Syllabus and Study Guide:

An Introduction to Jungian Psychology

and Dream Analysis


compiled by

J. Gary Sparks


Outline of Topics

Jung's life, times, contributions
The dream
The experience of the unconscious
Ego
Consciousness
Shadow and projection
Anima and animus
Persona
Archetype, complex, collective and personal unconscious
Energy
Sign, symbol
Psychological types
Religion: Freud's critique
         Jung's reply: the self (including the mandala)
         the nature of religion from the point of view of psychology
Alchemy


Readable Jungiana

Fordham, Frieda. An Introduction to Jung's Psychology. Pelican. (simple and accurate)

Jacobi, Jolanda, ed. Psychological Reflections. Princeton. (selections taken from
        Jung's collected works; very readable)

Jacobi, Jolanda. The Psychology of C.G. Jung. Yale. (thorough, accurate, dry)

Jaffe, Aniela. Word and Image. Princeton. (a picture-book introduction to Jung and his work)

Johnson, Robert. Inner Work. Harper Collins. (a readable, step-by-step introductory account
        of how to work with dreams; a reliable guide presenting interpretive basics)

Jung, C.G. Analytical Psychology: Its Theory and Practice. Vintage. (lectures given at
        the Tavistock Clinic in England; a little terse but very informative)

          , McGuire, W. and Hull, R.F.C., eds. C.G. Jung Speaking. Bolligen. (interviews of Jung
         on his life and work; very pleasant reading)

          . Dream Analysis. Princeton. (a seminar given by Jung in English in which he carefully
        discusses one man's dreams over the course of a year's analysis; very readable; a good
        way to get a feel for how Jung's ideas are put to use)

          , et al. Man and His Symbols. Dell. (especially essays 1, 3, 5; written for the general
        reader; essay 1 is Jung's only "summary" of his work)

          . Memories, Dreams, Reflections. several editions; no difference. (his autobiography; a must)

          . ESSAYS IN THE COLLECTED WORKS, most readable selections--many now in paper

        On the Psychology of the Unconscious" (vol. 7)
        On Psychic Energy" (vol. 8)
        The Transcendent Function"
        A Review of the Complex Theory"
        Instinct and the Unconscious"
        The Structure of the Psyche"
        On the Nature of Dreams"
        The Stages of Life"
        Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious" (vol. 9i)
        The Concept of the Collective Unconscious"
        The Undiscovered Self" (vol. 10), also published separately by Mentor
        Psychology and Religion" (vol. 11)
        Volume 16, excluding "The Psychology of the Transference"

Sanford, John. The Invisible Partners. Paulist Press. (clear exposition of anima/us, but I feel he
        gets lost after p. 67)

Singer, Jung. Boundaries of the Soul. several editions. (personably written; an extremely
        pleasant introduction with many examples; sometimes the reader gets more of Singer than Jung)

Wehr, Gerhard. An Illustrated Biography of C.G. Jung. Shambhala. (an enjoyable
        and picturesque tour through Jung's life and work)

Woodman, Marion. Conscious Femininity. Inner City. (easily digestible interview-styled
        presentation of the practical application of Jung's work for today's world)


Basics of Dream Interpretation
 
(material not referenced is cited with the dreamer's permission)

Structure (dream of a female):

I found some strange pieces of wood, not carved but with natural, beautiful shapes. Someone said: "Neanderthal man brought them." Then I saw at a distance these Neanderthal men looking like a dark mass, but I could not see one of them distinctly. I thought I would take back from this place a piece of their wood.

Then I went on, as if on a journey by myself, and I looked down into an enormous abyss like an extinct volcano. There was water in part of it and there I expected to see more Neanderthal men. But instead I saw black water pigs that had come out of the water and were running in and out of the black volcanic rocks. (From C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols, paperback edition p. 151.)

Structure (dream of a female):

A villainous-looking man with a red face and battered look comes to me and summons me with threats to accompany him. Pretending to comply, I go with him into the street and then appeal to passers-by for help. He makes off with undignified haste and I laugh mockingly. Then, a group of people [the ones appealed to] are standing around; various messengers keep coming at intervals summoning away the men in the group. At last one man is called away to a house opposite, and then a whole crowd of people come from the place to which he has gone, carrying an injured woman, her face distorted with pain. (From Gerhard Adler, The Living Symbol, pp. 76f.)

Compensation--opposition (dream of a male):

I was in a bare room. A sort of nurse received me, and wanted me to sit at a table on which stood a bottle of fermented milk, which I was supposed to drink. I wanted to go to Dr. Jung, but the nurse told me that I was in a hospital and that Dr. Jung had no time to receive me. (From The Collected Works of C.G. Jung [hereafter CW], vol. 8, pars. 478ff.)

Compensation--support (dream of a female):

I am with several anonymous women whom I don't seem to know. We go downstairs in a strange house, and are confronted suddenly by some grotesque "ape-men" with evil faces dressed in fur with grey and black rings, with tails, horrible and leering. We are completely in their power, but suddenly I feel the only way we can save ourselves is not to panic and run or fight, but to treat these creatures with humanity as if to make them aware of their better side. So one of the ape-men comes up to me and I greet him like a dancing partner and begin to dance with him.

Later, I have been given supernatural healing powers and there is a man who is at death's door. I have a kind of quill or perhaps a bird's beak through which I blow air into his nostrils and he begins to breathe again. (From Man and His Symbols, paperback edition, p. 132.)

The Objective Level (dream of a female):

I am staying at a cottage with my mother. We are going to visit someone and I have nothing suitable to wear. Mom insists I borrow her green pantsuit. It fits though I am overweight. It is too tight at the neck. (From Marion Woodman, Addiction to Perfection, pp. 94ff.)

The Objective Level (dream of a female):

I am at a restaurant. I see my mother with a male friend. I am seated near her though she can't see me. I can't decide whether to join her or not. She is particularly hidden by a menu. She wants to be hidden. (From Addiction to Perfection, pp. 94f.)

TheObjective Level (dream of a male):

(Initial dream) My wife and I are coming back from the States. I go to see her father for help in getting a job. I can't get to him. Her father is in his office and there are people all around. I don't have the key to her father's office. I'm mad. My wife tells me to relax.

The Objective Level (dream of a male):

My wife, son and I are in... [a town where the family goes for recreation]. We have both our car and the company car. I fill the company car with diesel fuel. We then fill ours. With my wife trying to start it we have lots of trouble. Finally it goes but I become aware that I filled it with diesel also. ... [He then takes the car to a mechanic to have it looked at. The mechanic] then expresses amazement that our car ran at all on diesel fuel, but I assure him it did.


Practice, Dream Interpretation

The following dream was sent to Jung in 1933 by T.M. Davie. The dream is from a patient of Dr. Davie's. We do not know whether the dreamer is male or female. No comment was included with the dream.

Someone beside me kept asking me something about oiling some machinery. Milk was suggested as the best lubricant. Apparently I thought that oozy slime was preferable. Then, a pond was drained and amid the slime there were two extinct animals. One was a minute mastodon. I forgot what the other one was.

HINTS:

The Latin word for slime is pituita.

The pituitary gland emits slimy secretions into the third ventricle, one of the caverns through which the cerebrospinal fluid flows.

In Latin mastos means breast and odentia means teeth. The hypothalamus has nipple-like projections extending from breast-like teeth and lies at the base of the third ventricle.

Thus what is the common thread between these two observations?

What has to be drained? Why?

Note, also, the mechanical aura of the dream suggests the body, i.e., our "machine."

Dr. Davie later published Jung's interpretation and observed in his conclusion: "Dreams...do not merely provide information on the psychological situation, but may disclose the presence of organic disorder and even denote its precise location."

(From Russell Lockhart, "Cancer in Myth and Dream," Spring, 1977, pp. 1ff.)


Practice, Dream Interpretation

I was in Paris, walking down a boulevard with two women who were my age; perhaps they were friends. We passed a large department store and I persuaded my friends to go in with me.

The aisles were filled with displays of luxury items, all priced in francs, which I had difficulty translating into dollars. There was one handkerchief that had a black and white kitten finely embroidered on it. As I tell you this, it occurs to me that I was looking for a gift for my mother. That handkerchief was what I wanted, but to my great surprise, it cost sixty-five dollars.

The dreamer continued to relate: "And that reminds me, I got a letter from my mother the next day telling me they'd been adopted by a back and white kitten who showed up on their doorstep."

HINTS:

The dreamer, a female, is in her late thirties and is suffering from terminal cancer.

The problem or issue in the dream concerns some sort of purchase. To purchase something in a dream could relate to adding something to one's "personal inventory." What would this translate into psychologically?

A complication (the second part of a dream's structure) is hinted at in the figures of the two friends. What would these parts refer to in the dreamer? What is the "complication;" what does the world persuade suggest?

To Paris, the dreamer associated that she had always wanted to go there. She had been a French major in college. The dreamer is a person given to thinking rather too much. What would it mean, then, that she is shopping in Paris? What faculty of her personality would she find represented in Paris? In the effort of choosing something for her mother what potential in herself would she be developing?

The dreamer had no personal associations to cat, so we can turn to myth for help: The cat is almost always associated with feminine deities in mythology. The cat in the dream is embroidered in black and white. Thus it seems that both the light and the dark side of womanhood are represented in the handkerchief. Could we speculate on the meaning of that?

How is the problem, the purchase, further developed in this second part of the dream?

What does the high cost of the handkerchief mean?

How does this represent the dream's conclusion (the third part of a dream's structure)?

What might the appended apparent coincidence mean?

(From Jane Wheelwright, The Death of a Woman, pp. 10, 157ff.)


Practice, Dream Interpretation

In the harbor of a little place not far from my home, on the shore of a lake in the neighborhood, locomotives and freight cars are being raised from the bottom of the lake where they had been sunk in the last war. First a large cylinder like a locomotive boiler is brought up. Then an enormous, rusty freight car. The whole picture represents a horrible yet romantic sight. ... Then the bottom of the lake changes into a green meadow.

HINTS:

The dreamer is a twenty-five year old male. He tends to keep to himself a lot; he is rather scholarly; he finds life somewhat dull, monotonous.

What would a locomotive symbolize, especially for a person who finds daily life flat and without "zip"?

The meaning of the freight car is linked to that of the locomotive. How would you explain the interpretation of the freight car in light of what you have said about the locomotive?

What does the fact that the objects are being raised not far from his home suggest? What would this image suggest that the psychological task of this man is at the moment? I.e., what do you think he and his analyst are talking about presently? What is the meaning of "the last war"? (One might think of a war as a conflict.) Can you give any comment to the descriptions "horrible yet romantic"?

Why does the bottom of the lake turn into a green meadow? What is the meaning of the green meadow? In other words, can you see the relation between the first part of the dream (raising of cars) and the second part (green meadow)?

(From Jung, Man and His Symbols, p. 352.)


Practice, Dream Interpretation

I set out to begin a journey, abroad, I think. I drive up to some little station in an open car, full of parcels. I have to drive across the tracks to catch the train, and just as I am about to do so, after having lost some time talking to a friend, I see that the train is coming in and I cannot cross: the stationmaster, on the other side, holds up his hand and won't let me pass. Friends who are present say, "He might just as well have let you pass" [he is being indiscriminately authoritarian]. [At the end of the dream it is unclear whether the dreamer will make the connection or not.]

HINTS:

The dreamer, a female, is in her late forties.

The image of the journey abroad is a frequent one in dreams, particularly at the beginning of an analysis--this is, in fact, the dreamer's first dream in analysis. What would it mean to go on a journey into a strange and new land?

Note that the journey, or catching the train, is the "problem" statement of the dream.

The parcels would be the things she wants to take along on the journey. But such a car load would be an impediment. She wants to take a foreign journey, but it might be that she wants all the "comforts of home." What would this suggest about her attitude to the journey? What would this mean practically?

Note that the parcels would constitute a "complication" in the dream, the second stage in a dream's structure. How do they complicate the problem?

The dream says after she lost some time talking to a friend, the stationmaster held her up from crossing the tracks. Sometimes a dream expresses a causal sequence in terms of a time sequence; the event which precedes a given element in a dream can be understood as causing it. How does this notion help us unravel this part of the dream? What attitude of the dreamer would be expressed in her talking to her friend? Does this tally with the conclusion reached about the parcels?

How can we then evaluate the reaction of the stationmaster? What is his reaction a personification of in the dreamer herself? How would she likely experience this reaction in terms of her daily life?

What does the unclear conclusion signify?

(From Gerhard Adler, The Living Symbol, pp. 70ff.)


Shadow Dreams

Of a male:

Coming home I find that my apartment is occupied by a fascist, who, with his militia, has turned everything upside down. He has arrested everybody in the house and put them in chains. The place is a shambles.*

Of a male:

Somebody wanted to kill me with an apple. Then I saw that a neighbor of mine, whom I do not regard very highly, had managed to turn a rocky, arid plot of land, which I considered quite useless, into a beautiful garden.*

Of a male:

I was at last to meet my long-missing brother for whom I had always longed. From a distance he appeared as a fine, sensitive, artistic figure. But as he came closer I recoiled in terror and disgust, for I could then see that he was effeminate, weak, perhaps even homosexual. With pain and regret I withdrew and avoided meeting him.*

Of a male:

I dream that Bill and I have a parting. It is a loss.



I am in the front seat with Dave. My family is in the back of the car. We are on an interstate highway. We take a turn and descend into a really shabby ghetto area. Three young black youths see us. Two of them, upon seeing us, get guns. I am frightened. We are sitting at a stop sign. I tell Dave to "floor" it, and run them over. I awaken before anything happens.



It is as if I am watching a documentary film about the Nazi camps. The camera shows a barracks and it is efficiently modeled after a rail car. Then my view is from the water. I see great waves rolling toward the barracks building.

Then I am in the building. The Nazi is being held by an American. It is his turn for revenge. He takes a swipe at the Nazi's neck with a razor. I am afraid the man's head will come off. Instead he [the Nazi] reaches up and pulls his own skin completely from his head.

Of a male:

My wife and I are on a trip, or maybe we are moving. We are taking a break from traveling and have stopped at a restaurant. In the restaurant I think about our large truck full of our belongings parked just outside but out of our sight. I think that it would be bad if something happened to it. (Apparently I don't trust the neighborhood.)

As we walk back outside to the parking area I see our truck first; it has been broken into, stripped of most contents, and then burned. I think I must still be imagining this, but I'm not, it is a big loss. I turn to tell my wife what has happened.

Of a female:

I was sitting in a car with a pleasure-loving and irresponsible female friend. I did not know who was driving the car but I found myself being pursued by a truck driven by a murderer who was determined to run us down. The only way I could save myself was to push the driver of my car aside and take the wheel into my own hands; then I would be able to escape.*

Of a female:

I am in a room where mirrors are brightly lit so that I can see to put on my make-up. I reach into my makeup kit and put my hands on the foundation which is always applied first. As I open the lid of the foundation, I discover that it is black in color and if I apply this to my face, I will be black. This does not seem unusual, however.

Of a female:

I am in a bathtub with Mary. I have on my bathing suit and a tee-shirt over that. We fill the tub with water; I think the people leave from the party. I begin to take my clothes off so I can bathe. Mary starts to wring them out. I hope they're clean, since somebody else is wringing them out.



There is a labyrinth of tunnels in this house. (I think it is the house I lived in with my husband prior to our separation.) We dig up this mummy, (me and unknown others), but she moves. I stared at the form all wrapped up, and its knee came up. "She is alive," I say. I think her name is Connie.

We take her out to dinner and I notice on the table three coins. They are all very small. We had to search and search for this mummy, plus consult maps.



*From Edward Whitmont, The Symbolic Quest, pp. 161-67; 258.


"Dear Helga"

Dear Helga,

I am a happily married woman, a mother of three beautiful children, the youngest of which is a senior in high school. I love my husband dearly.

Last night my husband brought a business colleague home for dinner. After the meal, as I had collected the dishes and was carrying them into the kitchen, a thought flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightening. I realized I had been fascinated by my husband's colleague and this was the thought which came upon me: "What would it be like to have a child by this man?"

When this happened I dropped the dishes I was carrying, I made a complete fool of myself and remained flustered the remainder of the evening.

Help! What is wrong with me?

Sincerely,

Frau X.   

How would you respond to this letter?

What is the meaning of this event for Frau X.?

How would you go about helping her to understand this? What specifically would you say to or ask her?

(This letter was taken from an European newspaper, from a column which would be their equivalent of our Ann Landers columns.)


Anima/us Dreams

Of a male:

Cindy is standing next to me. She is attracted to me. She puts my head next to her breast. She kisses me on the mouth, softly, seductively, innocently. She is virginal.

Her little brother outlines a game he wants my son to play with him. In the game the boys point their penises at each other in play.



A[n unknown] woman gave me a flat cardboard box. It was a two piece box with something resembling a checkerboard pattern on the top. Inside was a plastic bag with a single bug in it. She told me that the bug was a natural predator of flees and small mites.

It seemed to be a useful gift and I wanted to put the bug in the closet of the hotel room where we were staying. I took it back into the area and let it go. It tried to fly away but I got it back into the closet and shut the door. As soon as I did this the bug turned into a pretty little bird. It sang a nice song.

Of a male:

I'm on vacation, on the road by myself.

I'm in a town with college-age students. I see Andie MacDowel, a beautiful brunette. I try to meet her. I talk with her and ultimately we kiss. I'm infatuated. She plays the piano. I see her at art class. I'm painting a mannequin of a man's torso and upper thighs. She commends the work. I fess up that it's not original but a mannequin. [The dream goes on from here and ends with the dreamer pondering his relationship with his wife.]

Of a male:

I am in an old house--now a University annex for office space. Dr. A. used it along with us (graduate students?). And when the last person left for the evening, I was the only one left there. Then the desk I was sitting in began to move with the chair I was sitting in and it went around the room with me in it. I was terrified. But I remembered that Gary said that in times such as these, the spirit may want to speak which is what I said, "the spirit may want to speak" and immediately I stopped moving and "it" (the spirit, I assume) made a flashing of light in a lamp fixture on the wall.

Of a male:

A fairly cute young woman is trying to find a way to exchange my foreign currency for US dollars. She's short, maybe freckled and short hair, I think red. She seems quite young, maybe 19 or 20, also seems young--independent of her chronological age. She tries very hard, and is very apologetic when she is unable to exchange the currency. I tell her: thanks anyway, I appreciate her effort and not to worry. [Then follows a graphic scene in which the dreamer is attracted to this woman "as a 'cute young thing,' but not as a mature woman." They begin petting, and the dreamer discovers that the young woman has a penis instead of a vagina so that no consummation takes place.]

Of a female:

I am in a large area in our church where Bill is in front of a large group with a portable microphone. He is speaking to the group... They are processing Rev. X's sermons and asking questions of Bill about the sermons. I walk into the room carrying a two year old boy child. I ... observe what is going on, nod my hello to Bill, he glances my way and goes on with his responsibility. I walk out of the room happily carrying the boy child. He is growing, getting heavier, and I think about putting him down so he can walk.

Of a female:

I encounter an old female friend (very pleased to see her again). The view of her house facade and interior comes into focus. I notice the ... feminine touches she has used. It is early Italianate, a facade that reflects the interior spaces... He lover had to go back into the pool or sea of water and had to retrieve something, a trophy or prize. Two underwater creatures attack him and try to get away with the article. However, he struggles and manages to surface with it and he is acclaimed by us for his success. A reward or recognition takes place. I then seem to go back in a flashback to her earlier period where she lived alone... I examined her apartment and started to use the bathroom; as I sat down on the toilet I notice urine all over the seat and on the floor. It was so messy that I could hardly use the facilities...

Of a female:

There is a young male strapped to a gurney. He is wrapped in a blanket to further his confinement. He is going to be executed. I am not as upset about this as I might be because I know there is going to be a miracle and he will live... I let him know that I am praying for him. He must just focus on the prayer. I begin to pray.

In the next scene I tell a person (that is probably some kind of health-care provider) that I can't breathe very well but the problem seems to be a tight bra. The woman unfastens my bra per my request. Then I am going to wear a hospital gown or robe over my clothing, since I no longer have on my underwear. I say something about: "Good, I feel more free now."

Of a female:

I kept a Swiss boy waiting a long time whilst I was dressing and I was not quite dressed when I went into the next room where he was waiting. I say, "Now I will play the tune which I have learned." The boy says, "No, you have kept me waiting so long that now you will learn what I have to teach."
(From Jung, Vision Seminars, I, pp. 15ff.)

Of a female:

I am visiting a college community. There are coffee houses, gift stores, book stores. I am in a coffee shop and a man comes over to talk to me. He thinks I am someone else, when I tell him he has mistaken me for another person, he becomes very angry and hostile. [The dreamer then tells him off, finds a sympathetic woman with whom she discusses her future professional plans, and at the end of the dream discovers that a certain aunt's body has been exhumed from the cemetery.]


Persona Dreams

Of a female:

I am standing in a vast hall. It is very cold and I am worried lest I had come to the wrong place. I became frightened and turned to run away, but I could not get away. Before me was a large mirror in which I could see myself in fancy dress. I was wearing black silk pajamas. I wanted to take off the pajamas, not from myself, but from my reflection in the mirror. I tore off one jacket after another and there seemed to be no end to it all, for on removing one another was revealed. (From Whitmont, The Symbolic Quest, p. 157.)

Of a female:

I visit my analyst and look into the mirror he held up for me, but to my horror there is no reflection. (From Irene de Castillejo, Knowing Woman, p. 69.)

Of a female:

I am in a TV soap opera, and I am on a bed with a male actor. We are having an illicit affair in the story, so we are pressed for time at this particular encounter. In the story we have not yet concretized our erotic feelings for each other.

We both have all of our clothes on, and we are rolling on top of the bed. [The dream continues with descriptions of their encounter; it is very exciting to the dreamer but no consummation takes place.]

Of a male:

Johnny Carson is leaving the show. I'm a comedian. He has helped me in my career. I hug him and thank him. He hugs back. I let go and he looks older as he leaves to his retirement.

[The dreamer then finds himself "a guest in a house with a mean blonde woman." She has no humane feelings. The dream ends with the two of them in a conflicted relationship.]



I'm at the beach. A cute young woman with long, blonde hair, walks up to a male [movie] star. She seductively tells him that she likes him. They start kissing and lie on the beach. [The two are joined by another male; then the dreamer has his cholesterol checked and it is too high; the dream ends with a pushy athlete on his way to getting married.]


Archetypes

(From Anthony Stevens, Archetypes, pp. 1 - 5, concerning the Metera Babies' Centre outside of Athens.)

"The soulless anonymity of traditional institutions was avoided by splitting up the community of nurses and children into small, relatively autonomous groups, each centered on one of eight separate pavilions. Each pavilion contained twelve children. Their cots were arranged in four compartments, which were divided from one another by partitions about three feet high. To each compartment was allocated one of the four graduate nurses who lived in the pavilion with the children...and she was expected to devote herself exclusively to the three children in her compartment...

But in practice "nurses and children became interchangeable to an extraordinary degree, so that during the course of a few hours...each nurse came into contact with practically every child in the pavilion.

"I decided to keep a careful check on what was happening, and found that in one month every child at the Metera, irrespective of the pavilion he was in, had been fed, on the average, by fifteen different nurses, put to bed in the evening by ten nurses, and lifted again in the morning by ten different nurses.

It has been accepted "that infant attachment behavior, like practically all other forms of human behaviour, was learned through a form of 'operant conditioning' associated with natural rewards and punishments, the caretaker's presence and nurturant behaviour being experienced as rewarding, and her absence or lack of maternal attention being experienced as punishing.

Thus psychology held, "with Freud's eminent daughter, Anna, that a human child learns to display attachment to his mother because she is his primary source of oral satisfaction: 'When its powers of perception permit the child to form a conception of the person through whose agency it is fed,' she wrote (1946), 'its love is transferred to the provider of the food.'

If this were true "a Metera child would become attached to all the nurses who regularly cared for him. Moreover, the nurses to whom a child attached himself would necessarily be arranged in a hierarchy of preference, the nurses at the top of the hierarchy being those who fed him the most.

"Quickly I chose twenty-four unattached children, aged three months and above, and began recording their interactions with the nurses. Within six months I had collected enough data to establish beyond doubt that far from becoming attached to all their nurses, three-quarters of the children became specifically attached to one nurse, who was preferred way above all the rest.

"Most children established their preference by eight or nine months. ... Six of the children did not become specifically attached, it is true, but this is probably because most of them left the Metera for adoption before they reached the age at which specific attachment becomes obvious.

"No less than a third of the children became attached to nurses who had done little or nothing in the way of routine caretaking of the child before the attachment bond had been formed. Thereafter, the nurse invariably did a lot more for the child--usually because she came to reciprocate the attachment, but also because the child would often refuse to be tended by any other nurse when 'his' nurse was in the pavilion."


Jung on Archetypes

"It is in my view a great mistake to suppose that the psyche of a new-born child is a tabula rasa in the sense that there is absolutely nothing in it. In so far as the child is born with a differentiated brain that is predetermined by heredity and therefore individualized, it meets sensory stimuli coming from outside not with any aptitudes, but with specific ones, and this necessarily results in a particular, individual choice and pattern of apperception. These aptitudes can be shown to be inherited instincts and preformed patterns, the latter being the a priori and formal conditions of apperception that are based on instinct. ... They are the archetypes, which direct all fantasy activity into its appointed paths and in this way produce ... astonishing mythological parallels [in dreams and fantasies]. It is not... a question of inherited ideas but of inherited possibilities of ideas."1

[The archetypes]..."are eternally inherited forms and ideas which have at first no specific content. Their specific content only appears in the course of the individual's life when personal experience is taken up in precisely these forms."2 (italics mine)

"Archetypes are like riverbeds which dry up when the water deserts them, but which it can find again at any time. An archetype is like an old watercourse along which the water of life has flowed for centuries, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it has flowed in this channel the more likely it is that sooner or later the water will return to its old bed."3

"Archetypes are, by definition, factors and motifs that arrange the psychic elements into certain images characterized as archetypal, but in such a way that they can be recognized only from the effects the produce. They exist preconsciously, and presumably they form the structural dominants of the psyche in general. They may be compared to the invisible presence of the crystal lattice in a saturated solution. As a priori conditioning factors they represent a special, psychological instance of the biological 'pattern of behaviour,' which gives all living organisms their specific qualities."4



1From "Concerning the Archetypes, with Special Reference to the Anima Concept," CW 9i, par. 136. I took this and the following quotes from an anthology edited by Jolanda Jacobi and R.F.C. Hull, Psychological Reflections, pp. 38-40.

2From "Psychological Commentary to 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead,'" CW 11, par. 845.

3From "Wotan," CW 10, par. 395.

4From "Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity," CW 11, par. 222n.


Jung on Complexes

"What then, scientifically speaking, is a 'feeling-toned complex'? It is the image of a certain psychic situation which is strongly accentuated emotionally and is, moreover, incompatible with the habitual attitude of consciousness. This image has a powerful inner coherence, it has its own wholeness and, in addition, a relatively high degree of autonomy, so that it is subject to the control of the conscious mind to only a limited extent, and therefore behaves like an animated foreign body in the sphere of consciousness. The complex can usually be suppressed with an effort of will, but not argued out of existence, and at the first suitable opportunity it reappears in all its original strength." (From Jung, CW 8, par. 201.)

"Today we can take it as moderately certain that complexes are in fact 'splinter psyches.' The aetiology of their origin is frequently a so-called trauma, an emotional shock or some such thing, that splits off a bit of the psyche. Certainly one of the commonest causes is a moral conflict, which ultimately derives from the apparent impossibility of affirming the whole of one's nature. This impossibility presupposes a direct split, no matter whether the conscious mind is aware of it or not. As a rule there is a marked unconsciousness of any complexes, and this naturally guarantees them all the more freedom of action." (Ibid., par. 204.)

"Where the realm of complexes begins the freedom of the ego comes to an end, for complexes are psychic agencies whose deepest nature is still unfathomed." (Ibid., par. 218.)

"I am therefore inclined to think that autonomous complexes are among the normal phenomena of life and that they make up the structure of the unconscious psyche." (Ibid., par. 218.)

"This secondary consciousness represents a personality-component which has not been separated from ego-consciousness by mere accident, but which owes its separation to definite causes. Such a dissociation has two distinct aspects: in the one case, there is an original conscious content that became subliminal because it was repressed on account of its incompatible nature: in the other case, the secondary subject consists essentially in a process that never entered consciousness at all because no possibilities exist there of apperceiving it. That is to say, ego-consciousness cannot accept it for lack of understanding, and in consequence it remains for the most part subliminal, although, from the energy point of view, it is quite capable of becoming conscious. It owes its existence not to repression, but to subliminal processes that were never themselves conscious." (Ibid., par. 366.)


The Self

"There is a part of most of us that has not been recognized. We have been told how to think; we have been told how to perform. ... And so the authentic being has not been recognized. And so most people feel that at some point they were abandoned. And they were, by their own parents. But their own parents were probably abandoned by their parents too. And that tragedy is the only reality they knew. So they learned to put on a performance, and they expect their kids to put on a performance. Because if you haven't got performance and you don't know your authentic person, what do you do? Escape into an addiction, or a suicide or whatever. If you experience yourself as nobody worth looking at, ... if [your parents] told you that isn't what you think, this is what you think ..., if you cannot trust your own authenticity, then you were abandoned. And you have to go back and find that little child that was abandoned... And you have to be mother and father to your own little lost child. Nobody out there is responsible. You can't look to a man to love you and take care of your abandoned child. You'll suck him dry. And you can't look to any other person to take care of you, if you are a mature individual. You have to mother and father yourself. ... Eventually she [the abandoned child] gets stronger and stronger and more and more beautiful. And then you want to let her play, you want to let her sing and dance and do her dreams..."

"If we are going to address the patriarchal system then we have to address those power issues inside ourselves. There is no sense in blaming someone out there. ... We have been treated with power and we will treat others as we have been treated. And it takes great courage to face the power in ourselves. But any addict is the victim of power...over himself. Now it swings back and forth; one minute he is powerless; and the next minute he is using power. But it just swings from one side to the other. There is no strong voice in the middle...that says my life is wort something, my soul is worth something, I am an authentic person, these are my values, and this is what I stand for, and I will stand to my own truth. That voice is not there."

(From Marion Woodman, Dreams: Language of the Soul, Sounds True audio tape: W131, ISBN 1-56455-052-4; tape 2, side B.)

"[Addicts] can't trust reality. The ground of reality--this ability to rely on their perception of what is real--has been pulled out from under them, and there is a legitimate absence of trust at the core of their being. So they're constantly struggling to appropriate or simulate reality..." (From Marion Woodman, Conscious Femininity, p. 70.)

(italics mine)

Self Dreams

Jung's dream as a twenty year-old student:

He dreamt that he was walking in a wood. Gradually this grew more and more lonely and wild, and finally he realized that he was in a primeval forest. The trees were so high and the foliage so thick that it was almost dark on the ground. All trace of a path had long since disappeared, but, driven on by a vague sense of expectation and curiosity, he pressed forward and soon came to a circular pool, measuring ten to twelve feet across. It was a spring, and the crystal-clear water looked almost black in the dark shadows of the trees. In the middle of the pool there floated a pearly organism, about eighteen inches in diameter, that emitted a faint light. It was a jelly-fish. (From CW 9ii, par. 236.)

Of a male; both dreams occurred the same night, the first is abridged:

The dream is in a large house where there is a group of people, both men and women, gathered in the living room, sitting around the room on chairs and sofas. It is a discussion group, where people alternatively have a turn to talk about their feelings. It is my turn to speak, and I tell them that I feel like I have spent the whole day in suspended animation, that I have a feeling of total lethargy and am unable to do anything. I have just wandered from room to room, thinking of doing something, then having another thought come to mind which cancels the first thought. This process repeats over and over with the end result that I do nothing and am stuck in my inability to get started. ...



There is a preparation for a film to be made. There is a disc which has pictures of all the characters to be in the film on it, and it is rotating in a counterclockwise direction. (The disc is like one of those viewmaster discs.) Then I realize that all the characters are being played by me, there are a dozen or more, both men and women. My image is being transformed into each character.

I then have a vision of my face being like a mask and being divided down the middle. On one half I am a man and on the other half I am a woman. Viewed from the side there is only one character presented, but from head on there is a dual person.

Of a female:

I dreamed I was taking water samples from deep pools, like wells. I had a special set of tools to use, a vial on a string with which to get the sample. I think my husband was there too. And at one point he told me to be sure to take a sample from the middle pool or to get the water from the middle. After I took the sample, I poured it into a cup.

Of a male:

My job is to take a cup of wine to the alter. An old woman gives "matter of fact" instruction. The route is one I haven't traveled before. I am afraid of the task.

Of a female (both dreams are abridged):

[I am on a trip and come to land that] has been purchased by a group of women and men who want a place of safety, solitude, where they can be in harmony with the earth--our Mother.

This [group of] women and men are Goddess worshipers.

When we stop the car we are at a lake. There are stone carvings of men and women dancing in a circle carved on the floor (it looks like Matisse's Rite of Spring). My guide invites me for a swim--we take off our clothes; other people are already swimming in the lake--everyone is naked.

As I walk barefooted across the stone-carvings I realize the dancers are all linked together in a circle because they are making love--but it also feels like snakes, joined together. I close my eyes and allow my feet to caress these dancers/lovers. Then I jump into the water. I allow myself to go deeper and deeper until my feet touch the silt on the bottom of the lake bed--I let my toes and feet feel the mud. Only then can I rise to the surface.

When we get out of the lake everyone is naked--but I don't feel ashamed or embarrassed--it feels good.

There is a phone call about a car accident--my guide directs me to an apple orchard--it is night--the moon is waxing--nearly full but not quite.

The car accident is serious. But there are folks here who are healers. They know how to work with the natural healing processes of the body. We walk though the apple orchard in the moonlight...



I am in a cabin in the deep woods. There are several rooms in this cabin. I walk into a large group discussion (about 10 people)--Gary is there--the group is talking about dreams. Actually sharing dreams with each other. I am thinking about the [above locale] when Gary asks me--"Mary, why do you think the Goddess is filling your dreams so deeply now?"

I say I think that this is occurring because I am re-learning a process of seeing life from the inside out. Right now I am really concentrating on that inner guidance. I think the Goddess and her world of ecstasy is here to help me.

Of a male (abridged):

Some boys come into a restaurant wearing insignia on their shirts which they tell me, when I inquire, represent the military academy they attend. An older white haired man who reminds me of Louie is trying to get our or my attention, referring to psychic concentric spheres or layers. "He is right about that," I tell others I'm seated with (the boys plus perhaps some women now), "I just can't figure out whether God is the outermost or innermost sphere." ...

Of a male:

I am in my boyhood bedroom at Mom and Dad's house. It is night and I think someone must be out in the back yard looking up at me. I am afraid to have them see my body, so I pull the curtains in front of me except for my face.

I wish for light in the back yard.

Of a female:

I am on a road that goes into a large city. I can see the Vatican in the distance and that is where I would like to go. As I am driving into town, I come to a place where I usually drive over a large body of water, but now I am on foot and I come to a place where I slide down a hill to the water. In order to cross the water, I must walk across a very narrow piece of land. As I cross it, I must balance myself on the land so as not to fall into the water. As I near the stepping off place on the other side of the narrow strip of land, I look in the water and I see two homeless men who are sleeping under the water. They are alive but very cold. I turn around and go back the way I came. The hill that I slid down, I must now climb up, on a set of stairs. There is a lady in front of me, and she is having a most difficult time maneuvering the stairs. I must help her balance herself from time to time so that she does not fall. We climb the stair together (me behind her) and we stop on the platform at the top of the stairs.


A Summary of Faust

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
b. 1749, d. 1832


PART I. (1808)

Faust, a scholar in despair, makes a pact with the devil for the renewal of his life. The devil, Mephistopheles, will make him happy, and Faust agrees to relinquish his soul to the devil, if Faust ever says to a moment in life, "stay, thou art so fair." With the help of Mephistopheles he seduces the young and lovely Gretchen but the relationship is only ultimately destructive. Gretchen inadvertently kills her mother with an overdose of a sleeping draught given to put her mother into a deep sleep during one of Faust's nocturnal visits to the girl's home. Later Faust kills Gretchen's brother in a fight as the brother sentried himself outside Gretchen's door in defense of her now sullied reputation. Gretchen is eventually imprisoned and goes insane.

PART II. (1832)

Mephistopheles appears at the Emperor's court and advises on the government's financial crisis. He tells that there is gold buried beneath the land and paper money could be issued on this hidden capital. The Emperor then invites all to join in the celebration of the pre-Lenten Carnival celebrations. During the festival Plutus, the god of wealth, rides a carriage pulled by four horses and driven by a Boy Charioteer. They scatter jewels and coins, but only as an illusion that frustrates the greed so aroused. The scene ends in flames, "Our woods are flaming 'gainst the sky."

The Emperor wants Faust to invoke the spirits of Paris and Helen of Troy. Mephistopheles sends Faust into the earth to visit the Eternal Mothers and gives him a key. Faust is successful in bringing back a tripod which gives him the power to invoke Paris and Helen. Faust conjures the couple for the Emperor; then Faust is captivated by Helen's beauty, reaches for her, but is knocked down, unconscious, by a peal of thunder.

While Faust is unconscious Wagner works with a retort and produces a homunculus [= little man; in many accounts the goal of alchemy was to produce a homunculus out of some base material]. The homunculus suggests that Faust be taken to classical Greece--to where he is then transported and from where he continues to long for Helen. In related action Homunculus wishes to become human, then longs for Galatea [a sea goddess; also the name of Pygmalion's amorous statue], and eventually smashes himself against her throne and disappears in flames.

Next Mephistopheles finds Helen in Sparta after the Trojan war. He transports her to Faust's medieval castle. They are pursued by Menelaus and flee to Arcadia. A son, Euphorion, is born to them but soon, spurred on by the passion of chase, tries to reach the highest vantage point from which to survey the world. He hurls himself from the cliff and perishes. Helen then vanishes.

Faust longs for Helen, and Mephistopheles offers Faust another project to glorify his life: the reclaiming of some land from the sea. After helping the Emperor win a military battle, Faust is given a strip of marshy coastline which he wishes to reclaim from the sea. He begins the project. In the process Philemon and Baucis [the old couple hospitable to Zeus and Hermes traveling incognito], who live along this strip, are killed by Faust's workers.

The drama ends with Faust thinking of the happiness of the people who will one day live on this engineered land. He finally does say, "stay, thou are so fair." But since he is thinking of a future time Mephistopheles cannot claim his soul and has, in effect, lost his wager with Faust.