Modern Man In Search Of A Soul
Author: C.G. Jung
I have been delaying writing about this book for some time as I cannot help but think that any attempt I make to characterize this book will be lacking. This book was very challenging and complex given its depth and some of the more technical features of the book. For example, the book is a collection of essays regarding various topics pertaining to the era in which it was written and translated into English. Translation of complex topics into different languages is a monumental task in itself and is an impressive accomplishment in my view. A wide array of topics is covered including the finer points of difference between Freud’s view of the unconscious and Jung’s view of the unconscious. Something that struck me as particularly eerie when reading this book was the fact that it was published in 1933. The reason I found this eerie is because much of the book is a discussion of a palpable restlessness and hopelessness whose spirits seemed to be characterizing the masses and bubbling up in the collective conscious. It is frightening that Karl Jung was able to tap into to this force slithering beneath the surface and give expression to it less than a decade before the eruption of World War II. As disturbing as the all-encompassing destructiveness of WWII is it is important to gain insight into what preceded such an eruption of Man’s worst capacities. It is important as one can learn to gauge the physic aura or zeitgeist of a particular time and place so as to intuit how it may manifest down the road. This is purely a pragmatic point of view for evaluating the collective unconscious as a way to predict future calamity and hopefully correct course.
Much of the opening of the book discusses the significance of dreams and how Jung has used dream analysis clinically to address his patient’s distress. I found his discussions on dreams to be particularly fascinating. It is worthwhile wondering where dreams come from and what they give expression to? Anyone who has had a particularly vivid dream cannot help but admit the dream’s capacity to make one feel as if there are aspects of themselves that are opaque. I found his discussion of collective symbols that appear in dreams as emanating from some primordial source to be quite fascinating. He proposes that dreams can be likened to encountering an unknown language. He supposes that dreams are not spontaneous flurries of physic activity whose contents are the day’s events. Rather they have an inherent meaning or purpose but are presented to us in a language that we do not understand. The language of dreams are symbols. Often those symbols are peculiar and unique to an individual.
Reading this book made me grateful that there are minds in this world which have access to deep thoughts that would certainly never cross my mind. Indeed, I am even more grateful that individuals would take the time to try to make those thoughts accessible to people who are not versed in the intricacies of their areas of interest and study. A useful foundation that was established in this book was Jung’s attempt to distinguish the characteristics of the conscious versus the unconscious. He states that the, “conscious is intensive and concentrated, it is transient and is directed upon the immediate present and the immediate field of attention; moreover, it has access only to material that represents one individual’s experience stretching over a few decades. Matters stand very differently with the unconscious. It is not concentrated and intensive, but shades off into obscurity; it is highly extensive and can juxtapose the most heterogenous elements in the most paradoxical ways.” I thought this was a very apt description for those forces that work within us beneath the surface of our awareness.
One of the most impressive elements of this book was Jung’s ability to give opposing viewpoints their due diligence and be nuanced in finding value in opposing paradigms. For example, in his discussion of the tension between the naturalistic view of the world and the spiritual view of the world he characterizes the value of both when treating his patients. He states, “If I explain only naturalistic values, and explain everything in physical terms, I shall depreciate, hinder or even destroy the spiritual development of my patients. And if I hold exclusively to a spiritual interpretation, then I shall misunderstand and do violence to the natural man in his right to existence as a physical being.”
Jung puts forth the proposition that one should entertain the possibility that psychic phenomena are real in the same way that physical phenomena are real. That is to say they are actual occurrences even though their contents may differ. To illustrate this point he presents an interesting sequence of reasoning. He states, “If a fire burns me I do not question the reality of the fire, whereas if I am beset by the fear that a ghost will appear, I take refuge behind the thought that it is only an illusion. But just as the fire is the physic image of a physical process whose nature is unknown so my fear of the ghost is a physic image from a mental source; it is just as real as the fire, for my fear is a real as the pain caused by the fire.” It is indeed worthwhile playing with idea of restructuring one’s paradigm of reality to take into consideration the possibility that physic, mental or spiritual happenings manifest in the world and by using a purely naturalistic lens we may casually dismiss a large part of the human experience.
Much of this book seems to be an exposition imploring mankind to not dismiss the unconscious psyche. In it there is inevitably darkness but there is also much light, goodness, mystery, and material that one can use to heal themselves. As a rabbi once told me if you begin to dig deep you are inevitably going to find mud because there is mud. However, if you keep digging you will also find gold. A stark warning is offered for those who dismiss the powerful unconscious forces that lurk beneath and can come to manifest in the world. The book proposes that we ought to have a dialogue with those unexplored aspects of who we are. There is so much in this book that I did not understand given my limited capacity to think and perceive. If I was able to accurately perceive a small percentage of what Jung was trying to relay, I will have considered my reading of his book a success. I am always filled with awe at the idea that reading a book allows one to have a dialogue with an individual whom they may have never met. I thank Karl Jung for writing so that I could attempt to have a dialogue with his thoughts.