The Quest: Vision in an age of Crisis. Economic & Financial Crisis. Jungian Psychotherapy

S2 Ep73. Exploration of Jung’s Answer to Job. Part 1. The Background.

This is the start of miniseries within the Spiritual Crisis of our Time in which I examine Jung’s Answer to Job, one of his most enigmatic and fascinating books, written in 1952 and which was clearly of enormous personal importance to him.

This episode:

# explores Jung’s own psychology, especially in his childhood, as a background to this work.

# presents Jung’s account of his religious and theological struggles in his adolescence.

# gives a brief account of the story of Job as presented in the bible.

# presents the question that Jung felt he had to answer.

This series concerns a metaphysical exploration of nature of evil, the contradictions in the godhead, and the dangers to humanity in our own times.

S3 Ep27. Jung y la Respuesta a Job. Parte 4. El lado oscuro de Dios. Spanish language series.

Dios quiere entrar en la humanidad pero este es un proceso contradictorio porque trae consigo su lado oscuro a pesar de todos los esfuerzos de la humanidad por limpiar su imagen y convertirlo en el dios de la justicia y el amor.

Jung da más evidencia de un dios iracundo y destructivo de las visiones apocalípticas de Ezequiel, Daniel y Enoc del Antiguo Testamento, y el Libro de Revelaciones, el ultimo del Nuevo Testamento.

Las contradicciones de Yahweh son responsables no solo de la creación del mundo sino del destino de la humanidad que debe vivir estas contradicciones de la deidad.

S2 Ep72. Banishment from Eden and Emergence of Consciousness. The Spiritual Crisis of our Time. Part 15

This episode explores the Book of Genesis, in particular the story of Adam and Eve: their existence in the Garden, the temptation to eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, and their banishment. It is interpreted as the movement into consciousness which inevitably is also into an awareness of death. A Gnostic and Jungian interpretation of this foundational myth of Western civilization is given. Human consciousness has indeed taken the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. However, if it is to reach the Tree of Life (the second tree in Eden that is forbidden), the human race in the 21^st century will have to pass through the gates of death – either symbolically or literally.

S3 Ep26. Jung y la Respuesta a Job. Parte 3. El drama entre Dios y la humanidad. Spanish language series

En el ultimo episodio presentamos la experiencia de Jung en su juventud con el inconsciente, que más tarde lo predispuso a identificarse tan profundamente con Job. Experimentó el “otro lado de la psique”, el lado oscuro de Dios. Esto fue como un trauma infligido por Dios pero también fue la fuente de su gracia.

En este episodio cubrimos los primeros 10 capítulos de Respuesta a Job que incluye:

Primero: La naturaleza contradictoria de la personalidad de Yahvé.

Segundo: El tema de que Dios necesita el hombre.

Tercero: Lo que le falta a Yahweh es un lado femenino.

Cuarto: Jung busca la encarnación de Dios a través de Cristo, el dios-hombre. Esto resultó del daño hecho a Job por Yahweh. Cristo seriá perfecto. Satanás tendriá que dejar el cielo y ser arrojado a la tierra. Dios tendriá que entrar en la humanidad.

Quinto: El mal todavía prevalece en la tierra.

Sexto: La creencia de que Dios es todo bueno simplemente no es creíble.

Septimo: La imagen de Dios es una mezcla de opuestos.

S2 Ep71. The Fall from the Garden of Eden. Spiritual Crisis of our Time Part 14

This episode examines the Book of Genesis, the great Judaic creation myth which has been also been fundamental to Christianity. In particular the famous account of the fall and banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden is presented. The Tree of Knowledge and the eating of apple is the movement into consciousness; the banishment from the garden is the expulsion from the primal unity (nature, pre-consciousness, pre-civilization, the unconscious). The Serpent, as Lucifer, is the bringer of the light - the meaning of this name in Latin. This is in accord with Gnostic and Jungian interpretations. Genesis is a myth of the birth of human consciousness.

S2 Ep70. The Transition from the Great Mother to the Patriarchy. The Spiritual Crisis of our Time. Part 13.

Having looked at the benevolent and terrible aspects of the Great Mother, and located this duality in the history of our consciousness, I now wish to explore the transition from the Great Mother to the Patriarchy, understood symbolically and mythologically.

Three to six thousand years ago patriarchal religions replaced Great Mother worship. The masculine became opposed to nature, the realm of the feminine, mythologically portrayed in the dragon fight. This is a fundamental shift in human consciousness and prerequisite to the advancement of patriarchal civilization.

 

S3 Ep25. Jung y la Respuesta a Job. Parte 2. Las diferentes voces de Jung. Spanish language series

En opinión de Jung, Yahvé, a pesar de toda su superioridad, no es consciente de los opuestos en sí mismo, pero Job sí lo es. Yahvé está obligado a cambiar y desarrollarse como resultado de su confrontación con Job. Así, Dios o el inconsciente necesitan de la conciencia para realizarse. Esto le da a la conciencia humana una inmensa importancia en el gran esquema de las cosas. En Respuesta a Job, Jung adopta voces diferentes. Éstas incluyen: El Jung emocional; La voz del terapeuta - ¡Jung psicoanaliza a Yahvé!; La perspectiva teológica - especulaciones altamente metafísicas y teológicas; La voz mística- por ejemplo, que Dios necesite al hombre para hacerse más consciente; La voz esotérica - se mueve hacia las creencias esotéricas gnósticas y cabalísticas; La perspectiva de la psicología junguiana; La voz de la filosofía arquetípica; La voz histórica.

Jung se mueve entre las diversas voces con gran velocidad. Quizás si uno conociera las diferentes perspectivas, entonces este texto sería más comprensible.

 

S2 Ep69. The Terrible Great Mother. The Spiritual Crisis of our Time. Part 12

Nature, besides being benevolent, is also death-threatening and can appear malevolent. Survival demands aggression. Destructiveness and selfishness are vital parts of our animal and therefore human psyche. Our savagery is infamous. Thus, we have the opposites of nature, the good and the terrible, within ourselves. These opposites in our experience of nature, the two faces of the Great Mother, the good and the terrible, are paralleled very closely by the psychoanalytic school of Melanie Klein which postulates that all human infants begin life in a paranoid schizoid state in which the good and bad breast alternate as fundamental structuring experiences of the infant psyche. This duality is resolved in the ‘depressive position’ which would find its equivalent in the history of the species as the birth of civilization. Freud also postulated that life and civilization emerged and developed out of two polar forces – love and hate.

S3 Ep24. Jung y la Respuesta a Job. Parte 1. El trasfondo. Spanish language series.

En este episodio vamos a:

# Explorar la propia psicología de Jung, especialmente en su infancia, como trasfondo del texto Respuesta a Job.

# Presentar el relato de Jung sobre sus luchas religiosas e incluso teológicas en su juventud.

# Dar un breve relato de la historia de Job como se presenta en la biblia.

# Presentar la pregunta planteada por esta historia bíblica que Jung sintió que tenía que responder.

S2 Ep68. Immersion in Nature and the Great Mother. Spiritual Crisis of our Time. Part 11.

This episode presents the early stage of the human psyche as it is immersed in nature and the realm of the Great Mother. The themes of fertility and power, applicable to all life forms, saturate the history of humanity, most evidently in this period stretching roughly from 40,000 years ago up to birth of modern civilizations.

S2 Ep67. Human Nature: the HIgher Self. Part B. Spiritual Crisis of our Time. Part 10

This episode explores the emergence of the Higher Self within the evolution of the hominid species. For example, evidence of care of the sick and dying in the our hominid ancestors over half a million years ago; burial of the dead with symbolic objects over 100 thousand years ago; cave paintings, sculpted earth goddesses and the like from 30 thousand years ago. It is hypothesised that the higher self and even love emerged as a transcendent response to the intense awareness of death, especially in Homo Sapiens.

S3 Ep23 Jung y Alquimia Parte 3. El proceso de transformación. Spanish Language Podcast

Seis procesos involucrados en la Gran Obra Alquímica - descrito por Anne Baring. Ellos son:

Primero. El rescate del espíritu perdido escondido en la naturaleza y en nosotros mismos.

Segundo. El proceso de transformación que implica este rescate.

Tercero. La muerte de la vieja conciencia simbolizada por el Viejo Rey y la Reina.

Cuarto. La formación de la nueva conciencia simbolizada por el Joven Rey y la Reina.

Quinto. La formación del Hermafrodita – la unión de los dos elementos transformados

Sexto. La integración de cuerpo, alma y espíritu.

S2 Ep66. What is Human Nature? Part A. The Spiritual Crisis of our Times. Part 9

The first four components of our evolved human nature are outlined. These are:

Animal inheritance which is not just our aggressive and sexual impulses (the id) but the inherited reservoir of evolved genetic intelligence.

Emotional structure: as life evolved instincts evolved into emotion. As the primate brain expanded a far greater and more differentiated emotional structure developed.

Ego consciousness  combines rational intelligence plus a distinct personality. It is a master coordinator to allow the brain to focus and plan and is the integration of multiple brain functions so that a version of ‘reality’, both subjective and objective, can exist. As Self-awareness develops in early humans, they became acutely aware of death. The ego is also the tool for repression of parts of the psyche. Homo sapiens became the world’s first repressed creature. The ego, however, is also a vehicle of meaning in a world which possessed no conscious expression up to this time. Homo sapiens is the problematic embodiment of meaning and awareness in an animal.

The unconscious. With the emergence of Homo sapiens the ego provided an automatic filter for consciousness which increasingly repressed impulses, instincts, and emotions. Three dimensions of the unconscious are relevant: the psycho-somatic unconscious, the emotional or personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious.

In the next episode I will continue with the essentials of human nature and focus on higher consciousness and the archetypeof the Self. Finally I will ask what, if any, is the purpose of human nature?

S3 Ep22. Jung y Alquimia Parte 2. Alquimia, Alma, Individuación. Spanish language.

Dos poderosas corrientes de alquimia provinieron del antiguo Egipto y Babilonia por un lado y de Persa y la España islámica por el otro. Estos se unieron en el florecimiento de la alquimia en la Europa de la Edad Media. Después de la iluminación científica, la alquimia prácticamente desapareció. Carl Jung jugó un papel importante en el re descubrimiento de la alquimia. Fue llamado a este trabajo por su propio mundo de sueños, y pasó muchas décadas de investigación explorándolo hasta que descifró su significado psicológico y espiritual. Incluso descubrió que las imágenes alquímicas se parecían tanto a las de los sueños de sus pacientes como a las de él mismo. El trabajo alquímico se convirtió en el marco para su descubrimiento del proceso de individuación, tan central en la psicoterapia que ofrecía al mundo.

S2 Ep65. The Spiritual Crisis of our Times. Part 8. The Cosmos is a Mighty Womb

While the precursors of our consciousness lie in our animal and hominid evolutionary past its origins are in the intelligence of life itself and beyond that in the intelligence of the cosmos. This viewpoint requires a paradigm shift away from a dead and mechanistic universe in which the emergence of life and consciousness are accidents. The alternative vision is that the cosmos is intelligence or spirit itself and has an ordering principle or logos. Matter is no longer primary but coexistent with spirit. Intelligence precedes Homo sapiens, primates and indeed all life forms. It is woven into the cosmos and the emergence of life and consciousness are the expression of it as indeed is its evolution into higher forms.

From a materialist view human consciousness is ultimately inexplicable. From the metaphysical perspective of immanence it is quite different: human consciousness is the living spirit of the universe.

S3 Ep21. Jung y Alquimia Part 1. El Transfondo. Spanish Language podcast.

¨Las experiencias de los alquimistas eran mis experiencias y su mundo era mi mundo. Este fue, por supuesto, un descubrimiento trascendental: me había topado con la contraparte histórica de mi psicología del inconsciente. La posibilidad de una comparación con la alquimia, y la cadena intelectual ininterrumpida de regreso al gnosticismo, dieron sustancia a mi psicología. Cuando examiné detenidamente estos textos antiguos, todo encajó: las imágenes de la fantasía, el material empírico que había reunido en mi práctica y las conclusiones que había sacado. Ahora comencé a comprender qué significaban estos contenidos psíquicos cuando se analizaban en perspectiva histórica." Carl Jung.  Psicología y Alquimia.

S2 Ep64. The Spiritual Crisis of our Times. Part 7. Creation Myths and Science.

The astronomer’s lens, peering out to the creation of our universe, is human consciousness, like a mirror to its deep centre, forever examining its origins, birth, and even the pre-conditions of its existence. But ultimate knowledge forever vanishes beyond our scope. In the moment of dating the universe we realise there must be others preceding it; that the cosmos must be infinite and eternal as Giordano Bruno intuited in the 16^th century; that there have been endless cycles of creation and dissolution.

The intelligence of mankind gazes at the universe only to realise that we are an expression of this infinite intelligence itself. That which we have called God or Brahman we then name cosmos; that which we named cosmos we now call Self. Consciousness and the universe are inextricably linked. One searches for the creator, forever finding oneself

S2 Ep63. The Spiritual Crisis of our Time. Part 6. The Elephant in the Room.

The three most significant events in the history of life on earth are discussed: the emergence of life, consciousness, and self-consciousness.

Science has no explanation of how these came into being. This appears to be an enormous problem which no amount of evasion can explain away.

The crisis of the Self is at the centre of the crisis of modern times.

S3 Ep20. La Influencia del Taoísmo en la Psicología Junguiana. Part 4. La situación en China.

Este episodio examina al menos 15 puntos muy similares entre el taoísmo y la psicología junguiana, por ejemplo:

Para los taoístas la "acción por non-acción" es para el psicólogo profundo occidental la liberación interna del dominio cognitivo; la importancia de lo femenino en ambas tradiciones; la “circulación de la luz” le recordó a Jung el camino circular hacia el centro, el camino hacia el ser superior; el movimiento circular tiene también el significado de la auto-incubación; las referencias al lado más oscuro en terminología junguiana está cerca de la concepción de la sombra; la creencia taoísta de que se podía lograr un estado iluminador encontraría su equivalente en el concepto de Jung de la experiencia del Ser. Numerosas referencias al símbolo del mandala en el texto resuenan con la creciente fascinación de Jung por el símbolo del Self.

En el seguno parte del episodio examinamos el estado de taoísmo y otra religiones en la China moderna.

 

S2 Ep62. The Spiritual Crisis of our Time. Part 5. The Influence of Taoism in the West and its Fate in China

We begin by examining the impact of Taoism, especially with respect to the influence of the Taoist book the Secret of the Golden Flower upon Carl Jung and his school of Analytical Psychology.

We continue by considering modern China with a focus on Taoism which is one of its indigenous religions. What happens in this country is of immense importance not only for its size (over 1/6th of the world population) but also because of its growing importance.