg294)
Truely enough the orientation of the personality is important, but mostly to my mind as refer to the way we express things from the moment we really get deeply involved into the process. but not before though.
I have a bit of a problem here myself as I discovered that for quite a few years now, each time I take a personality test, the results show that my four functions are almost par, and my introvert/extravert 'position' varies according to the needs of the situation. I know this is past Jungian beliefs, but then...
So what I will try to say is that:
If we go deep enough we are not dealing anymore with the archetypes as patterns of the "collective unconscious" but with forces, entities beyond any sexual distinction.
If you have the experience and think a little about it you will see that 'animus' and 'anima' behave in a very similar way in depth but what is different is the way their effects are incarnated in the different beings.
If we go to the structural dimension and accept that along Jung's definition these two when they are 'integrated' are meant to be the channel of inner creativity (the psychopomp) and if we have the opportunity to compare experiences then we realise that they are the same.
Maria told me that she has a very erotic relation to her thinking creativity. One could say that this is due to an enough integrated animus behaving as the psychopomp. But the point is that, as a man, I have the same relation!
So let's get a little bit deeper then.
(Maria and I were discussing about the archetypes lately, I think her musings are relevant here...)
What does it point at precisely?
As you surely know Jung said that at the 'end' of the archetypes opposite to consciousness we reach what he called the psychoid, something he could not fathom himself for i guess the time was not ripe either for him as an individual or for humankind. He was reopening a way and let the exploration and modern understanding of what the Hermetic alchemists called 'Unio corporalis' to people to come. (see my remark about Salome http://uselessscience.com/forum/index.php?topic=78.msg293#msg293 (http://uselessscience.com/forum/index.php?topic=78.msg293#msg293)).
'Unio corporalis' is exactly entering the psychoid dimension (the 'Unus Mundus') through the body, or rather by letting our body 'talk' to 'us', that is to say far from the thinking dimension of 'analysis'.
There, at this very psychophysical level, we discover that we are dealing with energy, a force deeply imbeded into the other side of matter. That's where the archetypes perceived as patterns of the collective unconscious are springing from using the natural channel of human psyche to transform the being and bring her/him to incarnate in her/his life this energy.
For sure, we are far from the Jungian unilateral definition of the Self (rather something like 'unio mentalis'), a definition limited by what Jung himself could reach.
What happens then if we go through that gate is that we do not get in touch with archetypal images refering to patterns of the collective unconscious but with the source itself. And what might be strange is that the only 'wish' of that source is that we let it come up, spring through us one way or another, according to our personnal 'bumps' and 'hollows', but this is a very unifying process. I will dare say that the 'fight' with the archetypes themselves is not 'needed' any more. The flow carries everything and we are 'cleaned' as long as we let it happen.
More to come, maybe...
Love
Roger
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Whoa! Whoa! Matt, Roger, Maria, I wasn’t talking about the battle of the sexes on an ego or cultural level, or about jailers or half submerged egos, or anything like that. I was getting at a possible difference in modes of transcendence, about a possible difference in how the light out of the darkness is derived. My thought was that one of the ways of achieving this is in the act of joining the opposites, of joining the light to the dark, from which something new is gained. The other is more an enduring the tension of opposites, a containing the light and darkness, until some thing new comes about.
Am I wrong? Are these these modes of transcendence the same or are they different? I really don’t know. If they are different, could one be considered masculine and the other feminine? The tales seem to support a difference in mode of transformation.
Hi Rohche,
I apologize if I misunderstood the thrust of your idea.
I may need you to elaborate here to better understand and find a compatible language of my own to meet you half way. But my guess is that you are making a differentiation between uniting the opposites (e.g., a coniunctio) and containing the opposites. That's a distinction I never really made in the same way, so I will have to play catch-up a bit.
So, I may be firing a little randomly here, but well, here goes . . .
In my experience, the "containment" or perhaps "conscious endurance" of the tension between the opposites is primarily a metaphor for the observation/recognition that one ego-position or belief or idea can never be only one, but must also necessitate its opposite. So, as Jung pursued the Christ symbol in Aion, he pretty clearly said that the belief in or creation of the Christ figure necessitated the Antichrist figure . . . which the Church was less willing to see as part of the godhead, but the Gnostics better embraced. But of course, this recognition of the opposites occurs on much more mundane levels, too.
Such a recognition of the polarity of every position also seems to necessitate a new sense that one (the ego) cannot entirely be one thing without also being its Opposite (and bang! just like that we have the attraction or magnetism to the Opposite). Which becomes a moral dilemma or a complex that can only be resolved by uniting the polarities (thesis and antithesis) into a synthesis, a third position that manages to incorporate thesis and antithesis and yet not be divided or in self-conflict. Therefore the synthesis (the Third) is also a oneness. (Which the alchemists expressed with the Axiom of Maria, where the third or threeness becomes a oneness which is the fourth . . . or a balanced wholeness; yes, I know Remo disagrees with this and calls for a whole of six . . . but this is already an overly-abstract side note).
The Divine Hermaphrodite of alchemy with the three (serpents or elements) transmuted into the one (golden serpent), which makes four (here I can't help but say, like The Count from Sesame Street, "Four! Four Serpents! Ha ha ha!"):
(http://www.alchemywebsite.com/images/amcl_rs10.jpg)
But in this system, which is the Jungian and alchemical system of presenting the problem and resolution of the Opposites, the union is the completion of the recognition of containment/tension.
In my experience, the union/coniunctio is an archetypal paradigm applicable to men and women equally. For that reason, I would be less inclined to try to map the coniunctio to men or the Masculine and the "containment" to women or the Feminine.
If I were to involve gender archetypes at all, I would probably be inclined to see the synthesis produced by the coniunctio oppositorum as a New Birth, and therefore, a new state produced out of the Feminine or through Feminine means . . . and not a construction or creation of the Masculine (as we might see archetypally construed in the biblical Genesis story of Creation). In essence, Feminine birthing is a process governed my Nature, not Will.
And, this accords with my experience of the alchemical opus (the first opus, at least) in which the Work (individuation) is guided almost entirely by surrendering ego-will to Nature. I.e., the opus is an instinctual dynamic to which the ego increasingly submits. So, in the symbolism of the first opus, we see the division of the Old King and the New King (for the male adept) representing the old egoistic position and the new ego position (respectively) that accords with the individuation instinct . . . or the Call of the ego into coordination with the Self.
(http://www.alchemywebsite.com/images/amcl_ss07.jpg) (http://www.alchemywebsite.com/images/atal24.jpg)
But, this is just one language . . . and perhaps not the right or best one. I suppose we could equally say that true "containment of the Opposites" in a oneness or synthesis follows and is facilitated by the union of Opposites. But in this way of saying it, the sense of tension between Opposites is diminished, so containment is incompatible with tension.
What I've seen so far is that men and women tend to follow the same paradigm: recognition of the Opposites (a tension/attraction dynamic) -> union of the Opposites -> the product/synthesis of this union as a kind of rebirth or New Birth.
But please say more and let us get a better grasp on the language you are using to define your terms. I'm not entirely sure we are talking about the same thing.
Yours,
Matt
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I made a whopping digression (yes, even for me (-)monkbggrn(-)) part way through this post. I don't know if it is really worth keeping, but I am going to hack it off and deposit it somewhere in the Alchemy and Mysticism board. This rough cut leaves a kind of abrupt end to the post below. Sorry about that.
I am just musing here, but as an INFP, I would say that my "heroic" functions are intuition and feeling, my primary functions, they fight, discover, differentiate and "join the light to the dark", while in the background, my inferior functions, thinking and sensation, are processing and assimilating the experiences, struggle to "contain the light and darkness", so that my heroic functions can take me further.
this is just an idea that came to my mind while staring in the rain this morning. tell me what you think.
Hi Maria,
Although, as you know I have been increasingly displeased with the typology of Jungian psychology, I believe I understand your observation and agree with it. There is a sense that the modes of cognition/perception most consciously developed in us are the ones that have integrated the "dark" and the "light" best.
We could equally say that the consciousness developed in these "heroic" functions (and the hero is the archetype of consciousness) is developed through the heroic process of the coniunctio and rebirth (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). So, what is heroic in our consciousness is what has been synthesized in the alchemical way.
So, hesitantly, I'll pick up the Jungian typological cross here to see if I can work inside this language . . . . I think, within this paradigm, that "true consciousness" seems to work by unifying the functions that are oppositional to one another. Most of Jungian thinking, then, takes place on the thinking/feeling axis . . . and we might see Jung's individuation dynamic as an attempt to alchemize these functions into a unified equilibrium (althouhg, perhaps without success).
This (although not only this) encourages me to suspect that Jung's auxiliary functions were thinking and feeling. After all, Jung did not concentrate on the unification of intuition and sensation, the possible and the actual. I would say his personal relationship to the possible/actual dichotomy was divided. So one one hand we see him championing the phenomenological approach to psychic contents and disparaging philosophy and metaphysics (the attempt to see actuality in the phenomena). He saw this as a concession to the scientific method.
On the other hand (later in his life especially), he sought a more spiritual reality. What actually were spirits? What was synchronicity? What was God? His pursuits (mostly, but not entirely) in these metaphysical realms seemed to attract the interest of the spiritualistically-inclined to his thinking. But, I would argue, it also allowed this mindset to confuse Jung with a guru or transfer the guru archetype onto him.
But my real point is that he ultimately rejected a "unified field theory" here. He saw no synthesis and even disparaged the attempts to find one. He accepted a divided consciousness on the intuition/sensation axis. On one hand he was a "scientist" that phenomenalized the psyche and its products . . . and on the other hand he was a mystic who said, "I do not believe in God, I know."
As his primary axis, intuition/sensation was too divided to be subject to coniunctio/synthesis. I see this as an inconsistency in Jung's thinking . . . and ultimately disagree with his conclusion. The intuition/sensation coniunctio is possible . . . but it necessitates an essential compromise (for the intuitive) of the primary function. The unified theory would have to see the archetypal as ultimately biological (in my opinion), compromising some of the "as-ifness" of spirituality.
I think some of the alchemists did see this (more clearly than Jung did). They represented it as the extraction of spirit imprisoned in matter (first opus) and then the re-attribution of the spiritual to matter (second opus). This is at least what I find most sensical when we look at the "de-spiritualization" of the second opus as depicted emblematically in the Rosarium Philosophorum.
OK, this is where the dogs of digression seem to have loosed themselves from the sled (-)dogrun(-). If the perverse intricacies of my alchemical/biological yarn-spinning hold any interest for you, you can find the digressive remainder of this post/thought here (http://uselessscience.com/forum/index.php?topic=102.msg302#msg302).
Yours,
Matt
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I didn’t mean to spur a whole separate thread!
I just thought that the physical creation we see all around us, and of which we are a part, might be mirrored somewhere on an archetypal level. Masculine and feminine, two great powers in nature, coming together to give birth to something new, each playing an equal but different role.
In that the bringing together of consciousness and unconsciousness creates a new synthesis, I guess the physical is reflected in a spiritual way. This is not, however, played out in different roles by anima and animus, from what I'm hearing anyway.
Oh well, just a thought.
If I come across a similar idea somewhere, I’ll be sure to throw it up.
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I feel like getting wild!.
I have dreamt so often that my house was transparent that I must give it some outer dimension too, (though there is another meaning to it I won't develop now).
At the deep bottom of ‘things’ there is no image. What is there is ‘just’ an energetic tension: a bipolar system where the tension between the two brings the third. So if we want to be theoretical enough we’d better speak of pole 1 and pole 2 thus avoiding the anthropomorphic reduction, or {spirit-psyche} and {matter-psyche} as Remo puts it.
The rest is only the way it gets to consciousness, through layers of representations proper to each being and varying as such (woman, man, extraverted smoking type, introverted nose-scratching type and the lot… (-)monkbggrn(-))
So it also means that ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ are potentially the same in the realisation of the third.
At the moment, in our time, for this to happen the ‘masculine’ has to become the smaller part. For too long a time outer ‘masculine’ (Logos) aggression and power have reduced the ‘feminine’ to a dark devilish dimension. If the third has to come out and incarnate we have to drop that aspect and unite with the feminine (Eros), melt and not fecundate (this would be too much power again) but become her own sperm.
This certainly might sound strange. But these are words. Said differently it could be that each time we do not try to understand a priori or at the same time but let our body talks to us and bring us the understanding, our Logos aggression stance dissolves into the potential world of the body (brings energy to it) this energy is transformed by the body itself and turned into a fertilizing impulse that gives back spontaneous images/sensations at first just observed or gleaned.
From that a new king is born = we can do something with it.
(Oh! Some perverts around could deduce from the above that my body is a she! ::))
It is one aspect of Unio corporalis, and is true as much for women as for men.
This is an utterly post-post Jungian post.
And I agree that transparent is not a synonym for ‘easy to understand’.
Rolling on the floor laughing Roger
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I found something in Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, by Marie-Louise von Franz, regarding a northern German fairy tale called “Old Rinkrank”:
A king had a daughter and built a glass mountain, saying only the man who can walk over this mountain can marry his daughter. Along comes a man, and he and the daughter begin walking over the glass mountain. But the mountain opens up and the daughter falls into it. The hole closes up behind her. Inside is a man with a seventeen inch long beard who asks the girl to be his maid. He tells her to call him Old Rinkrank. Every day he leaves and returns through a window in the glass which he reaches by a ladder, bringing back gold and silver which accumulates. One day the girl decides to escape, so she shuts the window on Old Rinkrank’s beard and traps him there until he agrees to let her use the ladder to leave. And so he does. She goes to the King, who returns and Kills Old Rinkrank and takes all the gold and silver. She then marries the man who had been walking over the mountain with her.
According to M-L von Franz, the girl could not fight animus (Old Rinkrank) by killing him. “It is a male hero’s task to fight and conquer the monster. The feminine path to individuation is by suffering and escaping.” – p. 20.
On page 46, pertaining to another fairy tale, “The Magic Horse” (too long to paraphrase here), M-L von Franz states, “Women go through the process of individuation mainly by suffering, when it is done in the right way; in the unconscious there then seems to be a shifting of the libido. If one can adapt to the devil without being eaten by him, that makes for consciousness.”
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I found something in Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, by Marie-Louise von Franz, regarding a northern German fairy tale called “Old Rinkrank”:
According to M-L von Franz, the girl could not fight animus (Old Rinkrank) by killing him. “It is a male hero’s task to fight and conquer the monster. The feminine path to individuation is by suffering and escaping.” – p. 20.
On page 46, pertaining to another fairy tale, “The Magic Horse” (too long to paraphrase here), M-L von Franz states, “Women go through the process of individuation mainly by suffering, when it is done in the right way; in the unconscious there then seems to be a shifting of the libido. If one can adapt to the devil without being eaten by him, that makes for consciousness.”
Hi Rohche, I think I am starting to better understand where you are coming from.
Have you found parallels in your own life to what MLvF said?
I'm still hesitant to make any gender equations here. I feel I have made steps forward in the individuation process through a kind of passive suffering or perseverance . . . and also steps forward through actions and conscious sacrifices. In fact, I would say that I don't associate "slaying" with any significant kind of progress in the Work. Whenever I have harmed or killed anything in a dream, I was immediately filled with remorse . . . a tangibly painful weight upon me. Which I associated with karma and with a recognition that my aggressive act (or desire) was wrong-headed.
Of course, aggression/destruction is a common theme in fairytales and heroic myths . . . but I'd be willing to be (just a hunch) that in most fairytales, when the evil being that possesses or controls or imprisons is destroyed it is usually by a non-ego force. Perhaps (to the degree that this hunch is valid), this is more of a "recycling" process (like what we would see in nature, in an ecosystem) than a willful conquering.
So, in the story MLvF relates, maybe it isn't so much an "animus" force that commits the aggressive act, but an "otherness", a not-I. In the fairytale I recently posted about the Princess in the Tree (http://uselessscience.com/forum/index.php?topic=94.0) (from Jung's "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales"), we see the devil/hunter killed in the end by the horse he was riding on (with the help of her brother horse) . . . not by the protagonist.
I would say that it is more common in fairytales to see all "heroic acts" accomplished either by other beings than the protagonist or through the protagonists lack of willfulness. If I'm right, then I would guess this is a result of the individuation Work being largely a willingness to submit to the instinct of the individuation archetype. Darkness is not actually conquered. This is why we find all those stories I love so much about heroes that are (or are mistaken for) Fools. It's the Fool (male or female) who listens to the unconscious and not to the advice of his peers and parents and betters.
But, of course, in myths and legends we see much more brutality and many more heroes willing this brutality. One can only guess as to why this is. Perhaps it has something to do with the use of such myths and legends as cultural identifiers. E.g., Heracles is the symbol of Greek cultural identity and achievement . . . etc.
I think that we can see in some of the dragon-slaying stories a kind of "Act One" to the heroic consciousness. But Act Two brings us a more complex perspective (when it is portrayed) . . . one in which there is some fallout from the "heroic murder" of Act One. Think of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh kills Humbaba and then the Bull of Heaven . . . but these "heroic murders" end up necessitating the death of his hairy brother, Enkidu. And that death sets Gilgamesh off on a night-sea journey seeking immortality.
But Gilgamesh ultimately fails this quest . . . although one might argue it makes him a better (kinder) person.
The musical Into the Woods also shows us a "corrective" Act Two.
I think this is consistent with the "personality" of the unconscious. Nothing is ever killed for the unconscious. Things are dis-empowered while other things are empowered. The libido moves in and out of things. We don't for instance, kill the power our mother or father had over us . . . we merely depotentiate it. If we work through it, the complex looses its death grip on us . . . but it will pop up in dreams and fears again and again throughout our lives . . . like an old portrait still hanging on the wall. I think this is much the same as the way matter is never destroyed in the universe, only transformed and moved about.
From personal experience, I can say that as a man who has engaged in the anima work, I was only ever called on to surrender and endure . . . and to find my strength in my willingness to relinquish and sacrifice my ego-fragility and selfishness. I was never called on to kill monsters.
So, perhaps MLvF is half-right. But she forgot to include the masculine/men in her equation.
MLvF is of the "old school" as far as the animus goes. She doesn't stray very far from Jung's conception of it. I've never found this conception to be very valid . . . and I think it is rooted in sexism and Jung's mistake of identifying the Feminine too much with "feeling". Or with what he called "feeling". Since feeling appeared to be his inferior function, he contaminates it with inferiorities (really more like "bad thinking" than feeling). I think what we are talking about when we look at the old school animus and anima characterizations are more often Jung's own shadow than anything universally valid for the anima and animus.
It is really a wonder he managed to communicate as much with his anima as he did . . . although it seems (from his own descriptions) that he had to make sure this communication was always on his own terms (and he was very hesitant to share any of this . . . e.g., Black and red Books). In my experience, this approach runs against the flow of the Work. But Jung seems to have managed a more "submissive" approach in his own life than he prescribed in his "professional writings".
Still, we can see a lot more anima influence in his later writings. For instance, in his shift toward spiritual and theological pursuits and his devotion to Eastern mysticisms and alchemical symbolism. Also, Jung's attitude toward these things grew more and more accepting. I would argue that he even began giving these phenomena less "rationalistic" scrutiny toward the end of his life. Of course, he still had to make himself feel scientific . . . but his writing was less and less so.
I believe the spiritual quest is the stuff of the anima work or the first alchemical opus . . . the "extraction of spirit from matter". I get the impression that Jung saw this as indicative of a "complete individuation" . . . although I am not inclined to agree with him here (and neither, it would seem, are the alchemists who went on to pursue the re-infusion of spirit into matter). What we do know is that there is no Jungian individuation paradigm to parallel this re-infusion of spirit into matter . . . although there are many useful observations in Jung's work that might serve as tools to construct such a paradigm.
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Well, I’m glad you’re understanding better where I’m coming from. I have problems with that myself sometimes. In answering your question about if I have found parallels in my own life with what M-L is saying, I would have to say no. But I’m still very much in a learning stage, and I reserve judgement on all fronts. That is, I don’t discount what she has to say, nor do I want to challenge what others say. To my way of thinking, everyone’s experience and understanding has validity. We are all on personal journeys. And hopefully we will find answers along the way. We may even find the answers are as varied as the individual roads we travel, ever changing and always drawing us on.
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Well, I’m glad you’re understanding better where I’m coming from. I have problems with that myself sometimes. In answering your question about if I have found parallels in my own life with what M-L is saying, I would have to say no. But I’m still very much in a learning stage, and I reserve judgement on all fronts. That is, I don’t discount what she has to say, nor do I want to challenge what others say. To my way of thinking, everyone’s experience and understanding has validity. We are all on personal journeys. And hopefully we will find answers along the way. We may even find the answers are as varied as the individual roads we travel, ever changing and always drawing us on.
Well said, Rohche. It's always difficult to say someone else is "wrong" in matters like these. Much of the difference has to do with personalizations of language or rhetoric. As a writer, this has always been a concern (and sometimes a burden) for me.
I tend to approach things conflictingly. It's my nature. It's a scientific predisposition that doesn't really belong in a poet . . . but oh well.
But the way I see it, although we may all be "right" in our own way . . . this means we are just as likely to all be "wrong". I know I'm wrong a lot . . . but I can never realize I am unless I keep testing my conclusions and hypotheses. And I don't like to be wrong ;D. It's half OCD, probably, but also, being wrong is very selfish. What right do we have to be wrong and proud of it?! (-)dvhuh(-)
And I have less of a problem disagreeing with Jung and Jungian ideas, because I recognize that my disagreements are relatively minor. It's not like a democrat trying to convert a republican. I am working with an agreed upon foundation with the Jungians. Our theories, then, come down to arguments, evidence, logic (as opposed to tribalism). Without this, Jungians would have to give up their scientific leanings . . . and many do. But this leaves us with a religion or dogma . . . with which we are not allowed to disagree.
But I wouldn't say I recommend to others the negative approach I am inclined to take. It makes for a bumpy ride. But some of us are born dissatisfied. We always address the world through this dissatisfaction, for better or (usually) for worse (-).?!.(-).
Yours,
Matt
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(Dear Matt,
But the way I see it, although we may all be "right" in our own way . . . this means we are just as likely to all be "wrong". I know I'm wrong a lot . . . but I can never realize I am unless I keep testing my conclusions and hypotheses. And I don't like to be wrong ;D. It's half OCD, probably, but also, being wrong is very selfish. What right do we have to be wrong and proud of it?! (-)dvhuh(-)
I think that all the rights and wrongs depend on whether we find something's place in our own personal life story (or individuation). I have realized already that those dead-end streets where I ended up, actually taught me more about myself than all the broad, straight avenues in the world. Some people are never satisfied with what they already know (do you know any? ;D ), and until you know when you are wrong, you can never be right...
as one of my favourite Hungarian writers says in a novel: "If it is not where it is, then it is where it is not". ;D
But I think that the greatest thing we can learn from being wrong is actually a very practical thing. This is what my mother used to say when I, as a teenager, got on her nerves with highlighting her mistakes: "the question is not whether you make mistakes, everybody does, you will see. the question is what do you do when you realize you made a mistake, eh?".
Love,
Maria)
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I think that all the rights and wrongs depend on whether we find something's place in our own personal life story (or individuation). I have realized already that those dead-end streets where I ended up, actually taught me more about myself than all the broad, straight avenues in the world. Some people are never satisfied with what they already know (do you know any? ;D ), and until you know when you are wrong, you can never be right...
as one of my favourite Hungarian writers says in a novel: "If it is not where it is, then it is where it is not". ;D
But I think that the greatest thing we can learn from being wrong is actually a very practical thing. This is what my mother used to say when I, as a teenager, got on her nerves with highlighting her mistakes: "the question is not whether you make mistakes, everybody does, you will see. the question is what do you do when you realize you made a mistake, eh?".
Amen, Sister!
If I have managed to learn anything of value in life, it's because I've always had a distinct propensity for walking into dead ends, failures, and Falls. It takes a perfect combination of naivete and and bull-headedness . . . the recipe for Fools. (-)horsey(-)
Or . . . perhaps I've just never managed to learn anything of value . . . (-)au(-)
Yours,
Matt
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Or . . . perhaps I've just never managed to learn anything of value . . . (-)au(-)
you are value added already, Matt (-)monkbggrn(-)
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(Dear Roger,
I have a bit of a problem here myself as I discovered that for quite a few years now, each time I take a personality test, the results show that my four functions are almost par, and my introvert/extravert 'position' varies according to the needs of the situation. I know this is past Jungian beliefs, but then...
It is interesting that I usually get INFP, but sometimes INFJ, and although there is less than 5% difference between feeling and thinking, I never get INTP or INTJ, which defies statistical likelihood, as far as I can tell...
(Maria and I were discussing about the archetypes lately, I think her musings are relevant here...)
Sure, and I am pretty interested in everybody's opinion!
here it goes (the background info for those who don't know me is that I am a funny person who spends most of her life in the intermediate realm between sleep and being awake, yes, I have always been scolded for "daydreaming" at school. I don't know what word to choose to describe these experiences, I don't much like the word "vision" - perhaps you could suggest something else. )
So, after an inner "adventure", I was wondering what the meaning beyond my dark animus is. And I realized that he wants to be whole. He is split. And this is what I understood: the archetypes are more than patterns of the "collective unconscious". They are... how to put it. They belong to the Earth. They are...hm... This planet is alive. The archetypes are the ways it tries to communicate with us humans (description for feeling types) or interactive virtual spaces, if you like (definition for thinking types), they are in-between creatures or phenomena, alive codes, like DNA.
you may say that it is projection to suppose that the planet is alive. But this is an inner experience, not an outer fact, I would say.
And what is the definition of "alive" or "life" anyway ???
Somehow, I never felt this definiton says anything about what life means, it is only a descprition of what living beings do:
Life is a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life)
love,
Maria)
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you may say that it is projection to suppose that the planet is alive. But this is an inner experience, not an outer fact, I would say.
And what is the definition of "alive" or "life" anyway ???
Somehow, I never felt this definiton says anything about what life means, it is only a descprition of what living beings do:
Life is a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life)
It interesting that one of the largest forms of life is one we are only just starting to recognize. Namely, the ecosystem. It is not only specific species within an ecosystem that are adaptive and grow, but the ecosystem itself can grow, adapt, be born, and die.
And these living ecosystems contain "inorganic", non-living elements . . . things like geological and geographic elements and weather (with connections even to gravitational and "celestial" forces). These inorganic elements are part of the living systems. And lets not forget that inorganic mother of all life, radiation.
I don't mean to link the archetypes directly to such inorganic elements, but only to suggest that the presence and interaction of archetypes may have to be seen in a larger, systemic way in order to make biological sense of them. Or, more clearly, if archetypes are instincts (largely unique to our species), they evolved in response to environmental conditions . . . and so, in some sense, contain within them their evolutionary environment . . . and a connection to matter.
-Matt
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This is a topic I constantly touch on in doing my dream interpretations. I think that one of the areas for growth in Jungian psychology is a mapping of myth and dream to supposed masculine and feminine differences in psychological development.
I am convinced that there are such differences but they are highly plastic. However, being as a good Jungian psychology is rooted in the body and instincts, we can surmise the possibility that the physical ground of being male versus female should have an impact on the psyche. My sense in dreams is that masculine and feminine do map to something and they are not wholly interchangeable so there are consistent differences. How this applies to homosexuals or people with transgender body development...I couldn't say. And certainly the configuration of one's culture and its definition of roles and limitations for the sexes has a huge impact on how the archetypal images manifest in the individuals.
If I had to pick my candidate for how sexuality impacts psyche other than the obvious of how sexuality is an instinctual drive that over the course of millenia as allowed certain kinds of life to evolve and grow via sexual reproduction, I would say that it comes down to something along the lines of what Joseph Campbell has said, how the male versus the female body interacts with the process of sexual reproduction. The female body houses the sperm/egg coniunctio and nurtures its development into new life which then emerges from her body. The male, if a role is perceived at all (which understanding was not given with our human brains but had to be learned and retained on a cultural level), has a momentary role of providing the crucial substance. Having done so, his physical role in the process has largely ended.
Now a process of spiritual development is always, partly, a conscious one and so there is, in some way a conscious understanding involved. The conscious problem for women, from the earliest times, becomes then how to make meaning of their bodies as the vehicle of the cycles of life and death. The problem of spiritual understanding for men is how to be the meaningful contributor to that process. Even this may be a culturally biased perspective, but I hope to have reduced the difference enough to allow for the greatest plasticity such that both men and women can, at a more abstract level than pure physical experience, come to understand both sides of this polarity of masculine and feminine. IN addition there are other physical differences of which I am not exhaustively familiar, but I believe include the following:
1. the nature and function of the sexual and reproductive organs
2. the hormones and how they influence behavior
3. a variety of other more subtle differences in body shape and design
Add to this the fact that we are a highly social species with a very involved and complex abstract cultural layer of behavior and we have the canvas for the variable development of male versus female associated ideas and roles. I'm no linguist (I only know American English), but I do know that some languages designate their words as masculine versus feminine. Aside from the cultural implications this may have, it does point to a deep distinction in the human psyche between what is masculine and feminine.
Now in our modern culture where the whole birthing process can conceivably take place in the womb of science there is the notion that human reproduction can take place outside of the need for any physical contact whatsoever from fertilization through "birth", we can see that the male and female as conscious individuals need never experience the sexual or reproductive act. If such a day comes (after I die I hope), then none of these forms of physical action or interact need influence the development of the individual human psyche any longer. It would only be the inherent makeup of the physical body running along on its own genetically pre-determined course of sexual development that would remain as a physical influence on psyche.
If you want to think about aliens then you could come up with bodies of species that don't sexual reproduce (they bud) or require the participation of more than two individuals to reproduce. Or maybe conscious plants that reproduce via third party species (insect) or element (wind) and each member of the species contains both the male and female organ... You name it. What impact or difference on psyche would such physical sexuality have then?
This is all to say that understanding the physical basis of sexual differences in the human species is probably going to be an important element in understanding how sexuality works in the psyche. Our current cultural spiritualities probably reflect a varying awareness of the past traditions, future visions, physical/bodily mechanism of and non-sexual instinctual pressures (if there are any that measure up to the force of the sexual instinct) as they relate to sex and reproduction.
You know, we really need to make contact with aliens 'cause...that would be cool...and then we could observe their alien sex. (-)idea(-)
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Now a process of spiritual development is always, partly, a conscious one and so there is, in some way a conscious understanding involved. The conscious problem for women, from the earliest times, becomes then how to make meaning of their bodies as the vehicle of the cycles of life and death. The problem of spiritual understanding for men is how to be the meaningful contributor to that process. Even this may be a culturally biased perspective, but I hope to have reduced the difference enough to allow for the greatest plasticity such that both men and women can, at a more abstract level than pure physical experience, come to understand both sides of this polarity of masculine and feminine.
But, Chris, the more fundamental question (in my opinion) needs to be: How sexualized is the process of spiritual development? There are many biological processes that operate exactly the same way in both sexes (e.g., healing and bacteria/virus fighting). What are the criteria we are using to link spiritual development specifically to sex differences? Could sexuality be only tangentially related? I mean, related only in a way that sex differences have limited or no impact on the process.
We would also have to define "spiritual development". What is it? How is it biological?
Add to this the fact that we are a highly social species with a very involved and complex abstract cultural layer of behavior and we have the canvas for the variable development of male versus female associated ideas and roles. I'm no linguist (I only know American English), but I do know that some languages designate their words as masculine versus feminine. Aside from the cultural implications this may have, it does point to a deep distinction in the human psyche between what is masculine and feminine.
Perhaps, but it also brings up another deeper/more fundamental issue: how "instinctual" is human culture? One of the big "selling points" of human culture throughout the ages is that it is what "separates us from the animals". Although there are many behavioral tendencies and even rituals involved with human culture that seem to have clear parallels in instinct (and in animal behavior) . . . such as courting, mating, parenting, coming of age rites . . . some aspects of human culture are clearly not reflected in any other species on this planet (e.g., philosophy, poetry, complex material construction, science, formal education, etc.).
As you know, I see the ego as an abstract organ, as an adaptation to the information-rich environment of human culture (an "adaptation" in the sense that each stimulated the need for the other, and they arose simultaneously . . . along with the necessary bridge between the two that we call language). So much of what is human is defined by this culture (which doesn't play by the same rules as evolution). It is not hard to imagine that our concepts of gender (which have always been plastic and continue to seem increasingly plastic) could have been constructed culturally with only a limited biological basis.
All I mean to say is that the appearance of a cultural tradition does not clearly indicate an exact biological source. Even our own biology and instincts are interpreted and made meaningful to us through our egos (our culture organs).
Now in our modern culture where the whole birthing process can conceivably take place in the womb of science there is the notion that human reproduction can take place outside of the need for any physical contact whatsoever from fertilization through "birth", we can see that the male and female as conscious individuals need never experience the sexual or reproductive act. If such a day comes (after I die I hope), then none of these forms of physical action or interact need influence the development of the individual human psyche any longer. It would only be the inherent makeup of the physical body running along on its own genetically pre-determined course of sexual development that would remain as a physical influence on psyche.
But, we have evolved biologically to favor and desire sexual reproduction. Even if we could eliminate the "need" for it, it wouldn't eliminate the drive, the instinct.
We are still supposed to be hunter-gatherers evolutionarily speaking. We have existed in this incongruity with our biology for thousands of years now (maybe tens of thousands). What we know about the process of evolution tells us that in order for us to change biologically, we would have to reinforce an adaptation/mutation by sexually reproducing it and spreading it throughout the gene pool.
Or, of course, we could engage in the dystopian nightmare of genetic manipulations, eugenics and so forth. But unless we try to cultivate ourselves like we would crops or livestock or pets, it doesn't seem very probable that we will engender any more biological adaptations. Unless we have a drastic environmental change that destroys large portions of our species and favors the survival of individuals who possess certain immunities or resistances or flexibilities.
This is all to say that understanding the physical basis of sexual differences in the human species is probably going to be an important element in understanding how sexuality works in the psyche. Our current cultural spiritualities probably reflect a varying awareness of the past traditions, future visions, physical/bodily mechanism of and non-sexual instinctual pressures (if there are any that measure up to the force of the sexual instinct) as they relate to sex and reproduction.
Here I agree. When we talk about sex as a drive that fuels our need to reproduce and the ability of our species to exist and thrive, then I definitely think it would influence our psychology (and innumerable examples of this exist in our fantasies, myths, and religions). But in this reproductive drive there is a great deal of similar need in each sex, namely, the need to perpetuate one's genes (those "selfish genes" that Richard Dawkins talks about).
The evolutionary psychologists talk about the sex difference in this scenario, noting that the male's best genetic interest can be in the "love 'em and leave 'em" spreading of genetic material to as many women as possible, whereas the woman's best genetic interest is in finding a mate who will do a good job of not only producing, but raising or enabling the children. But this is complicated by the fact that two "infidelity" strategies can also be effective. A man can spread his genetic material by having sex with a woman who already has a mate (who is good at "fathering") in the hope that the husband will be deceived and raise the other man's child as his own (thus enabling him to go out and play the paramour in much the same way with other women. This can backfire if the cuckolded husband finds out about the deceit and refuses to raise the child as his own. So it's a tricky strategy to pull off. Usually monogamy is safer and easier to manage.
In much the same way, the woman can find better genetic success in choosing a husband who is a good father but a lover/mate who has "good genetic material". In this evolutionary model, both monogamy and infidelity are "selected for". And voila! the human being and its sexual predilections. It's a lot like morality (reciprocal altruism) and deceitfulness both working as effective survival strategies.
But I wouldn't be surprised if psychological/archetypal sex differences had some relationship with the model above. So, we might guess that a woman will have two common animus types: the stable husband/good father (who is dedicated to her genetic material, one might say) and the paramour (who can give her a higher level of genetic material to bear). In the latter type we see the demon lover archetype that is a common manifestation of the animus (especially shadow-animus). If we look at the classic folk song "The House Carpenter", we can see these two types of animuses contrasted. The ideal, it seems, would be an animus/mate who is both good father/partner and good genetic compliment/donor. It would not be surprising if the animus work for a woman began with the demon lover animus, but ended up with an animus that was also personally and emotionally invested in the woman and her "offspring" or New Birth.
We can also imagine a thesis-->antithesis-->synthesis process that would go like this: father animus (who was "stable" enough to raise his daughter) --> demon lover animus (who seduces the woman away from the father/daughter sexual dynamic toward a partner-other dynamic) --> good husband/twin animus (who is both her sexual other/partner and a masculine force that can help facilitate what the woman wants to bring forth out of herself or become).
In a man, we might see an anima who is loyal/stable, a good wife . . . and also an anima that he can "sneak off to" and impregnate so she can bear his secret love child. The dynamic is actually very much the same as with the woman . . so there aren't very distinct sex differences here, after all. In both scenarios the development of the animi are paralleled by the ego's own relational maturity. As you give, so shall you receive . . . in essence. Which may just as well be the "Law of the Animi". The depth and devotion of the relationality our animi give to us is a reflection of the depth and devotion we are giving to them.
-Matt
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In an independent study of Complex Adaptive Systems I did in school, I created a genetic algorithm (a cyclical computer simulation of pairing, reproducing, genetic offspring) based on the following premise: there are 16 types of Personality, those personalities that are similar and those that are extremely different are more likely to mate, others that are more ambiguously different are less likely. Offspring are a genetic combination of the personalities of their parents.
The goal with this sort of thing is to look for emergent patterns of collapse into simpler systems, diversification, etc. I didn't draw any particular conclusions from my work but it was a great hands on exercise in creating a genetic algorithm.
Since humans have so changed their environment that constraints on success to reproduce are vastly different than they were in the hunter-gatherer days, I would say that evolution of the human form is now veering sharply away from speciation (as expressed in racial differences) and towards a rich diversity of previously isolated genetic trends. I suspect that the trend is in democratic societies towards mating by psychologically based pairings rather than less ordered (genetically) socially selected (arranged marriages) and purely instinctual-unconscious (whim-lust-rape) matings. I am one to be open to the idea that Jungian typology is a road map toward understanding ego-animi pairing likelihoods although I haven't seen any research to back this up. It seems to be the claim of the Please Understand Me authors...
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I think there should be a distinction made between the feminine/masculine description of the self and the male/female sexual differences. When I was in college it was the time of the so-called women's liberation movement where woman wanted to get rid of the male and female stereotypes.
That was over 30 years ago, although more woman are recognized for their selves and for their contributions, there are still Y-chromosomes and X-chromosones. When I was in college taking mathematics and science classes there was about a 95% male versus female participation rate. While there are more females taking these classes today there is still a large gap. And there is still a large gap between female grade school teachers and male grade school teachers.
I recently attended an intro. meeting for a new software product. There approximently 40 attendees with only one woman present. At least, for this event there is still a large disparity.
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I post here a slightly revised version of a post I have made at the Unus Mundus Forums. I hope this will not be too confusing.
I am reacting to different posts from here, the Unus Mundus forums and and Kaleidoscope.
I guess I am annoyed with a few things, though I have no fight, no battle to win. My experience is enough with me.
I hope this post will not stay unanswered as many of mine for at times I really wonder about my English.
As long as one feels the wound it means that healing has not had its share. But here I am talking of a very special type of healing. I know that a time comes hopefully when such a healing happens. This healing simply cuts once for all any resistance towards the flow of life out of the Unus Mundus. Of course this has a few consequences as regards the strategic position of the Logos Ego such as for instance its complete relativization as regards the Eros Self.
By this I mean that the Logos Ego eventually becomes also a sort of self reflecting tool but no more, and even that is enough.
I have been pondering about a few things Remo Roth wrote about the anima, the feeling types and Jung’s typology.
I guess he is on the right track but still fiddling with words and concepts.
My personal reaction of long as regards all this stuff is that it simply could not work with me.
So I agree heartily with his questioning but would like to add a little bit of mine:
As far as I have been able to understand CGJ, it seems to me there is a big confusion in his theory between different CONCEPTS: inferior function, the anima/animus and the transcendent function (or is it my confusion?)
On one side Jung says that the inferior function is the link to the unconscious, on another he says that the anima/animus is also the link to the unconscious/[Logos] Self, and then he also develops his theory of the psychopumpus and the transcendent function.
All this is very shitty.
I have never had a conflicting relation with the anima. I have always felt she was driving me where I belonged to whatever the heck and the pains. Thus Remo Roth will say this is typical of a feeling type relation to the Great feminine. But I am not sure this is exactly that.
Saying as he does that anima conflicts are typical of thinking types might be true but maybe he goes a little bit too fast.
As I wrote somewhere else functions are tools, and I do not agree with Jung that it is so difficult to put the four of them at work together. So the point is not with the function orientation but with the Ego’s charge in terms of unconscious power.
True enough we are a thinking (extraverted) civilization but this does not mean that thinking is evil. Thinking types may have big difficulties to relate to the Eros World, but this is not because they are thinking types. It is because the overall collective pressure enhances extraverted thinking as the best adaptation to reality (!!!). Thus they are not helped at all in integrating the other functions. However they can. It is simply much more complicated, hard, and difficult.
So comes also the ‘anima’ CONCEPT.
The anima concept is the symbolic representation of the repressed opposite in a man. She is feminine because a man is masculine. But of course this has not much to do with concretized sex differences. It is energy stuff, terms of a bipolar unitary ‘stuff’.
I would say that the anima CONCEPT is a very rough description of the ultimate opposite in a male psyche. So of course in thinking types she very easily melts with repressed feeling, and cannot appear as such of course in a feeling type. But it does not mean that a feeling type has no anima troubles till he stays unconscious of the power drive. Many male feeling types cannot really relate to the Unus Mundus, the deep Eros, because of the power drive, and the unconscious extraverted relation to the world this one implies.
So I guess that the anima stuff is a very special dimension. The anima opposes the unconscious power drive because she is completely belongs to Eros Self in depth.
I have been shown in one of my visions that ‘archetypes’ are the ‘upper’ manifestation of the united Eros Self, sorts of knots (as a tree has knots) ‘used’ to drag consciousness away and free it from the unconscious extraverted power drive. Something of the kind also appeared in Maria’s visions. So the anima, described as an archetype by Jung, behaves that way to.
I guess that Jung’s whole conceptual apparatus is approximate because exactly of his falling into the unconsciousness of the power drive.
[...]
I would like to go a little bit further though, and what is coming will certainly have a perfume of hell for many people.
In my experience the relation with the Eros Self becomes a sort of permanent state. Nothing in my life can be done anymore without it. It means that the conscious abandon of the Logos Ego’s will leads somewhere else. From the starting point, almost experimental, of the Body Centred Imagination (see Remo Roth’s website for more details) comes a completely different way of living one’s life.
If one really goes down enough say into the belly then a new life is lived through us. This life does not belong to us; we are just its carrier/enactor in this present incarnation.
Of course it means being mad (enough). It means that our choices are not taken by our conscious will but by our conscious will-lessness.
This is bloody possible. More this is bloody right and necessary.
Roger.
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The discussion on Kaleidoscope Roger mentions can be found here: http://kaleidoscope-forum.org/talk/index.php?topic=1275.0.
It was originally an offshoot of a discussion about Jung's "Amfortas Wound" as a splintering experience that led to his type theory. This notion belongs to John Ryan Haule. His essay on the subject can be found here: http://www.jrhaule.net/wound.html.
My original response to Remo's claim that the anima and animus are "thinking type" phenomena is copied below.
-Matt
Dear Remo et al,
I feel I should offer some alternative viewpoints here, as someone who identifies as an "Intuitive-Feeling Type" by Jungian standards.
That is, I would consider myself an Intuitive-Feeling type because my first response to everything comes from intuition (I see the pattern of connectedness in a flash) immediately followed, or perhaps simultaneously accompanied by, feeling (sensing the value of a thing or of the intuited pattern, knowing its worth).
By contrast, I had to work very hard to develop my "thinking function" through my apprenticeship as a writer. So, I intuit-feel and then I think it up into language, into an idea. Sensation has come even later (but it seems to operate "pre-cognitively", much like intuition and feeling).
I recognize that as a "feeling type" my way of thinking (I'm using this term out of convenience, it isn't meant as a "typed thinking", and I don't want to engage in an argument about semantics here) is often quite unlike that of most of the Jungians I've encountered. In fact, I recognize many of the similarities between my way of thinking/knowing and Remo's.
But, in spite of this, I have to disagree with Remo's notion that the anima is a thinking type phenomenon. I am also disinclined to draw a strict distinction between the anima and the anima mundi. In my personal experience, these archetypes are absolutely the same thing . . . but looked at from two different stages in the process.
As Remo says of "feeling types", I have not had a negative experience of the anima. My first anima dream (at the age of about 18) depicted her as a mad women who pinned down my arm and injected me with a syringe filled with mercury (although, I had "signed myself up" for this procedure). After that, she was an entirely positive figure.
Drawing primarily from my own experience with the anima, I have come to the following general conclusions:
1.) She possessed a complimentary personality to my conscious personality, and was therefore much more practical (sensation type) than me. Although, she seemed to have fully developed all of her "functions". So she also possessed a more cultivated/conscious intuition and feeling than I did. She was non-intellectual, but certainly very intelligent (was able to discriminate/differentiate ideas based on their value). She seemed to possess skills and characteristics that were within my realm of conscious integration.
2.) She charged me with a powerful feeling that was both sexual and mystical, very numinous . . . and I was always able to identify her instantly in my dreams due to this profound attraction.
3.) Her main message was, "Pay attention to me, not to yourself/your ego." That is, she was always in greater need than I was, and as the anima work progressed, I stopped seeing her as a partner who was there for me, there to complete me, and started seeing her as a character/being that I needed to invest my empathy and energy in. It was I who had to give myself to her.
4.) As I committed to this giving/sacrifice, what I call the "anima work" progressed in the following way: (anima seen as) sexual/mysterious partner (desire driven) --> spiritual/mystical partner (working for the same mystical goal) --> teacher/Sophia/goddess of wisdom --> anima mundi or maternal Great Goddess.
5.) As the anima transforms into a figure very much like the Self, the individual is led toward a dual sacrifice (which is really the only "hard" thing about the anima work, as the rest flows instinctually as long as one gives oneself over to the process). On one hand, the ego's will is sacrificed for the will of the Self. Simultaneously, the anima-as-partner is sacrificed, dies, or is, as Jung phrased it "depotentiated".
I interpret the depotentiation of the anima as an acceptance by the male ego that it/he must now bear the burden of "translating the Self" and carrying the will of the Self into the World. Part of this is refusing to abide by a "providential relationship" to the unconscious or the Self, i.e., one in which we "turn inward" for sustenance or "manna". This is the sacrifice of the dependency on the "maternal unconscious". It shouldn't be confused with a "heroic defeat" of the Mother . . . that is, I think, a patriarchal fantasy largely accentuated as a compensation for fear that one is overly dependent on the ("devouring") Mother.
To make the "healthy" split from the maternal unconscious, one has to be able to acknowledge that one is always in some way dependent on it for all libido . . . but instead of usurping that libido for the ego's favorite delusions and flights and self-gratifications, one seeks to consciously direct the libido in ways that the Self approves of or desires.
I had two "detachment" or depotentiation dreams that helped me understand this. In one, I was the lover of the daughter of God (portrayed as a mafia "Godfather"). She was abducted by a strange mystical cult. I recovered her once, but she was taken again. As I continued to search for her, a booming voice (of God) assaulted me from the heavens and told me I must desist and accept that this was the way things had to be.
In the other depotentiation dream, I met my anima in an empty museum in which a "great work" I had made was cordoned off and dark (depotentiated). I went with her into a bathroom where she held me on her lap and gave me her breast to suck (she was a hermaphrodite in this dream, or as Remo says, "The queen with a phallus"). Then she told me that she was going away (or dying) and that she would never return . . . but that I knew that this had to be so. I grudgingly accepted this, and she disappeared.
In fact, it was so. I have never had another full blown anima dream since this one. Anima-like characters still show up in my dreams occasionally, but they are always minor, background characters and usually exude a quality of "old friend" I hadn't seen in many years.
I believe that this series of dreams (and the corresponding experience/consciousness) follows the alchemical process (especially as depicted in the first opus of the Rosarium Philosophorum emblems). That is, the peak of the anima experience ends at the coniunctio, after which she is depotentiated. The post-coniunctio stages (e.g., the putrefactio and purification/albedo), I believe represent the painstaking stage of "sorting out" the whole anima experience and differentiating the ego from the Self. This differentiation has to be performed in order for the ego to have a healthy, conscious relationship to the Self. Insomuch as the ego is Self-identified (or inflated), it will be usurping the Self's libido for egoic interests.
Trying to usurp the Self (or ask for it to provide for the ego) after the coniunctio is likely only to result in depression (putrefactio), as there won't be enough energy coming to the ego in the form of "manna" to sustain a totally functional life. Therefore, one must "purify" the ego (from inflated archetypal identifications) in order for the "soul" to return and for the first rebirth (depicted sometimes as the white stone or white tincture) to occur. I see this as setting up a polaric relationship between ego and Self that functions like a battery for libido.
At this point, the ego has assumed the "job" of the anima . . . as facilitator and translator of the Self.
I have seen no evidence that this process is much different in women (with the animus) as it is in men (with the anima). In fact, I think there are many indications that this entire process (which is often thought of as mystical or spiritual) is deeply biological. The animi archetype, then, is the archetype that draws the individual away from a parental unconscious on which s/he is dependent and uses sexual attraction to reconnect the individual to a partner-type relationship to the unconscious/Self.
As this archetype is severely projected (when it is activated), it would also serve as the human equivalent of the "mating instinct" that drives one toward a compatible mate. The drive toward a mate (and away from the parent or "out of the nest") is also an "individuation" in which one discovers "who one is" in regard to the parents and the various "parental institutions" in our cultures on which we had become unconsciously dependent. In other words, this anima work is, in my opinion, an "independence movement" . . . of which "consciousness" (in the Jungian sense) is a byproduct.
I don't disagree with Remo (and many others) that there is a great deal of confusion (and perhaps intellectualization) surrounding the animi in Jung and Jungian writing . . . but I do not think they can be seen as merely a thinking type phenomenon, since they seem to have a biological purpose that is equivalent in both sexes.
I also agree with Remo that Jung's conflicted portrayal of the animi is probably the product of something he didn't confront sufficiently in himself. But I have the feeling that (in trying to understand Jung's portrayal of the animi) we need to consider that we are getting two "animi stories" from Jung. "Professionally" he often depicted the animi as equivocal figures that need to be just as much resisted as embraced.
But (as Remo also notes), if one maintains such a resistant (or as Remo says, "Neoplatonic") attitude toward the anima, the anima work will not progress very far. "Courageous surrender" (to the instinctual process) is the only method of "doing" the animi work. Yet, Jung seems to have gleaned a great deal more about the anima and the Self than one can from resisting the anima (he even understands the eventual depotentiation of the anima). Therefore, I suspect that there is a severe discrepancy between what Jung wrote about the anima and what he actually experienced. It seems he gave a great deal more to this process in his private life than he was able to clearly weave into theory in his writings.
But, regardless of how true this hypothesis might be, it is clear that any discrepancy like this still indicates an unresolved conflict in Jung. My personal belief is that this remained unresolved because Jung never found an adequate way of understanding and making peace with the inflation that is a substantial byproduct of the anima work. I.e., he still felt ashamed about this inflation and could not bring its lead into the alchemical work to process it consciously. But that's a whole other topic.
Yours,
Matt
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http://www.quodlibet.net/brabazon-jung.shtml
Thank you
Lewis
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When the unconscious rises into consciousness through the individual it also immediately becomes a part of the collective consciousness that the individual has had to negotiate as he or she becomes an adult member of society. The dreams and visions of the individual go into the rituals and myths of the society from the unconscious to consciousness. Any bias in masculine or feminine is, therefore, immediate upon the contents of the unconscious entering consciousness. There are even some languages (none that I can speak myself) that have all of their words cast into two types: masculine and feminine.
So this question of the differences in feminine and masculine individuation is probably inseparable from the culture into which the unconscious contents arise. A good story always puts on some of the clothes of the society in which it is told, how else to involve the listener? No matter how far from that society that story may journey, it roots itself in the societies' collective consciousness.
If there is a non-collective difference between the sexes I suspect it will have to be tied to genetic-biological differences that impact the brain and these may be far removed from the common stereotypes we might apply through our cultural expectations. One controversial finding in brain studies is that of the difference in the timing of the lateralization of cortical functions. Regions of the cortex take on specific processing functions though of a nature still being studied and explored and not understood in any complete way by current science. These functional regions can be found mirrored on either side of the cerebral cortex which is divided symmetrically into the well-known two hemispheres.
http://dreamchimney.com/slvs/hemispheres_hi_20060828015808.jpg
From what I understand, these functional zones can start off existing in both hemispheres, but, in some cases, will evolve into existing in only one hemisphere. This lateralization then, ends up with the function being in one hemisphere and not the other. The controversial claim (controversial as it is not clearly reproducible in experiments or studies) is that in men, lateralization occurs more quickly than in women.
Now this isn't even a brain structural distinction, but more of a brain functional distinction. So really this begs the question as to whether this is genetic or environmental. But it may be a distinction that male vs female gets mapped to by the unconscious. If individuals along gender lines in a given culture tend to have personalities that somehow reflect a more strongly "lateralizing" psychology vs a less strongly "lateralizing" psychology (what ever the heck that means), then our psyches may use that to sex the various characters in our dreams including ourselves. I have had a couple of dreams where I was a woman in it so I have the sense that while sexuality is strongly determined it is not an absolute quality of the ego. I suspect that there is some very deep duality in psychic development that sex is a best match to as a metaphor for a less physical psychic quantity.
My current guess is that there is a connective-separative duality in the psyche such that female dream characters tend to align to groups (in my psyche and my culture) and male characters tend to go their own way.
One can also make the argument that traditioinally and going all the way back to primate social behaviors, that males have competed aggressively with other males while females have ordered cooperative social structures. Perhaps the simple fact of the female body as the relatively vulnerable house of developing child might tend to skew social roles especially in our primate ancestors. Modern society which abstracts many of the cultural roles and even the process of meeting one's biological, instinctual needs reduces this difference to an ever less relevant factor. But the mild residual difference may persist and, if nowhere else, still inform those mythic stories we get from the unconscious.