JUNG OR JESUS ? Part One
Shall we save our kundalini for our brains or go back to the primordial womb?
Compilation and commentary by Nicola Molloy
Both Jung and Jesus pointed a way to enter the spirit worlds. Jung going
down to the underworld and Jesus going up to heaven. They both had
revolutionary ideas in their time. Though they were completely opposite in
how they believed we should live. Jesus advised people to love one another
and turn the other cheek if one was struck and offer the other one. Now for
testosterone fueled rugged men of that time around 30 AD, this was possibly
a first on the planet. Unless one counted Buddha, but his ideal was to sit
contemplating one's navel. Jesus advised a person to forgive their enemies, which too was in
stark contrast to the traditional eye for an eye mentality around at that
time of many races. He said to accept everyone as your equal and do away
with the striving for earthly power and seek the Kingdom of Heaven. He said
that a rich man would find it hard to enter heaven and to be humble and the
servant to all. To be kind to everyone.
Jesus also said not to be ruled by the control of your family, but to be
independent to do what you know is right. This too was radical thinking as
family tradition was often foremost in what one would be expected to do.
However for the last 2000 years some principles Jesus laid down have been
adhered to, though most has been a little distorted in that people have said
they follow Him, but follow a man made set of beliefs. Esp. by those who hold
a gun in one hand, a flag in the other and say only their race/denomination
will greet Jesus when He returns. As well, people, esp. Protestants, pagans,
and Jews have been slaughtered by so called Christians, but Jesus never
indicated to do this. There are said to be up to 2 billion people who claim
to be Christians and His life and words have been the most powerful influence
so far on the planet.
What's the alternative? What if Jesus had never been born? Carl Jung takes
us back to the days before Jesus by personally awakening ancient pagan gods,
lost in the mist of time. Did they really exist? I studied Greek and Roman
history at Massey University and was astounded at how bloodthirsty the human
race was before Jesus' time. Many men behaved in a very unrefined manner,
if they were bored sometimes they just invaded another country for something
to do. Civilized reason had not been developed, as it is today through
education and books. Utter destruction often ruled man then, as multiple
ruins of the ravages of war remain to testify. Living without books, if
mankind is left to its own instincts to learn, it can be very down to earth
as in the time of Jesus. Did Jesus bring reason to mankind? After all, if
everyone is equal as Jesus told people, why kill just for the sake of
treasure or land, when Heaven waits with better treasure? This reasoning
did catch on eventually with the establishment of Christianity. This innate
tendency to violence and also promiscuity was eventually suppressed by many
over the centuries thanks to a new set of rules Jesus gave, peaking during
the Victorian times that Jung lived in while young. If Jesus’ words hadn't
toned down the primal urges to kill for survival and to mate frequently to
increase the tribe, how would the world have been?
Look at how cruel the
Romans were, they crucified about 10,000 according to one source. They
prayed to entities that required blood sacrifice and called down spirits to
tell them what to do in oracles. Superstition was strong. The Romans killed
about 2 million in Israel in about 70 AD after Jesus died, but the whole of
the Roman Empire and Middle East is littered with the bones of many killed
in wars. Early Christians were thrown to the lions and also set on fire.
Christianity was born in rivers of blood; now this instinctive urge to kill
(and progressing to now kill oneself) appears in Islam. Look at how obedient they are when the threat of losing one's hand or foot, or being stoned is an incentive. Did Moses' Ten Commandments act in the same way to bring order to the unruly golden calf worshiping twelve tribes of Israel? When the subjects of
the Roman Empire did follow Christianity, they became absorbed in books,
religious life, calligraphy and music and became subdued, especially when
celibacy was strong though the beast escaped now and then with despot kings,
rulers and popes. There is a passage written by Paul in Galatians 4:1-5
"This is what I mean: so long as the heir is a minor, he is no better off
than a slave, even though the whole estate is his; he is under guardians and
trustees until the date fixed by his father. During our minority we were
slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe, but when the term was
completed, God sent His own Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to
purchase freedom for the subjects of the law, in order that we might attain
the status of sons."
Paul was referring to the Jews formerly being a chosen race, but now since
Jesus came we all became equal. But were we all minors in evolutionary
development, but fell under the influence of the fallen angels and needed a
helping hand to get back on track? Why was Jesus casting out demons, and
sending the apostles to do the same? Are these the same inner demons
plaguing people today, being worked through the system by counsellors? Have
they come back? The last 30 years has seem crime accelerate.
Jung looked at Christians and thought self control is BAD, BAD, BAD. He
claimed that people got sick and had mental problems if they stopped up the
libido. He said primal instincts should be unstoppable and this would give
people enormous power, and become gods as ancestral power filled the veins.
Jung said this power would enable him to be strong in the Land of the
Dead/the Underworld, where the pagan gods lived. One will not have to obey
anyone; one will become a god and link with other pagan gods and answer to
nobody but himself or herself, putting one's individuality foremost, then passion
second. No thinking, just being and gratifying one's desires. This was
revolutionary during Victorian times when any kind of immorality was
forbidden.
Jesus, in contrast said seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and everything
else would be added unto you. Christians taught self-control of lower nature
in order to enter heaven when they died, otherwise there would be no reason
to be good. Jesus proved there was a heaven because He died and after 3 days
rose again, and then ascended to heaven in full view of the public. This one
act proved the immortality of the soul and proved there was more than what
the 5 senses could perceive. It showed we were born to prepare for His
return and should all be cleansed and pure in anticipation. This was a
seemingly impossible plan to live up to, but the rivers of blood subsided
and from about 1000 Christians in 40 AD, the ranks swelled to about 34
million in 350 AD or 56.5 of the population of the Roman Empire, after the
Emperor Constantine converted and made it the official religion. A
supernatural sign of the cross appeared to him in the sky and this changed
the course of history.
Jesus' advice to care for the sick and not kill others increased the ranks
of Christians, when during plagues charity work was done and the old custom
of infanticide and abortion were banned, so this in turn produced more
children of Christians. The Romans just used to leave unwanted children out
to die; such was the savage world then. Yet Jung wanted us to return to the
world of the primitive, where spirits are invoked, eugenics practiced to
revive the Aryan race and polygamy restored. Unfortunately this ideal never
took root fully at the time until Hitler restored it in part, but was
beaten. Now people's morals are more loosened in the western world again,
however most people do their own thinking rather than consult spirits and
oracles to decide a course of action. Though a minute percentage of the
western do now crave psychically derived information for guidance, but per
head of population education and business rules, and people work and get
their knowledge from books and TV, and make their own life decisions, based
on opportunity and money.
However, Jesus encouraged people to think for themselves and not follow the
racial inclinations to try and have more power over the next race. While it
seems He inclined people to look heavenwards for reward, one only has to
spend time helping those in need to get their feet back on the ground. This
is also an outlet for the primal instincts to be diverted into other
channels and refine the feelings and thoughts. Being ruled by the senses won't
actually give one real freedom, it may give an emotional outlet, but the
mind is still bound. Once the mind knows no bounds then nobody can take that
away. It would seem the level of your freedom increases or decreases
according to what direction you are headed. (Whether the underworld or
heaven.) Each time you refuse to give in to temptation I would expect you
become stronger. If temptation rules you, you will be a slave to it. If you
reach out to people besides your family as your brother and sister, this can
be very freeing and without expectation. Jung did not give his teachings to
produce freedom; he tried to develop satisfaction of the senses, enslavement
to one's race and to create a link to past mythological states of being,
whether historical or symbolic.
Looking more closely at Jung, why has he been such a massive influence still
today? Many of his books are in the libraries and bookshops. What is it
about him that people are attracted to?
Jung wrote:
It is indeed no edifying spectacle to see how quickly Yahweh abandons his
faithful servant to the evil spirits and lets him fall without compunction
or pity into the abyss of physical and moral suffering. From the human point
of view Yahweh's behavior is so revolting that one has to ask oneself
whether there is not a deeper motive hidden behind it. Has Yahweh some
secret resistance against Job? That would explain his yielding to Satan?
What does man possess that God does not have? Because of his littleness,
puniness, and defenseless against the Almighty, he possesses, as we have
already suggested, a somewhat keener consciousness based on self-reflection:
he must in order to survive, always be mindful of his impotence. God has no
need of this circumspection, for nowhere does he come up against an
insuperable obstacle that would force him to reflect on himself. Could a
suspicion have grown up in God that man possesses an infinitely small yet
more concentrated light than, he Yahweh possesses? A jealously of that kind
might perhaps explain his behavior....One must bear in mind here the dark
deed that follows one another in quick succession: robbery, murder, bodily
injury with premeditation, and denial of a fair trial. This is further
exacerbated by the fact that Yahweh displays no compunction, remorse, or
compassion, but only ruthless and brutality. The plea of unconsciousness is
invalid; seeing that he flagrantly violates at least 3 of the commandments
he himself gave out on Mount Sinai. (Jung as cited by Campbell, 1996,
pp.538-539.)
Jung developed a belief system that implies how we perceive others are what
we embody unconsciously. Jung experienced his own Creator as a powerless
fool, at the mercy of Satan who deceived Him by showing God how easily
people can fall and He can't do a thing about it. Jung continues saying "God
does not want to be just; he merely flaunts might over right". (As cited by
Campbell, 1996 pp.541) Was Jung actually describing himself? It is said by
some that how we perceive God, is how we experience our own father while
young. Jung's father was weak and powerless.
In short Jung's system of beliefs included:
* Childhood experiences are less important than the present state.
* Dreams and fantasies could be categorized into symbols. While discussing
the symbols a person's emotional reaction to them may bring unconscious
stuff to the conscious mind.
* Symbolism was archetypal from myth, folklore and religion. Enormous
complexities of human experience can fit into simple categories.
* Using active imagination to explore symbolism emerging from the
unconscious in creative ways.
* Balancing of opposites. If two opposites are given equal exposure, a third
state emerges which represents a new healthy attitude. This is called the
transcendent function.
* Concentrate on oneself foremost, with relationships to others second. One
can only relate to others after one can relate to oneself. (Berry, 2000)
Jesus' teachings ran to 87 pages just from His own words, so I've picked out
the main ones leaving out the prophecies for the future, accounts of
healing, the history of the Old Testament and stories. However all the 4
gospel accounts repeat these particular words that Jesus said.
* Repent of your sins.
* The poor have a place in heaven.
* Those who desire to be righteous shall be rewarded by God.
* Those who are merciful shall be given mercy.
* The pure in heart shall see God.
* Those who have been persecuted for righteousness sake shall enter heaven.
* Reconcile with your brother before offering gifts at the alter.
* Don't rub people up the wrong way lest you be sent to prison.
* Do not commit adultery.
* Let your yes be yes and your no be no, anything else is of the devil.
* Don't resist him who is committing evil upon you.
* If someone steals your coat, also give him your cloak.
* Don't blow your own trumpet about your good deeds.
* God will provide everything if you ask.
* The man who stays firm to Jesus' laws to the end will be rewarded.
* Jesus came to set man against his family, if they block him from following
the truth.
* A man's foes will be those of his own household.
* Everyone who follows God's Will is your true brother and sister.
* If a person helps another even with a cup of water they will be rewarded
in heaven.
* Whatever is bound on earth will be bound in heaven.
* It is not what you eat that will poison the body, as that passes, but what
you say that will poison the body, because what you say comes out of the
heart, and these can come forth: evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
immorality, thefts, lies and blasphemies.
* You must be like a little child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
* Whoever humbles themselves like a little child, is the greatest in the
Kingdom of Heaven.
* Be gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest in your soul.
* Whoever exalts themselves will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will
be exalted.
* All authority on heaven and earth has been given to Jesus to forgive sins.
To some psychology buffs Jung was a pioneer in analyzing what makes us
tick - a light relief where all weird and wonderful internal experiences are
neatly cataloged into a set of simple archetypal figures that can sum up
life into opposites, that require balancing, rather like Buddhism does. Male-female, dark-light, positive-negative. In contrast to the dark hellish
tormented truths which rear their ugly heads from the mire of our
subconscious past, as Freud unpeeled the layers, Jung gave hope that there
was more to us than endless psychosis and unsatisfied primal urges.
But instead did we really escape from the need to conquer Freud's childhood
torments to be thrust into a false world, away from the primordial
insecurities and into an illusory light that is artificial -- where
nothing is ever real or what it is supposed to be? It's one thing
concentrating on negative feelings and becoming obsessed with the dark side,
but truly to call evil good is deception at its finest. Has Jung caused sane
people to look for parts of themselves that may not even exist and
incorporate delusional phantoms? To accept these as seeing themselves in
others, all in a godless merry go round of endlessly finding balance between
the male and female, along with other archetypal roles. Did Jung lead us
onto an overhanging cliff, (for some people, who don't already have a good
grounding in reality) to drop down into a sea of madness instead? Just
following urges to have a relationship with another person and therefore
incorporate their symbolic representation in yourself, might really make one
feel complete and whole -- but artificially. To Jung there was no right or
wrong, there were no normal traditional moral values of loyalty, faithfulness
and self-control. It was, if feels right do it.
There are many Jungian books written as if his word is gospel, but where did
he get the knowledge to say something happens to us in real life, as part of
normal human evolution? Even after he died he was still portrayed
flatteringly. His book Memories, Dreams and Reflections had parts written by
him in the first person by his assistant and written to perpetuate an image
of him preferred by his family and disciples, where his worst side was
removed. (Noll, 1997)
Jung was born in 1875 and died in 1961 in Switzerland. Eugen Bohler, a Swiss
scholar who knew Jung intimately from 1955 said, "he spoke of his mission:
to serve the function of making God conscious. He had to make God conscious,
and not for our own sake but for the sake of God." (Noll, 1997, pp.xiv, xv)
Richard Noll in his book The Aryan Christ wrote that as an individual, Jung
ranks with the Roman emperor Julien the Apostate (4th cent) as one who
significantly undermined orthodox Christianity and brought all the
polytheism of the Greeks into the western world. His mixture of multiple
pagan beliefs rolled up into a tidy package still works its way into the
teaching of Protestants, Catholics and Jews along with other areas of postmodern psychology. Jung professed Christianity but practiced paganism and
looked upon Christianity as his enemy and the enemy of life itself. Jung was
really an actor expressing himself in a world he justified for his
unfaithful needs. Virtually anything told to him from the spiritual world,
(as he tapped into it as a psychic) could be incorporated into his system of
truth -- indiscriminately.
Jung's German paternal grandfather changed from Catholic to Protestant
pastor and followed Pietism. Pietists had ecstatic experiences where they
were supposedly filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit and claimed the
heart must burn, as an experience of Christ within us, not Christ for us.
This became part of German nationalism. As Noll writes the "internalized
Kingdom of Heaven" became identical with the spiritual soil of the German
Teutonic ancestors. The mythic German hero Siegfried is compared with
Christ, equating pagan and Christian saviors. Reaching the German god's
kingdom was reaching Christ's Kingdom; it was called rebirth or
regeneration. However, it was completely pagan. After a spell in jail Jung's
grandfather became an exile and moved to Switzerland where he became a
Freemason and the esoteric goal was to find the Holy Grail. The Swiss
Freemason Lodges weren't closed down in the purges of the late 1780s, so
German Illuminist and Rosicrucian Freemasons found them a haven according to
Noll. (Noll, 1997)
Goethe, the German Freemason mystic was a contemporary of Jung's
grandfather. Goethe worked his way through the Freemason rituals but became
disillusioned. He wrote a book called in English, 'The Mysteries' and both
grandfather and grandson Jung committed it to their hearts. It's full of
symbolism regarding the Initiation quest. Goethe never finished the book, but
published it anyway and it told of twelve knights surrounding a cross tightly
wound with roses, each knight representing a different religion and
nationality. This would encompass the entire range of human religious
experience. One called Humanus in the tale had an Easter death and Brother
Markus was reinstated after him as grand master of the Rosy Cross. (Noll,
1997)
Exactly 100 years after the publication of this book Jung spoke before his
own disciples about the self-deification process, (in particular the
acceptance of his own deification) at the founding of the Psychological Club
and about theories received from his own visions and spiritual encounters
with his own spiritual master called Philemon. He spoke about the
Rosicrucian brotherhood in Goethe's fantasy and invoked the ancestral soul
of Goethe and the German quest for the grail. During the talk there is
reason to believe that Jung spoke of his grandfather being the illegitimate
son of Goethe by an extramarital tryst of his great-grandmother. Jung's
family, as well as strangers also mentioned this to him. (Noll ,1997)
Jung spoke in 1925 of "ancestor possession", in that certain hereditary
units would take over one's actions, in that a leader in one's ancestors
could spring into the consciousness genetically and make a normal man a
leader. But of course biological genetics was yet to be scientifically
understood at the time so this was basically guesswork. So Jung had an
unproven reason to believe that Goethe's believed genius naturally radiated
out of himself biologically. He became obsessed with Goethe's story ‘Faust’
about a man who sacrifices his intellect to invoke spirits by using magic
and believed the book was a new religious insight and sacred text. Goethe
was Jung's prophet and he sometimes dreamed that he actually was Goethe in a
previous life. Jung also thought in his past lives, that he was the German
Meister Eckhardt -- born in 1260, a Christian mystic whose writings implied
pantheism, or more than one god. Jung believed himself to be the result of
German genius, either through ancestral heritage or past lives. (Noll, 1997)
Jung placed himself above others in evolution. While he had some psychic
ability he appeared to absorb all the information he got from the spiritual
indiscriminately and his cousin, the daughter of his mother's brother,
called Helene Preiswek, became Jung's medium. He encouraged her to channel
various entities at seances to give him information for years. In 1895 he
opened a door to discarnate voices and unknown entities, which he consulted
for his truth. In his own case, visionary trance induction put Jung in touch
with his ancestors, the spirits and gods of the Land of the Dead. These gave
themselves various names and spoke psychological jargon to him his whole
life. His "will to believe" was never lost. (Noll, 1997)
Jung himself had two distinct personalities, which he called no 1 and no 2.
His mother also had two distinct personalities and when Jung was aged three
his mother was hospitalized for nervous disability, in effect abandoning
him. Jung's maternal grandfather, also a reverend, also spoke to spirits and
had weekly seances to speak with his first wife. Jung's mother believed
she had second sight and received messages from the dead. She was
also a hysteric. His mother's mother also used to fall into trance and
babble prophecies, and Jung's own daughter was a psychic. An old man spoke
through his cousin Helene and gave Jung prophecies about himself. During
this, she traveled out of her body astrally and the old man would report her
activities while he occupied it. Jung also used an ouija board to obtain
information. (Noll, 1997)
Jung kept detailed notes of Helene's mediumistic utterances, even though he
knew full well that her utterances were spirits, he later wrote about her
callously diagnosing her as a multiple personality for his psychiatry
studies, after which her life was ruined. A man who was to marry Helene read
it and changed his mind. She later died at thirty of a broken heart it was
said, after falling in love with Jung. Could there be a non-Christian spirit
world wondered Jung? And he believed there was more truth coming in from the
spirit world, than from Christian teachings so he became disillusioned with
Christianity. He read widely on spiritual and philosophy texts and filled
his mind with Nietzsche, Darwin, Goethe and the Greek philosophers etc. He
also studied mesmerism, psychical research, spiritualism and the existence
of the human soul and its survival. (Noll, 1997)
However, Jung claimed the major influences on his beliefs about the
spiritual world were those written by Kant and Schopenhauer and the latter
claimed that visions of future events are allegorical or symbolic and that
clairvoyant visions are more of a past reality, not proof of a living
spiritual world. Schopenhauer also claimed that will operated independently
of time and space and can affect others at a distance, not being dependent
on the body. Strangely, in formal public statements, Jung adopted a
psychological explanation for ghosts, visions and apparitions as only a part
of human character being expressed, but in private he said the contrary,
which was that people have allowed disembodied spirits to enter them and
speak. After he absorbed all the ideas of other people about the spirit
worlds, he had just enough scientific training to whiz it all around into a
blended form, which supposedly sums up everything potentially in our
character. (Noll, 1997)
At the turn of the 20th century cryptomnesia, (which is the power of hidden
memory of things, which have already been learned) reappearing, as a personal
memory was known. Jung's cousin made a well-known prophetess speak in her
mediumistic trance, after she read a book Jung lent her on the particular
woman. However, Jung denied clear cases of cryptomnesia because it
threatened his most central theory about multiple personalities, which
clashed with the knowledge that his cousin had entities controlling her.
Furthermore she could have invented a few spirits as well to keep him coming
for more data as she apparently secretly fell in love with him. So rather
than be honest and say that multiple personality disorder might be due to
multiple causes e.g. spirits, cryptomnesia or even deliberate invention by
the patient he preferred the guesswork in scientific diagnosis of
personality disorder which secured his job at the asylum. (Noll, 1997)
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JUNG OR JESUS: Part Two
JUNG REPLACES JESUS IN CATHOLIC SPIRITUALITY by Paul Likoudis
The automatic writings of Jung
