Jung appears in prophetic ghost to trump….
Snips from an article, What Would C.G. Jung Say about Donald Trump?
Jung was of the opinion that Active Imagination, a process in which we actively dialogue and have it out with the figures of our unconscious, was the most powerful practice he had ever come across for working with—and integrating—the unconscious
I like this phrase – figures of our unconscious. Especially as applied to the bizarre elements of my dreams.
Jung says, with the utmost assurance, that what is taking place is brought about by an upheaval of forces lying dormant in the unconscious. It is as if darker subterranean powers that have been brewing in the cauldron of the collective unconscious for centuries have been unleashed into our world.
Jung’s well-known insight that if we don’t bring consciousness to the shadow forces within the psyche, we will then most assuredly dream up our inner unconscious situation to play out—destructively on the world stage as our fate.
in Jung’s view what distinguishes our age from all others is that we are being forced to recognize and come to terms with the active world-shaping powers of the psyche.
I express my concern to Jung that Trump is severely inflated, by which I mean he is unconsciously identified with, instead of being in conscious relationship to, what Jung refers to as the Self (which can be equated to the higher Self, i.e., God).
Greater than all physical dangers are the tremendous effects of delusional ideas. Ideas, what Plato calls the eyes of the soul, are ways of regarding things, the means by which we see, the perspectives through which we view the world and create our life. Delusional ideas, I find myself thinking, are the one thing that our current administration is not lacking.
The man who promises everything is sure to fulfill nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition.
People like Trump who suffer from hysteria invariably fall prey to what Jung refers to as prestige psychology, evidenced by his typical need to flaunt his merits and insist on them, of his insatiable thirst for recognition, admiration, adulation. I remember how in his writings Jung points out that people who suffer from hysteria, due to their unwillingness to own their own failings, compulsively wind up hurting other people.
Perhaps in a more enlightened era a candidate for governmental office will have to have it certified by a psychiatric commission that he is not a bearer of psychic bacilli. I appreciate Jung’s idea of having our would-be-leaders vetted for mental stability.
In any case, it certainly seems like an incredibly dangerous time we are living through – images of a mentally unbalanced person such as Trump with his finger on the button come to mind. Jung comments, The situation is about the same as if a small boy of six had been given a bag of dynamite for a birthday present. Yeah, I find myself thinking, but the bag of dynamite in our case is nuclear.
a complete spiritual renewal is needed. And this cannot be given gratis, each man must strive to achieve it for himself.
Therefore it is always single individuals who are moved by the collective problem and who are called upon to respond and contribute to its solution by tackling it in their own lives and not running away from it.
Jung continues, If ever there was a time when self-reflection was the absolutely necessary and only right thing, it is now, in our present catastrophic epoch.[36] Self-reflection, a privilege born of and intrinsic to human freedom, is a genuinely spiritual act – essentially the act of becoming conscious. He continues, The true leaders of mankind are always those who are capable of self-reflection.
In self-reflection we recognize ourselves in the mirror of the world. As if amplifying my thoughts, Jung exclaims, Yet, whoever reflects upon himself is bound to strike upon the frontiers of the unconscious, which contains what above all else he needs to know. I love Jung’s idea that the unconscious, instead of simply being a repository of what we repress, contains what we need to know.
If things go wrong in the world, Jung says, and then waits to make sure I am listening, I shall put myself right first.
The madness that is playing out in today’s world is, in Jung’s words, forcing us to pay attention to the psyche and our abysmal unconsciousness of it. Never before has mankind as a whole experienced the numen of the psychological factor on so vast a scale.
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