The Spiritual Method
complementation as spiritual
writing and painting
Mats Winther
http://www.two-paths.com/spiritualmethod.htm
Abstract : Spiritual techniques building on the psychological principle of
unconscious integration, such as active imagination, are criticized. A
one-sided flow into conscious light of unconscious content leads to
stagnation and alienation from the inner Self. Light is shed on the
current regress of Jungian psychology into esotericism.
Complementation is defined as the complementary opposite of
integration. It is characterized by a toning down of dominant
consciousness. A spiritual technique that employs complementation is
presented. Although it deviates from historical methods, it is
comparable to the medieval contemplation of inner images. While
retaining stillness and avoiding active involvement with fantasy
material, focus of inner feeling and sensation is sought. The article
discusses methods of dream interpretation.
Keywords : spiritual technique, complementation, spiritual writing,
integration, contemplation, active imagination, esoterism, Self, dreams,
C. G. Jung.
Introduction
Modern spiritual techniques, such as active imagination, [1] as well as esoteric
techniques employed in Neo-Paganism and New Age, generally belong to an
integrative paradigm according to which the unconscious, or the divine, is
experienced and assimilated. [2] The divine, whether it is viewed as unconscious
archetype or divine spirit, is regarded as a benefaction that is grasped and
integrated with personality. The sacrament of “eating the deity” is ubiquitous in
comparative history of religion. On the surface, it seems to rhyme with mystical
schools of ‘via positiva’ and cataphatic theology. [3] Arguably, this is a
misconception since the latter is better defined as a companion discipline to
apophatic theology — the path of worldly denial. [4]
An equally common notion is that of giving sacrifice to the deity, that is, to replenish
the divine world as reimbursement for the enormous sacrifice made by the gods in
providing for humanity. The equivalent of this, in mystical theology, is the ‘via
negativa’ following the apophatic discourse. The contemplative makes sacrifice of
worldly passions and stops wasting time on trifles. Thus, the worshipper’s earthly
life is bequeathed to the divine, corresponding to pagan worshippers’ offering of
“spiritual food”. The notion of ‘integration’ in psychology has become overbearing. It
ought to be complemented with a notion of ‘complementation’ (cf. Winther, 2013,
here). We cannot expect to endlessly harvest the boons of the unconscious.
Carl Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz repudiated the spiritual techniques associated
with the ‘via negativa’ and spoke mostly of the integration of the unconscious. Yet,
it is necessary to follow the example of the ancients, and give sacrifice for the
replenishment of the divine. Using modern terminology, it means the
complementation of the unconscious.
Psychic integration (assimilation) refers to the analysis of the unconscious whereby
unconscious content are comprehended and integrated with personality. It also
includes dark aspects of personality being lifted into daylight consciousness, to
restrain unconscious autonomy. However, the method of active imagination, which
aims at extending the process by recourse to a method of conscious fantasy, has
taken integration too far. Instead, a technique associated with complementation
should be considered — a method that complements the unconscious on lines of ‘via
negativa’. The focus on integration has given rise to a misinterpretation of the
spiritual path. It resembles a complex of dependency, also known as a motherly
dependency, equal to the mother complex. Since the unconscious has proved
incapable of endless provision, a view has surfaced that reinterprets spiritual
stagnation as an optimal condition. It comes to expression as idolatrous worship of
archetypes. Stagnation is evident when unconscious themes, in dreams and active
imagination, recur endlessly. It fosters a form of psychological paganism, the
worship of unconscious images, resulting in the alienation of the unconscious
Self [6]. This is a misinterpretation of Jungian psychology.
The misinterpretation of Jung
Whereas orthodox Freudians reduce the unconscious to sexual themes, modern
Jungians, by the practice of amplification, tend to convert it into thin air. It happens
if one focuses on the collective meaning of symbols and neglects their personal
significance. M-L von Franz criticises the way in which symbols are treated
impersonally, like they were an end in themselves. The method of amplification can
be used endlessly, that is, one can always fly off on a tangent and associate water in
a dream with the “water of life”, the ‘aqua permanens’, or I Ching sayings. She
grants that Mircea Eliade is an accomplished scholar, but criticizes him for his
fondness of amplification (cf. von Franz, 1996, pp. 9-15). Robert Aziz says:
As with the Blakean notion of being able “to see a world in a grain of
sand,” it is only through seeing and accurately interpreting the
particular that we truly are given access to the whole. Never will we
access the Reality line by jumping over the particulars of personal
psychology; rather, such access will come about only by processing
through them. When the critical particulars of personal psychology are
jumped over by way of the archetypal, the soul simply ends up traveling
in circles, round and round on the merry-go-round of archetypal
theme. (Aziz, 2007, p. 66)
Since we are instinctual beings, always seeking gratification, we tend to fall prey to
life’s many little distractions. This attitude tends to be applied on the unconscious
as well, as if it were a trivial pastime. Dreams and archetypes are viewed as amusing
distractions of life, as if they were signposts of success for achievements on the
spiritual path. But if we look closer at the dream content, we find that the trivializing
attitude is unsupportable. Neither Jung nor von Franz argues that dreams signify
“accolades” of archetypal nature. Nor do they argue that dreams are predominantly
aesthetical and therefore not worthwhile to study intently. Such ideas derive from
Archetypal Psychology and New Age. James Hillman repudiates the notion of dreams
as compensatory, containing valuable messages, although he has no empirical
grounds for doing so. Of course, he also repudiates science and logical thinking (cf.
Hillman, 1996, p. 283).
The notion that dreams are to be viewed as certificates of advancement on the
spiritual path, cannot be found in the writings of Jung and von Franz. Such a selfaffirming way of interpreting dreams goes against the grain of von Franz’s
teachings. Her rule of thumb is that dreams are compensatory, that is, they
generally present a message that serves to balance out the conscious standpoint.
The idea that dreams are there to give applause to spiritual achievements seems to
be a notion that derives from New Age. It negates the compensatory function of the
dream. In theory, the objective of the dream message is to challenge consciousness
when it flounders.
There is, however, a way in which dreams serve to strengthen the conscious
standpoint, especially in cases where the subject already knows something that
ought to be negated and removed from personality. Thus, the dream attempts to
strengthen the resolve of the conscious personality; a function that is
underestimated in Jungian psychology. But it is an implausible notion that the
unconscious aims to strengthen a conscious standpoint that is already selfgratificatory, thus keeping the searcher entangled in an illusion. Rather, dreams will
push for continued advancement when the subject has dilly-dallied on his path
through life, thus reinforcing an aspect of consciousness that has been neglected.
The unconscious does not seem to reward personality for making progress.
Archetypal dreams do not come as a bonus. Rather, they start to dwindle (cf. Jung,
1972). It is as if the Self gobbles up the gain in the form of libido. Accordingly, when
the unconscious is integrated, it will cease to produce dreams on the very same
theme. On the other hand, as long as the unconscious content is not comprehended,
dreams with synonymous narratives will recur, probably throughout a person’s
whole life. The same theme, with some variations, is repeated over and over again.
This could mean that progress is not taking place, or that the dreamer should give it
even more attention.
The misinterpretation implies that archetypal dreams have come to be viewed as
awards for maintaining the stagnant condition, which has alienating consequences
for the Self. In dreams, the Self could be depicted as an alien being. For instance, a
New Age follower dreamed of an alien fish-creature occupying a flying saucer. The
fish symbol speaks of undifferentiated libido. The Self is portrayed as a remote and
quite unconscious content — very unhumanlike. This is further emphasized in its
guise as an alien from outer space. Its alienation depends on the attitude adopted by
consciousness, which resembles that of a “New Age tourist” who views the
unconscious as a hobby, an object of pagan worship, rather than focusing on its
integration (humanization). In a dream, one must always search for the content
which formulates the corrective standpoint. It is often presented as a kind of
peripheral event, as if the dream says: “Oh, by the way, there is this little issue
also…” In reality, this is the very gist of the dream. So the dream function isn’t
generally being nice to the dreamer. Rather, it has a corrective function. A common
problem is that people underestimate themselves. In that case the dream will send a
message that elevates the dreamer, because this is also a corrective. The dream is
pointing at the difficulty, the way in which the dreamer is being wrong-headed.
The synthetic dream function
According to the theory of compensation, the relation between conscious and
unconscious depends on a flow of libido, similar to how water flows between
communicating vessels. So if the conscious side is deficient in some sense, the
water will flow in from the unconscious to make up for that deficiency. But there can
be no flow if the water in the vessels are level. So the notion that the unconscious
can strengthen the conscious standpoint, although it already prides itself on its
success, is difficult to explain from the standpoint of compensation, as water cannot
flow upwards.
Poul Bjerre (1933) asserts that dreams are best described as synthetic rather than
compensative. Dreams often serve to strengthen the conscious standpoint in a
roundabout way. On this view, compensation is better seen as subordinate to the
synthetic principle. Dreams are less governed by archetypal energies than the
impulse to resolve conflicts and acquire harmony, regardless of the teleological goal
of the Self. In Bjerre’s system the individuative demand is toned down, at least when
compared with Jungian individuation. ‘Assimilation’ is the autonomous effort of the
unconscious to acquire harmony and psychic wholeness, building on experiential
contents and life’s possibilities. It is plausible from a biological point of view, since
the harmonious individual has better survival value. Comparatively, Jung’s
teleological form of psychological individuation is hard to explain in terms of
evolution.
Bjerre adopts the view that dreams have a distinct structure; that they go through
phases and remain part of nature’s intent, similar to the immune system. The dream
function more often uses metaphorical language rather than a symbolic language
that transcends consciousness. A metaphorical language is more like a rebus, which
can be translated in conscious terms. So, for example, we mustn’t confuse the
symbol of the house with the metaphor of the house. The symbol has divine
properties. Greek goddess Hestia is the patron deity of home and hearth. From her
originates the concept of ‘sanctuary’. It makes sense to me that the dream function
more seldom makes use of this deep meaning of ‘house’ and instead presents it as a
metaphor. In consequence, we should give more credit to the metaphorical method
and delve less into deep symbolic meaning.
The notion of breaking out of an old shell, sometimes (but not always) appropriated
in childhood, coincides with M-L von Franz’s analysis of fairytales, in which the old
king must step down in favour of his son. It also coincides with Bjerre’s idea of
“death and renewal” as central theme in individuation. If personality is become
stuck, a renewal must take place. But this means that the old Self is abandoned and
what has been achieved is thrown off. Apparently, individuation can mean
destruction, in the sense of breaking out of an old shell. It conflicts with Jung’s view
of the psyche as a teleological system that is seeking integration. Since the telos of
the Self is wholeness, it cannot possibly work toward the destruction of wholeness.
Thus, it seems that the notion of psychological integration is inadequate. There is
also a destructive force at work, which serves to destroy the old edifice, allowing
room for the new. It seems that the notion of overcoming one’s old attachments and
inhibitions remains central. Whether or not it is rooted in childhood is
unimportant — what matters is taking the decision to throw out the old way of life.
Compensatory dreams serve the underlying synthetic purpose of acquiring harmony.
It is exemplified by dreams that seem victorious. If an analysand has a triumphant
dream, signifying success, it might serve to compensate a psychological dependency
on an analyst, which is a common problem. It’s as if the dream says: “You’re ready!
There is no reason to continue analysis, because you have triumphed in your
analysis.” Thus, the analysand is convinced that he/she is ready and cancels the
therapy and the transferential relation that is become detrimental. The impact of
triumphant visions and dreams is that the subject terminates the search for
enlightenment, since the symbol signifies that the goal is reached. This occurs
among spiritual seekers, too, who often go through much suffering in their search
for God. According to the synthetic function, natural earthly life should not be
forgotten if the spiritual effort damages personal harmony and wholeness. So the
unconscious could produce a dream according to which the dreamer has attained
the Holy Grail, or united with the Spirit of the Universe. This would signify the end of
the spiritual journey. The unconscious only produced the vision because the journey
has become a search after an illusion. What the unconscious really achieves is that
the searcher continues with his/her life. It could mean starting a family and rearing
children. Whether or not the unconscious supports the spiritual standpoint depends
on the synthetic motif. Individuation could go in any direction depending on which
movement invokes psychological peace and orderliness.
It is indeed a compensatory phenomenon, since the destructive obsession is
discontinued. Yet the underlying motif is synthetic. Such abrupt changes, back to
worldly life, are not uncommon among spiritual seekers. It may be argued that a
similar phenomenon could occur in the therapeutic setting. The unconscious wants
to put an end to the wrestling with archetypal complexes, since it leads nowhere. No
spiritual insight will arise from a Jungian therapeutic method that has been debased
into an esoteric teaching. It is damaging to individuation to continue with such
moonshine. I maintain that this is an esoteric notion, and it has become detrimental
to psychology. It is an unscientific idea, i.e., that the dream function may gratify the
dreamer for his spiritual success. This notion of ego-gratification smacks of the
psychology characteristic of the ‘puer aeternus’. James Hillman (1926–2011), a
notable theorist in the U.S., is an advocate of puer psychology (cf. Hillman, 1996).
These ideas have poisoned Jungian psychology to the extent that dreams have
become incomprehensible to the average Jungian. They are seen as spiritual
messages, rather than correcting influences on personal psychology. But this is anti-
psychoanalysis. M-L von Franz has demonstrated that the puer aeternus is not only
the name of an archetype; it is also the name of a neurosis (cf. von Franz, 2000).
Psychology must be founded upon science and logical thinking, but not on airy-fairy
archetypes. Otherwise neurosis is the result. Hillman’s school of Archetypal
Psychology damages the individuation process with human tragedies as result.
The forest star
Whereas Freudians belittle the unconscious by recourse to reductive analysis,
esoteric Jungians alienate the unconscious by viewing it as a spiritual otherworld and
its manifestations as spiritual messages, remote from concrete application in
personal and earthly existence. Thus, there are two ways of quenching the
unconscious: (1) belittlement and (2) alienation. The latter is the modus operandi of
the puer aeternus who lives on the little asteroid B612 (cf. Saint-Exupery, 1943). An
endless impersonal amplification of symbols serves the purpose of transforming the
unconscious into a cloud-cuckoo-land surrounded by a thin atmosphere void of
oxygen. As a consequence individuation takes damage and the Self is alienated. The
Self must be rescued from the New Age “tourist” syndrome. It defines the wholeness
of personality and comprises also the ego. Accordingly, the Self acquires the
properties of the subject’s preconceptions and level of cultivation. The Sanskrit
sentence ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ says it: “Thou art that!” Jesus, in the Gospel of Thomas,
logion 77, relates a sound and down-to-earth Self image:
Jesus said, “I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all
came forth, and to me all attained.”
“Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find
me there.”
The Self is present in the most inconspicuous material thing. According to the
alchemists, the spirit Mercurius can be found in the banal things that are lying at
your doorstep. As a young man I had this dream:
“I attended some form of New Age congregation in the middle
of the night. Together with other people I entered a flying
saucer that threw us about in the air in violent movements.
During this experience I became conscious for a while. When I
went home from the celebration I felt unmoved by the
experience and slightly disappointed. I went through the dark
wood and passed a little bridge over a brook. My trouser leg
touched a lonely little flower; a Chickweed Wintergreen
(Trientalis europaea L., “Skogsstjärna”: ‘forest star’). It was
Linnaeus’s favourite flower. On being touched, the forest star
immediately unfolded its petals, something that made a strong impression on me.
This formally insignificant thing felt much more meaningful than the grand New Age
congregation.”
It means that collective spirituality has played out its role, and I should commence
the search after the lonely forest star. Pagan spirituality represents a sophomoric
form of spirit. Yet, since it corresponds to a stage in spiritual growth, it is not
necessarily obsolete and useless. It could be argued that this form of spirituality is a
stepping-stone to a real life in the spirit, that is, a phase that many a seeker must
pass. However, the passing to a higher spiritual level does not signify a collective
realization of spiritual truth. Rather, it’s the reverse; it is finding the little forest star
that has been forgotten in the dark wood, waiting to be touched.
The true spiritual path means to abandon the trivial and aesthetic view of the
unconscious for the stage of ‘mors voluntaria’. It means to spend a long time away
from the playful distractions of life. This is the ‘mors mystica’, or the ‘nigredo’,
signifying spiritual death and abandonment of worldly engagement. It means to
discard the esoteric bias in terms of New Age that confines the searcher to a life in
an aquarium, among all the esoteric symbols. Jesus expresses the gist of the
Upanishadic phrase ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ when he says that the Self is in simple things. “I
am there!” is the same as “Thou art that!”, because it speaks about the presence of
the Self. This was the realization of alchemical philosophers, too, when they said
that the Mercurius is found in the simplest of things. It means that the spiritual
searcher ought to withdraw his/her consciousness from the grand and illustrious
energies, which is what occurred in my dream about the forest star, and instead look
for the soul-spark among the inconspicuous things. It is necessary to tone down our
energetic search after gratification, in whatever form, in order to find the scintilla. In
fact, this flower is ubiquitous. As Jesus says, it is present also in a piece of wood. We
should pay attention to the modest energies, such as the faint whisper that can be
heard in the forest.
Note that this is coincident with notions of worldly denial, in the way of
contemplative tradition. The latter has often taken things to the extreme in its
search after an “empty consciousness”, as if everything worldly, including categories
of mind, was of the devil. But the forest star is really the divine spark that was
implanted in matter at the world’s inception. The cataphatic path should be viewed
as a companion discipline to the apophatic, along lines of St Thomas Aquinas’s
via eminentiae. [5] This has a bearing on functions of empathy and heartfelt feeling.
Feeling recognizes the lonely one forgotten in the darkness of the wood. It
necessitates a mild focus, and withdrawal from distractions, regardless whether the
subject makes creative use of the pen or the paintbrush. It is not the end product
that matters, but what is found inside it or under it, as you cleave the wood or lift
the stone. The legend of Christopherus (which means Christ-bearer) is about a man
who stops pursuing the illustrious spirit, associated with the devil.
Christopherus was a man of giant stature who vowed to serve only the
strongest master. He did service for a king; but when the king was
shaken at the mention of the devil, Christopherus saw that he wasn’t so
strong after all. Eventually he went as far as offering his services to the
devil. But when the devil shuddered at the sight of the cross that stood
by the wayside, Christopherus decided to abandon him, too. After many
years of repentance, and the daily toil of helping people across the
river, he one day heard a child’s cry from the wood. He went out to
search for it but could not find it. Only when the child cried for the
third time he managed to find it. The little child needed help to get
across the river.
But as the child rode on Christopherus’s shoulders it got heavier and
heavier, and Christopherus felt as if he carried the whole world on his
back. He came close to drowning in the torrent, as his head went under
the water. Yet, he continued to struggle, and finally managed to get
across. At the other shore the child revealed that he was
Christ Pantocrator. The Christchild told Christopherus to plant his staff
in the earth, and the next day it carried leaves and bore fruit.
Christopherus realized that he had finally found the strongest master.
The scintilla
The scintilla divina (divine spark) or scintillula (little spark), embedded in the
material cosmos, appears in Gnostic mythology and in mystical tradition. The spark,
symbolically equivalent with the forest star, must be harvested by the seeker. It
must be released from its captivity in matter and returned to God as the source of
divine light. Alchemists have associated it with the dew, which is gathered in the
early-morning hour. So this is a myth of returning to God what belongs to him, but
not of acquiring more boons from the divine sphere. It does not allude to
integration, but speaks of sacrifice or complementation. The search for the forest
star, of which there are plenty, relates to a spiritual method which radically deviates
from active imagination and the integration of the unconscious. This view, of course,
is remote from Carl Jung’s understanding of the scintillæ, as expounded in
Mysterium Coniunctionis (CW 14, 1977). It must be said to his advantage that,
unlike Edward F. Edinger’s books, it is not overladen with jungianisms. Jung doesn’t
claim to understand these symbols to the full. The Gnostics, on their part,
understood the myth much too concretely, a mistake that made them inept for this
world. Benjamin Walker says:
According to Epiphanius the Borborians based their teachings on the
idea that the divine light-spark exists not only in men and women, but
in all living things, vegetables, plants, fruits, cereals, fish, serpents and
beasts of every kind. The Borborian gnostic was required to collect
these scattered soul-fragments and partake of them as a sacrament,
for in this manner the plant or animal soul became absorbed into his
own. They believed the gnostic was doing a kindness to the plants and
animals, for by collecting their spiritual substance, he would in the end
transmit it, along with his own, to the heavenly world. […]
In the gnostic Gospel of Eve, fragments of which are preserved by
Epiphanius, it is related how the voice of a mighty being declared, ‘I am
dispersed in all things, and in gathering me you gather yourself’. The
Borborians took this to mean not only the soul-stuff in plants and
animals, but in semen and menstrual blood as well. (Walker, 1983,
p. 129)
Thus, they resolved to eat all kinds of revolting substances, a practice which earned
them the name Borborians or ‘filthy ones’ (p. 157). In this self-punitive way they
surrendered themselves to God and contributed to the liberation of other creatures
to boot. This was their belief, anyway. In a less naïve interpretation, to ‘gather
yourself’ means to collect yourself.
According to Gnostic theology, the exercise of free will requires an area for its
operation. Accordingly, God withdrew the operation of his will (thelema ), an event
that resulted in a vacant area (topos ) that was to be the natural universe which we
inhabit. The process of emptying (kenosis ) resulted in certain catastrophic
consequences. Where his light was withdrawn, darkness supervened (ibid., p. 37).
Yet it must be remembered that nothing can have existence without
God, and even when God is apparently absent, his erstwhile presence
has left its permanent impress. The Gospel of Truth speaks of this
residual presence of God even after his withdrawal, as the footprinttrace (ichnos ) of the Father’s will. Basilides too emphasized the
essential presence of God in all circumstances and situations, when he
said that the empty place resulting from God’s withdrawal did not ever
cease to show traces of the divine brightness. The vacated place
retained the ‘flavour’ of the Father, just as a bowl containing sweetsmelling unguent retains the fragrance even after the bowl has been
completely emptied.
No place is therefore quite devoid of the divine flavour, and the
empty topos might be spoken of as a mixture of good and evil, light
and darkness. It is because of this residue of God’s presence that the
demiurge was able to fashion this world. (ibid.)
Jung relates that the scintillæ correspond to the particles of light imprisoned in the
dark Physis, whose reconstitution was one of the chief aims of Gnosticism and
Manichaeism. The tiny soul-sparks are associated with fishes’ eyes (oculi piscium )
from which the shining figure of the filius (son) is created. In alchemy the scintillulæ
are put together to form the gold (Sol); in the Gnostic systems the atoms of light are
reintegrated (cf. Jung, 1977, pp. 48-56).
Also Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–c. 1327) speaks of the scintilla, the “little soul-spark”.
Hippolytos (170–235) says that in the doctrine of the Gnostic Sethians, the darkness
“held the brightness and the spark of light in thrall”, and that this “smallest of
sparks” was finely mingled in the dark waters below. Heinrich Khunrath
(c. 1560–1605) recognizes that the scintilla is the true aqua permanens, eternally
living. The “radical moisture” is “animated … by a fiery spark of the World-Soul, for
the spirit of the Lord filleth the whole world.” He also speaks of a plurality of sparks:
“There are … fiery sparks of the World-Soul, that is of the light of nature, dispersed
or scattered at God’s command in and through the fabric of the great world into all
fruits of the elements everywhere.” The “fiery sparks of the World-Soul” were already
in the chaos, the prima materia, at the beginning of the world (ibid.).
The scintillæ often appear as “golden and silver,” and are found in multiple form in
the earth. Jean-Jacques Manget (1652–1742) relates a symbol, ascribed to the
“philosopher Malus,” which shows eyes in the stars, in the clouds, in the water and
in the earth. The caption above the image says: “This stone is under you, and near
you, and above you, and around you.” George Ripley (c.1415–1490) remarks that at
the “desiccation of the sea” a substance is left over that “shines like a fish’s
eye” (ibid.). Paracelsus (1493–1541) named this light the lumen naturæ. One must
open wide the eyes of the soul and the spirit, and observe and discern accurately by
means of the inner light. God has lit this light in nature and in our hearts from the
beginning (cf. Jung, 1980, p. 322).
Spiritual writing and painting
The scintillæ can be collected by us moderns, by the creative use of the pen or the
paintbrush, although not for the aesthetic result. In a kind of unassuming prose
poetry, one may return to places where one likes to be and where the presence of
the spirit can be felt. Such motifs and feelings are often found in dreams. Suitable
terms for this technique are complementative imagination, contemplation, writing,
or simply complementation. Prose poetry is defined as neither poetry nor prose but
as a hybrid or fusion of the two, characterized by a focus on narrative and a
prominent use of metaphor. It originated as a reaction against dependence upon
traditional uses of line in verse (cf. Wiki, here).
Such creations won’t qualify as art, for they are inferior from an aesthetic point of
view. It is not for publishing. It is merely a spiritual technique of harvesting the
divine sparks embedded in the darkness of matter, for the purpose of conveying
them back to their origin. The advantage of handwriting is that it keeps the mind
focused. It is necessary to attune one’s sensitivity to the faint spiritual voices. These
are like delicate fragrances in the summer wind. It can be achieved only if worldly
engagements are toned down and distractions are avoided, which includes
intellectual efforts, too. The conscious mind mustn’t shine with such a bright light;
one’s awareness must be tempered. This also includes political, social, and
economical awareness. It doesn’t mean to forget the learning that one has acquired,
but the conscious passion for the world must be toned down. This is the great
difficulty of this method. It is the real meaning of the saying in Matthew 18:3: “Truly
I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the
kingdom of heaven.”
Such a method rhymes with the contemplative teaching of St John of the Cross, but
rather more with his teaching on meditation (meditatio ) than with his contemplative
praxis, which is extreme in that it aims at removing any content of consciousness.
Such a state needn’t be striven for, but will occur spontaneously. If emptiness
ensues it is a welcome side-effect, as it acclimatizes the soul to a clean state void of
delights and distractions. It enhances the seeker’s sensitivity to the many-coloured
divine sparks hidden in nature. There is an immense multitude of forest stars to
pluck, many of them similar. As soon as they are touched by the conscious mind,
they open their petals and give off a spiritual fragrance. There is no gain in this for
the ego. There is no resultant expansion and strengthening of consciousness; but
the seeker has found a narrow path to travel on, and a sense of spiritual meaning in
life. This all rhymes with traditional Christian notions of piety and godly love. It can
be likened to playing a musical instrument. Although it doesn’t seem like much, it is
really a primeval instrument of huge dimensions that is resounding through the
universe, as portrayed in a dream of mine.
Complementation
There is a backside to psychological integration, in the way the conscious ego
assumes control, transforming instinctual and archetypal nature into a function of
consciousness. It means that the content loses its lifeblood. Evidently, something
valuable, namely autonomous life, is wiped out in the process. Humankind has a
hubristic tendency. Neoplatonic, Buddhist, and Christian contemplatives wanted to
fly up to God by relinquishing all the mental categories that bind us to the world.
Psychoanalysts and philosophers, on the other hand, think that they can achieve the
totality by means of integration, along lines of Hegel and the continual
manifestation of the World Spirit. The one party aims to fly up to God, like Icarus.
The other party aims to pull Him down to earthly reality.
Spiritual life is not a unidirectional road, except perhaps with certain extreme
individuals. On this view, integration and contemplation are like two traffic lanes in
spiritual life. In earthly reality, following an inner call, we must be prepared to travel
in either direction. The wind blows where it wishes. Complementation introduces
another direction of travel into modern unidirectional Western psychology and
philosophy. Regardless of how many books we read and how much wisdom is
acquired through the assimilation of the unconscious, it does not lead to wholeness
or holiness.
It would mean that a roundly meaningful life can never be accomplished. But neither
can the ideal of emptiness be attained. We cannot penetrate the dark cloud in which
God hides. In fact, if we venture into the desert, we will discover something sublime;
something akin to a lonely forest star — a sense of ‘meaning’ that burgeons. On the
other hand, if we attempt to achieve wholeness of life, we will find a dark abyss of
emptiness. It is only through our obsessiveness that opposites acquire such
archetypal dimensions. In fact, meaningfulness and emptiness are never that far
apart. We cannot by a dialectical process go beyond the opposites, in terms of
Nietzsche and Hegel. We must accept that life happens in between them.
Carl Jung introduces the notion “confrontation with the unconscious”. The
unconscious takes the appearance of another person (= anima/animus) that the
conscious ego confers with and wrestles with. However, this a fabrication of
imagination. Although creative imagination is often rewarding, it does not give us a
correct picture, because the unconscious is not a separate ego. Nor can one enter
the unconscious with one’s luminous ego, because it would really mean descending
into unconsciousness, i.e., the obliteration of the ego. So Jung’s conception would
be a contradiction in terms if it weren’t for the concept of active imagination. The
“confrontation with the unconscious” really means producing fantasies, along lines
of Swedenborg’s spirit-seeing.
So it is not the question of going down into unconsciousness. Jung repudiates the
method of Christian mystics, because it would pose a danger to the ego. For Jung, a
continuous flow of libido back into the unconscious is out of the question. In
‘Critique of Individuation’ (2014, here) I discuss active imagination as “ego
maintenance”. I put forth that this is a form of hoax, like the playing of a game,
something akin to a personal religious ritual. Yet, this is not always something bad.
It’s just that if libido is flowing only in one direction, the source will eventually dry
up. Jungians should know this, that in the long run Jung’s project cannot work. The
remedy is to allow libido to flow back in the other direction. And that’s why we need
a scientific term for the reversive process, namely ‘complementation’. We require a
conceptual counterpart of ‘integration’ (assimilation).
The Japanese have a concept of Wabi-sabi (Wiki, here), which implicates “emptiness
or absence of self-nature” as well as modesty, intimacy, asymmetry, imperfection,
incompleteness, transience, and austerity. I associate it with complementation;
dethronement of the ego. It comes to expression in the tea ceremony, Zen
gardening, archery, Haiku poetry, etc. The way in which complementation is
practiced finds personal expression.
Jung says that modern art, such as Picasso’s paintings, can hardly be understood as
they give expression to schizophrenic fragmentation (Jung, 1966). However, from
the standpoint of complementation, it is maybe so that Picasso makes of painting a
sacrificial ritual. He dismembers his motifs like the Celtic priest dismembered the
sacrificial victim. The only artistic products that Jung find valuable are those which
serve the purpose of conscious integration, i.e. pictures that can be understood.
That’s why he likes his patients’ naive images much better. The conclusion would be
that artistic expression in the way of Picasso and Braque corresponds to Wabi-sabi
and complementation. Jung is wrong in thinking that it depicts neurotic or psychotic
dissociation. Personally, I see Georges Braque (1882–1963) as the prophet of
complementation. He led a reclusive life. His paintings cannot be understood at all
but are gifts to God. They put the viewer in the very same frame of mind that Wabisabi attempts to accomplish.
“Pitcher and newspaper (The Greek Vase)”. Georges Braque (1928)
The spiritual ideal of simpleness
It’s like the whole collective is in frantic pursuit of worldly illusions and people are
running about in circles. There’s nothing “out there” that can satisfy the soul to the
core. People who live the “high life” soon come to realize this; and that’s why they,
in desperation, lose themselves in alcohol and cocaine abuse. Yet, the pursuit of
wisdom means the acquirement of a possession, too. Although it leads personality
on the right path, intellectual search can become obsessive. That’s why mystical
tradition says that, at some point, we must tone down also the pursuit of wisdom.
The famous Chan monk Rinzai (9th century) took up the path of scholarship and
studied ardently for many years. Then, one day, he declared that his books were
“only medicines for salvation and displays of opinion,” and threw them all away (cf.
Besserman & Steger, 1991, p. 29). The pursuit of knowledge and intellectual
understanding is a form of eagerness which keeps feeding the ego. It seems that we
are torn between a vertical, spiritual, urge and a horizontal urge of worldly
eagerness.
On the spiritual path we must strive to become “simple” by toning down expansive
consciousness. It seems that this can only be achieved by a focusing of
consciousness, so that it is kept busy with something. We can gather the “spiritual
food” because it is perceptible to the mind’s eye. But then we are thrown back into
the world, both by the ego and our passionate instincts. At this point, we must have
something with which to feed the beast inside us, because our brains and our
bodies want to have their fill. My brain loves to think and to create, and my body
likes to go for long walks. In this way simpleness is maintained. The notion of a
complete worldly abandonment, as in different forms of quietism, is just out of
bonds.
‘Gnothi seauton’ (“Know thyself”) is very much about disidentification. There is not
much left of the ego when we have cut away everything that we are not. Bjerre put
emphasis on notions such as ‘negation’ and ‘distancing’ when he discusses
individuation of personality. We must sometimes negate parts of ourselves which we
earlier thought belonged to our nature. This allows room for a more genuine side of
ourselves. Realizing what you are not is equally much a conscious realization as
realizing what you are. To ‘know thyself’ is to become ‘simple’ — it really seems so!
What illustrates this is a dream of mine, in which there occurred an “earth quake” in
the flower pot where my dragon tree stands. The tree was felled. Out crept a
tortoise — an uncomplicated and round creature. It required simple and nutrientpoor food: oats milk. The tortoise represents the new ideal of Self. The dragon tree,
which grew uncontrollably in all directions, was now gone. The tortoise manifests
the ideal of “roundness and simpleness”. This ideal is accomplished when a
multitude of branches are cut off from personality.
Maybe the unconscious could provide for us interminably; but it won’t! If we view
the unconscious as an undrainable Horn of Plenty, then it is become a Mother
Goddess. If we think of the unconscious as a benign and ceaseless provider, then we
have begun developing a mother complex. We are likely to become pueri aeterni (cf.
Winther, 2015, here). This illusion must cease. There’s an inherent fault in Jungian
psychology inductive to puer psychology. It explains why it has degenerated into
Archetypal Psychology which elevates the puer aeternus. This fault constitutes of the
tenet that says: individuation is the continual integration of the unconscious that
leads to the realization of the Self. But this is equal to defining the unconscious as a
Mother Goddess. Psychic integration is among Jungians viewed as a process whereby
the “whole man” is created, signifying the ideal person who also allows room for
unconscious spontaneity and benign instinctuality. Thus, he is equally much
unconscious and conscious, as if the Self would be able to sustain all opposites, side
by side, in the form of a complexio oppositorum. I contest this picture of
integration. This is not what it leads to.
Integration is assimilation of the unconscious. We see what happened to Narcissus.
Before, he was a happy and swift hunter in the forest. When he became self-aware
by the pond, he expired and turned into a white flower, symbolic of a content of
consciousness. Integration is equal to reducing the autonomy of the unconscious. A
rule of thumb is that this process is of the good whereas to remain unconscious is
bad. But it is so only up to a point in time, when we must allow the flow to go in the
other direction. Thereafter the conscious ego must keep itself busy with its oneeyed enterprise, not to disturb the unconscious process. Hard-working artists and
scientists are often surprisingly unconscious, wholly embroiled in their little world of
aesthetic forms or mathematical equations. The physicist Wolfgang Pauli was such a
one-eyed person, I believe, and that’s why Jung found that his unconscious was ripe
with archaic material. His unconscious had great autonomy, because his conscious
side was very compact and small. It contained not much more than mathematical
equations.
That’s why I recommend the praxis which the Christian mystics called ‘meditatio’,
that is, focusing one’s mind on a theme. (Today we would call this contemplation;
the terms are reversed.) I am skeptical of meditation that strives to achieve the
empty mind (what the Christian mystics, such as John of the Cross, called
contemplation). One can only look at the enormous sufferings that mystics went
through. It can’t be right. Bankei, the Zen monk, became so weakened by his
asceticism that he contracted tuberculosis. He resigned himself to dying where he
sat. Suddenly he spat a huge ball of bloody phlegm against the wall opposite, at
which moment he attained satori (cf. Besserman & Steger, 1991, p. 92). Later, he
told his students not to follow his example, because there are better ways to
enlightenment.
The themes that one ought to focus on, I believe, are those which are emotionally
dire yet imbued with the divine, and which pull the soul into the dark night.
Melancholia is to be sought after. When the ego has grown strong, when the artifex
has seen through the world, he repudiates every silly thing that he is attached to and
enters nigredo. John of the Cross says that God hides in the dark night of the soul. It
is a shattering experience, and this is probably why the ego must first acquire
wisdom and a passion of consciousness. Personality must be strong enough to
endure the darkness of God.
If we look at spiritual tradition, such as the monastic, we find that the monks were
devoted to hard and monotonous work. They did not spend all day doing prayer,
singing hymns, or studying Scripture. It was regarded essential to establish a routine
of work that keeps consciousness from expanding too much. The ideal was to
diminish oneself; to humble oneself before God. The ego must be reduced in
dimension, and the disciple must not strive to become a polymath — an expert on
everything. Simpleness is the ideal of mystical tradition. It runs counter to the path
prescribed by Jungian psychology. After all, we are supposed to establish a nebulous
cloud of consciousness that expands in all directions. It is good to start with, but
then the lucent cloud must be compressed into a little shining star. I had a youthful
dream on this theme:
There was once a kingdom where a lilliputian yet divine man lived with
his people in great happiness. To everyone’s dismay, he one day had to
leave his people. His light could be seen moving erratically over the
ocean, like a will-o’-the-wisp, until he finally disappeared. The people
fell into a gloom. In this distant epoch the sun was merely a diffusely
shining cloud. But after a long time the sun cloud sent a long tube
down to the ocean. The tube transported the god-man up to the sun
cloud. As a consequence of the union, the cloud contracted and
became the small but blazingly bright sun.
So here we see the god-man Mercurius leaving the conscious world and returning
to God. It is portrayed as a very benign event. It is the opposite of the incarnation of
the divine, and it coincides with the contraction of the source of light. In Christian
theology, God is simple. Thus, we must also become simple. Certain people know
that they could, should they want to, devote themselves to the same little passion all
day long, like a monomaniac painter. In such manner, they could, like cloistered
monks, become one-sided and simple. Such a change of heart is aptly symbolized
by the contraction of the sun cloud in my dream. This is a step that the spiritual
pilgrim must take, at some point.
Interestingly, my dream coincides with the Osiris myth. Osiris was king over the
golden age of Egypt. He was killed and dismembered by Seth, who spread his bodily
parts all over Egypt’s land. The rule of Seth followed. However, Osiris’s body was
reassembled, and he was restored as a ruler in the heavenly kingdom beyond the
polar star. This change coincided with the demise of Seth’s rulership and the rise of
the sun-god Horus, son of Osiris. It seems that archetypal evolutions in the beyond
govern also the individuation of personality.
Conclusion
In postmodern belief, the world shall again be imbued with meaning, leading to a
“resacralization of the world”. In fact, since the Fall of Man, life has always been
suffering and toil, and so shall it remain, until the Last Day. Thus sayeth
St Augustine. Only gods and heroes lead symbolic lives; not humans. It is rewarding
to read about their adventures, as it gives us another perspective. It transports us
out of the ego world into the Otherworld. The divine spirit is indeed present in
nature, and one can take part of it, little by little. In the mean time, one may listen to
the messages of dreams.
It is necessary, at some point, to acquire a simple and constant passion of
consciousness. In this way, the ego may remain plain and small, instead of being
like a nebulous cloud. This works as a reduction, as a penance, and as an offering to
God. This idea rhymes with the apophatic schools of mysticism. The ego has a
marvelous capacity of focusing its energy on something and produce work. For
instance, one may continue like a robot to paint abstract art. For once, the ego isn’t
focused on “eating”. It is neither incorporating knowledge nor any new experiences
in whatever form. Instead, it is producing something. What’s in it for the ego, then?
The answer is “nothing”, and that’s the point. This is godly activity, because it
benefits the divine. It’s like an offering to God. To curtail the voracious ego and to
turn its energy into a focused “laser beam”, means not only that we allow room for
the divine; it also provides nourishment.
© Mats Winther, 2013-2019.
Notes
1. Active imagination. In analytical psychology, a term introduced by
Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) in the Tavistock lectures, delivered in London in
1935, to denote a process of allowing fantasies to run free, as if dreaming with open
eyes. He had expounded the concept (though not the terminology) earlier (Collected
Works, 6, paragraphs 712-14, 723n). (Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, 2003)
As developed by Carl Jung between 1913 and 1916, active imagination is a
meditation technique whereby the contents of one’s unconscious are translated into
images, narrative or personified as separate entities. It can serve as a bridge
between the conscious ‘ego’ and the unconscious and includes working with dreams
and the creative self via imagination or fantasy. Jung linked active imagination with
the processes of alchemy in that both strive for oneness and inter-relatedness from
a set of fragmented and dissociated parts. This process ultimately resulted in the
Red Book… (Wikipedia, here)
2. Individuation n. The act or process of giving individuality to someone or
something. In analytical psychology it is the process occurring by degrees over the
lifespan whereby an individual achieves wholeness through the integration of
consciousness and the collective unconscious, and it is symbolized by the mandala.
In a key passage, Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) described it as follows:
‘Individuation means becoming a single, homogeneous being, and, in so far as
“individuality” embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also
implies becoming one’s own self. We could therefore translate individuation as
“coming to self-hood” or “self-actualization”’ (Collected Works, 7, paragraph 266).
Jung borrowed the word from the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer
(1788–1860), but it has been traced back to 16th-century alchemy […] [From Latin
individuare to single out, from in- into + dividuus divisible, from dividere to
divide]. (Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, 2003)
According to Jungian psychology, the goal of psychological integration is the
development of the individual personality, termed individuation (cf. Wikipedia,
here).
3. Cataphatic (sometimes spelled kataphatic) theology is the expressing of God or
the divine through positive terminology (cf. Wikipedia, here).
[Traditional divine attributes] take cataphatic or ‘positive’ form, including
designations of God as omnipotent, omniscient, wise, just, and merciful […]
[Perhaps] the greatest proponent of apophatic theology, the pseudonymous writer
Dionysius the Areopagite, argued that cataphatic theology constitutes an important
first step in Christian God talk, although it is one that must ultimately be left behind
by the dedicated theologian, who, in contemplating the ineffable Godhead, must
move from the presumption of knowing (cataphatic theology) to the mystery of
unknowing (apophatic theology) […] The task of cataphatic theology is therefore
preparatory. (The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology, 2011)
4. Apophatic theology — also known as negative theology, via negativa or via
negationis (Latin for “negative way” or “by way of denial”) — is a theology that
attempts to describe God, the Divine Good, by negation; to speak only in terms of
what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God (cf. Wikipedia, here).
[The] negative way of apophasis is less a method to be used to derive theological
propositions than a discipline to help guide the believer’s apprehension of God as a
supremely personal (and not simply cognitive) mystery […] God’s personal
transcendence of the world as its Creator rules out cosmologies in which creatures
are related to God by way of a hierarchically ordered sequence, with intellectual
beings nearest to God at the top and inert matter languishing far from God at the
bottom. Instead, God’s radical difference from all that is not God means that this
kind of emanationist ontology is ruled out from the start: as Creator, God is equally
transcendent over every creature, but this does not translate into any sort of
‘distance’; on the contrary, it allows God to be intimately present to creation… (The
Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology, 2011)
5. [Thomas Aquinas] employed a classic mode of combining cataphatic and
apophatic dimensions of theology in what is generally called the ‘way of
eminence’ (via eminentiae). According to this approach, the presence of perfections
in creatures implies that they are also present in the Creator as their cause (the
cataphatic dimension)… (The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology, 2011).
The perfections manifested by creatures exist in God in a supereminent manner,
incommensurable with their mode of being in creatures. Yet, we can conceive and
express these perfections by means of analogy.
6. Self. The archetype of wholeness and the regulating center of the psyche; a
transpersonal power that transcends the ego […] The self is not only the centre, but
also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is
the centre of this totality, just as the ego is the centre of consciousness. (Sharp,
1991)
“The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as
they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and
pleasures, and they do not mature.” (Luke 8:14)
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and
approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect
will.” (Romans 12:2)
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