The Swiss psychologist, the founder of analytical psychology, and the originator of modern psychology, Carl Jung (1875-1961), was called by the BBC as the most respected and great psychiatrist in the world. Jung put forward important psychological concepts such as the collective subconscious, archetypes, and plots, and pioneered the psychological typology and word association test, whose influence was not limited to the psychological community, but also had an important impact on literature, art, history, religion and other fields. There are growing signs of its analytical psychology influence, especially among young people.
In 2009, Jung's private diary "Red Book" came out, which was called the most important event in the history of psychology in the past hundred years by Time Magazine, and became a bestseller at the end of the year, and a new round of "Jung" fever was set off in society.
The reason for the rising popularity of "Jung" lies not only in the huge impact of his psychological achievements, but also in the critical and cosmopolitan nature of his theory. Jung's preference for Oriental culture was so great that it reached the point of obsession. He read through buddhist theory, was familiar with Zhuangzi, was proficient in the I Ching, and spent more than ten years specializing in alchemy, studying the "Purpose of Taiyi Jinhua", and writing "The Secret of the Golden Flower".
Jung had incorporated traditional Eastern ideas into his psychological theories, throughout life, in all aspects of life. This article takes a clip of it and shares it with you to see what kind of inspiration and surprise this psychology guru has brought us.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="32" > first, the life crisis caused by sudden illness</h1>
In 1944, Jung fell to his foot and suffered a heart attack. In the state of consciousness, Jung experienced temporary mental frenzy and illusions. While receiving oxygen and camphor injections, Jung experienced a fantasy vision in which he concluded that he was on the verge of death. The nurse later told him: "You seem to have experienced a return to the light, a phenomenon that can occasionally be seen in people who have passed away." ”
In any case, Jung felt that he had reached the limits of his life, and he could not tell whether he was in a dream or in a special state. In this state, there are all kinds of irreproducible experiences.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="44" > second, illusion experience</h1>
Jung gave a detailed description of one of the illusions:
I seemed to be in the air. Below, I saw the Earth, bathed in a brilliant blue glow. I saw the deep blue waters and the continents... I could also see the Himalayas covered in snow, but in that direction everything was cloudy. I know, I'm flying off Earth. At an altitude of about a thousand miles, the Earth was the most majestic and beautiful sight I had ever seen.
In the near air, I saw a large black stone, like a meteorite. It has been hollowed out into a temple. The entrance leads to a small vestibule. To the right of the entrance, there is a dark-skinned Hindu sitting cross-legged on a stone chair. He was wearing a white robe, and I knew he was waiting for me.
As I approached the steps leading to the entrance to the boulder, a strange phenomenon arose, and I felt that everything was disappearing, that everything I had gazed, desired, anticipated, all the apparitions of the existence of the earth, had disappeared or left me, and it was an extremely painful process. However, something has also survived, as if I still have everything I have experienced or done, everything that has happened around me. I can also say: all this is with me, I am all this. Arguably, I'm made up of all of this. I am made up of my own history, and I do feel it. That's how I am. "I am the sum of all that has existed and all that has been done."
This feeling makes me feel extremely poor, but at the same time I feel very fulfilled. I have nothing else to ask for. I exist in the objective form, I am my past and my experience. At first, the prevailing feeling of destruction, of being plundered or robbed, but all of a sudden, that feeling vanished. Everything seems to be in the past; what remains is a fait accompli that has nothing to do with everything in the past. No more regrets about what has been lost and taken. On the contrary, I have everything I have felt in the past, and that's everything.
In the nurse who took care of him, an illusion also arose. For a time he felt that the nurse was an elderly Jewish woman, much older than her actual age, and that she was preparing clean sacrificial food for herself. When looking at her, there seemed to be a blue aura around her head. It seems as if he were in the Garden of Pomegranates (the title of an ancient tantric treatise written by Moses Cordovello in the 16th century), and the wedding of Tifelette and Maldese was taking place.
It took three weeks for Jung to get out of this state, determined to continue to live, and return to the "box system" of the three-dimensional world, which made Jung feel infinitely troubled by the prison-like real world. During that time, Jung lived in a strange rhythm.
I always feel depressed during the day. I felt weak and miserable, and I hardly dared to move. In the gloom, I thought, "Now I'm forced back into this boring world." "I always slept soundly in the evening, until around midnight. Then he woke up and lay awake for an hour, but his mental state was completely abnormal. I seemed to be in a state of ecstasy. I felt as if I were floating in the air, unharmed in the depths of the universe, in a great emptiness, and yet my heart was filled with the highest sense of happiness. "It's eternal well-being," I thought. "It's indescribable, it's amazing!"
Jung saw these illusions as an experience, not as a product of imagination, but as completely real, with absolutely objective qualities that could not be reproduced by imagination. He describes this experience as a non-temporal state of ecstasy, where the present, past, and future have all become one. Man is drawn into an indescribable whole and observes it with a complete objective attitude.
Jung believed that emotion was an important human experience of existence, but it was mixed with desire, contained certain projections, and was contaminated with compulsion and bondage, so that we could not be free. Only by extracting these projection phenomena, objectively understanding the attraction hidden in the emotional relationship, getting rid of various evaluations, getting rid of the cover of emotional bonds, and revealing the objective existence of the self, can we achieve the true combination of possibilities.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="45" > third, epithesis of the experience of illness</h1>
(1) No longer insist on perfection
The experience of this illness allowed Jung to begin a fruitful period, with a new epiphany, and wrote many important works. This epiphany, or the illusion of the destiny of all things, gave Jung the courage to re-write. Let him no longer devote himself to the perfection of his insights, but follow the activity of thought. In this way, the problems are revealed and taken shape.
(ii) Accept everything in the present
Another change is the affirmation of what exists: the unconditional recognition of all that exists, without subjective resistance, the acceptance of the environment of existence as seen and understood, the acceptance of one's own nature. If you follow the path of individualization, if you want to live your own life, you have to take on mistakes, and without mistakes, life is incomplete. There is no straight, smooth road in life, and we are always at risk of making mistakes or encountering fatal dangers. The only straight path is the path to death, after which nothing will happen, at least the right thing will never happen again. Anyone who wants to take shortcuts is no different from a dead person.
(3) Deal with mundane things freely, and the inner waves are not alarming
The experience of illness made Jung understand how important it was to admit his fate. Fate tempers a self that is not afraid of the unknown and is indomitable: this self is durable, can withstand the truth, and has the ability to deal with the world and fate. Such a self, with the continuity of domestic capital to resist the tide of life and time, experiencing failure is equivalent to experiencing victory, dealing with mundane things freely, and the heart is not alarmed.
(iv) Acknowledge and accept your own ideas
Another takeaway is that man must accept the thoughts within himself, formed independently, as part of his own reality. The true and false categories are of course permanent, but because they are not binding, they occupy the second place. The existence of thoughts is more important than our judgment of them. However, these judgments are also not appropriate to suppress, for they are also existing ideas that form part of our integrity.