Edward edinger the new god images .pdf download

Edward Edinger has selected fourteen of these letters to discuss and has segmented the book into the following three parts: Epistemological Premises - Modern man's new awareness of subjectivity; The Paradoxical God - The nature of the new God-image as a union of opposites; and Continuing Incarnation - How the new God-image is born in individual men and women. Over the course of history, the Self has been projected onto many local gods and goddesses and given different names and attributes.

This down-to-earth study evokes that essence with unequaled clarity. Originally seminars given at the Jung Institute of Los Angeles. Coming, as they do, from a non-professional and thoroughly independent standpoint, they are clothed with no external authority. They are glimpses through the vision of the intuitive faculty; interpretations of the inner consciousness, rather than an intellectual or argumentative effort.

They are inspired by no spirit of controversy, but are searches for Truth for its own sake; and their aim is to recognize it wherever found. Their acceptance by the reader must depend entirely upon the mirror like recognition of their truthfulness by his own spiritual perception.

While the intellectual faculty, though trained never so highly, is often at fault as shown by the great divergence of external systems , the writer believes that the cultivated human intuition has something of that exactness and perfection of which instinct on the lower planes of life is a prophecy. Frank Deville rated it it was amazing Oct 24, Chris rated it it was amazing Jun 05, Suzanne rated it it was amazing Jan 06, Michael added it May 22, Jason added it Sep 27, K marked it as to-read May 10, Rebeca Eigen is currently reading it Jul 06, Walt added it May 08, Angie marked it as to-read Jan 01, Heili marked it as to-read Jul 28, Mandy added it Sep 12, Alan marked it as to-read Nov 21, Rhett Travis marked it as to-read Jun 01, Morganna added it Sep 13, John Halstead is currently reading it Oct 14, Ashleigh marked it as to-read Oct 18, Nairy Fstukh marked it as to-read Oct 19, Adam marked it as to-read Apr 09, Rhett Travis added it Apr 28, Noris Binet marked it as to-read Nov 24, Ruth Hoppe marked it as to-read Nov 25, There are no discussion topics on this book yet.

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These "1 felt," questions, says Tolstoy, "Why? An invincible force im- pelled me to get rid of my existence, in one way or another.

It was an aspiration of my than whole being desire. Moreover 1 was neither in- sane nor iIl. On the contrary, 1 posse sed a physical and mental strength which 1 had rarely met in pers Ins of my age. One can live onll' so long as one is intoxicated, runk with life, but when one grows sober statethat it mind wasa as is alI and sinppll'. Whatandis stupid truest about it is that there is n9thing even funnl' or silll' in it; it is cruel and.

What will be the outEome of what 1 do todal'? Or what 1 shalI do tomorrow? What will be the outcome of alI ml' life? Whl' should the inevitable death whic awaits me does not undo and destrol'? Without an answer to them, it is impossible, as 1 experienced, for life to go on.

HenceforJung impossible can the ego unconsciously identified w th the Self. Library, pp. Religion: West and East, C. The full quotation m s as follows: "Among ali my patients in the second half of life-that is to say, over thirty-five-there has not been one whose problem in the last resor was not that of finding a religious outIook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age ave given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.

This of course has nothing whatever to do ith a particular creed or membership of a I church. By reason of that, 1 was more loathsome in my own eyes than was a toad; and 1 thought 1 was so in God's eyes too. Sin and corruption, 1 said, would as naturaIIy bubble out of my heart as water would bubble out of a fountain. Sure, thought 1, 1 am forsaken of God; and thus 1 continued a long while, even for some years together.

The beasts, birds, fishes, etc. Now 1 blessed the condition of the dog and toad, yea, gladly would 1 have been in the condition of the dog or horse, for 1 knew they had no soul to perish under the ever- lasting weight of HeIl or Sin, as mine was like to do. Nay, and though 1 saw this, felt this, and was broken to pieces with it, yet that which added to my sorrow was, that 1 could not find with aU my soul that 1 did desire deliverance. My heart was at times exceedingly hard. If 1 would have given a thousand pounds for a tear, 1 could DOtshed one; no, nor sometimes scarce desire to shed one.

How gladly would 1 have been anything but myself! Anything but a man! The same feelings of total guilt and impossibility of redemption are expressed in psyehotie melaneholia. Ris feeling himself the guiltiest man on earth is a negative inRation. Rowever, it is also alienation. Bunyan's envy of animals is something that eomes up again and again in the aeeounts of the alienated eondition that precedes re- ligious experienee.

This envy of animals gives us a cIue as to how the state of alienation is to be healed, namely, by renewed contact with the natural instinctive life. In eases where the ehild experienees a severe degree of rejection by the parents, the ego-Selfaxis is damaged and the ehild is then predisposed in later life to states of alienation whieh can 11 James, Varieties of Religious Experience.

The Alienated Ego 55 reach unbearable proportions. This course of events is due to the fact that the child experieilces parental rejection as rejection by God. The experience is then built into the psyche as permanent ego- Self alienation.

In the context of Christian psychology, the alienation experience is commonly understood as divine punishment for sin. Anselm's doc- trine of sin is relevant here; according to him sin is a robbing of God's prerogatives and thus dishonors God.

This dishonor requires satisfaction. Anselm writes: Every wish of a rational creature should be subject to the will of God Re who does not render this honor whiCh is due to God, robs God of his own and dishonors him; and this is sin. Moreover, so long as he does not restore what he has taken away, he remains in fault; and it will not suffice merely ta restore what has been taken away, but, considering the contempt offered, he ought to restore more than he took away.

We must also observe that when anyone pays what he has unjustly taken away, he ought to give something which could not have been demanded of him, had he not stolen what belonged to another.

So then, every one who sins ought to pay back the honor of which he has robbed God; and this is the satisfaction that every sinner owes to GOd,18 Sin is the inRated presumption of the ego which takes over the functions of the Self. This crime requires punishment alienation and restitution remorse, repentance.

But according to Anselm, full satisfaction requires the return of more than was originally taken. This is impossible since man owes God total obedience even without sin. He has no extra resources to pay his penalty.

For this he must use the grace provided by the sacrifice of the God-man T esus Christ. In the sequence of sin and repentance God himself pays the :Bne by an inRux ofgrace. This corresponds to St. Paul's statement: "But where sin was thus multiplied, grace immeasurably exceeded it, in order that, as sin established its reign by way of death, so God's grace might establish its reign in righteousness, and 18 St.

Inflation doctrines sin is refer to be to avoided when possible. Wh n it occurs the ego can be redeemed only by restoring to the Self 'ts lost honor repentance, contrition Picture This however is not sufficient for full satisfaction. Grace derived from the Self self-sacrifice must complete the pay- ment. There is even the hint hat the ego's sin and subsequent pen- alty are necessary to generae the flow of healing energy grace from the Self.

This would cor 'espond to the fact that the ego cannot experience the support of the Self until it has been freed of its iden- tification with Self. It cannot be a vessel for the influx of grace until it has been emptied of its o In inflated fulIness; and this emptying occurs only Martin through Luther the expt[rience expresses tHe same of alienation. When God is God works by contraries so! Whom he inwould it so communicated makeofalive the form he wrath there is no health in him.

H must be consumed with horror. This is the pain of purgatory When that a manit believes seems furthest himselfwhenf't is at hand.

Re has which sIight a profound nse ofbeunworthiness called an alienation neurosis. The Alienated Ego 57 Picture David, reproached by the prophet Nathan, repents at having abducted Bathsheba. On the right is a personification of repentence metanoia. IlIumination Irom a Byzantine manuscript. We have here the psychological basis of the theological question of justification. Are we justified by faith or by works? The alienated person feels profoundly unjustified and is scarcely able to act according to his own best interests.

At the same time he is cut off from a sense of meaning. Life is emptied of psychic contt;nt. In order to break out of the alienated state some contact between ego and Self must be re-established. If this can happen, a whole new world opens up. Here is a description of such an experience which I take from a case reported by Dr. RoUo May. She reports her experience if these words: 1 remember area, feeling walking that JI the thought 1ayam under the elevated an illegitimate tracks1 in child.

What is left is this, "1 am. It is a primary feeling-it feels like 1'e- ceiving the deed to my ho se. It is the experience of my own alive- ness not caring whether it ti ms out to be an ion 01' just a wave. It is like when a very young chi d 1 once reached the core of a peach and cracked the pit, not knowing what 1 would flnd and then feeling the wonder of flnding the inner seed good to eat in its bitter sweetness It is like a sailboat in the h rbor being given an anchor so that, being made out of earthly things, it can by means of its anchor get in touch again with the earth, the gr und from which its wood grew; it can lift I its anchor to sail but alway at times it can cast its anchor to weather the storm 01' rest a little..

It is like the globe before the mountains and o eans and continent! It is like a child in grarnmar finding the subiect of the verb in a sentence-in this case the sJbject being one's own life span. It is ceas- ing to feellike a theory tOlards one's self It can also be u derstood as the restitution of the ego- I May labels Selfaxis the "1 whichthismust amt' ha ve experience aken which place in the is certainly context of adescrip- strong The following dream of a oung woman in therapy also illustrates t the beginning repair of a da, aged ego-Selfaxis.

She dreamt: 1have transference. They threw me zrto the snow and proceed to mpe me one by one. Four times this "ftappens. The AlienatedJ Ego 59 with cold. The patient had suffered and fed warmassoup.

The carried dream describes vividly her feeling of alienation or banishment and also her newly emerging experience of rkstoration: the ego-Selfaxis was being repaired. This happens ,ith the dawning awareness of strong transference feelings. However, 1 believe, a ego-Selfaxisthat realization is taking a profound place nuclear gives an prpcess laddedinvolving dimensionrepair to the of un- the derstanding of the transference phefomenon.

Furthermore, one is then able to understand the therap utic experience in the larger context of man's universal need for a relation to the transpersonal source of being. Another example of the healing effe t achieved by re-establishing the connection between the ego and t e Self is found in a remark- able dream that was brought to me. He also psychotics and whochild, was an illegitimate provided rearedpracticflly by f9ster no positive parents whoparental ex- were near- of alienation in adult life.

Though q ite talented he was severely blocked in his efforts to realize his pot ntialities. He had this dream perience on for the the night boy. AsJung's following a result, JS he uneleft6,with death Here is the d eam: Faur of us arrive on a strange detail planet. This group does not speak representatives aur language, inoffact the each faur of directions tr of thea faur the fou speaks difJerent difJerent races language.

This problem occupies much of the dream but 1 shall omit this portion. There is on this planet a super-order which is enforced on all its inhabitants. But it is not enforced as though by a person or a govemment but by benign authority which we suppose to be nature. There is nothing threatening to the individuality about its ability to exercise this control on everyone.

One of the planet's four has had an attack. It seems that his excitement over our arrival has caused his heart to beattoo fast. And it is in the nature of the. He is placed in a semi-comatose state duririg which he is plugged into the master heart beat which will absorb the "overload:' until he has been equilibriumized.

Then we receive the information that we will be allowed to stay on the condition that we be placed on wavelengths so that the "Central Source of Energy Law" will be able to measure and detect when we get into what the planet caUs "danger" and what the earth calls "sin. Danger will be whenever an act is performed for the immediate gratification of the ego or any conscious part of the personality rather than with reference to the archetypal roots of that act-that is, without relating that act to its archetypal origin and the aspect of ritual that was involved in the first root act.

The central feature of this most impressive dream is the "super- order" and "central source of energy law" that exists on another planet the unconscious. This remarkable imageis a symbolic expression of the trans-personal regulating process of the psyche and corresponds to our concept of the compensatory function of the unconscious.

The dream states that dan ger arises "Whenever an act is performed for the immediate gratification of the ego Furthermore the dream equates this condition with sin-a precise equivalent to Augustine' s view as quoted previously page 34 ' The dream te lIs us that the "super-order" goes into effect to re- move the "overload" as soon as the ego becomes inflated-thus protecting against the dangers of subsequent alienation.

For instance, if we ingest too much chloride in the urine. Or, if too grea a concentration of carbon sodium chloride, the kidneys increase :he concentration of sodium dioxide accumulates in the blood, th n certain nerve centers in ilie brain increase the respiratory rat in order to blow off the excess carbon dioxide.

The same self- egulating, homeostatic pro- cess works in the psyche providing it is free to operate naturally aud has not been damaged. Like the b dy, the unconscious psyche I bas an instinctive wisdom which can co rect the errors and excesses function derives from the Self and re uires a living, healthy con- nection between Self and ego in orde to operate freely. Rappiness of our expectations, equals whatl i. Re writes: By certain valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon by ournature, someand deserts; sort of ofindefeasible requiresaverage neitherterrestrial right.

Now consider that we have the valuatio of our own deserts ourselves, and what a fund of Self-conceit there is in each of uS,-do you wonder that the balance should so often dip the wrong way Fancy tha thou deservest to be hanged as is most likely , thou wilt feel it ha piness to be only shot Make thy claim of wages a z1ro, then thou hast the world under thy feet.

Dent and Sons, , p. Heaven hath in it a scene of earth, and had she been contented with ideas she had not travelled beyond the map. But excellent patterns commend their mimes Thus her descent speaks her original. God in love with His own beauty frames a glass, to view it by reflection. The inHated state, when acted out, leads to a falI and hence to alienation.

The alienated condition likewise, under normal circumstances, leads over to the state of healing and restitution. InHation or alienation become dangerous conditions only it they are separated from the life cycle of which they are parts.

If either becomes a static, chronic state of being, rather than a part of the comprehensive dynamism, the personality is threatened.

Psychotherapy is then called for. However, the mass of men have always been protected Erom these dangers by collective, con- ventional and therefore largely unconscious means.

The psychic dangers of inHation and alienation, under different names, have always been recognized in the religious practice and "Vaughn, Thomas, Anthroposophia Theomagica, in The Works of Thomas Vaughn, Waite, A.

There are many collective and personal rituals which exist for the purpose of avoiding any in- flated tendency to tempt God's envy. For instance, we have the age-old practice of knocking on wood when one says things are going well.

Behind this is the unconscious or conscious realization that pride and complacency are dangerous. Hence, some procedure must be used to keep one in a humble state. The uSe of the phrase "God wiIling" has the same purpose. The taboos encounteredin primitive society in the majority of cases have the same basis- protecting the individual from the inflated state, from contact with powers that would be too big for the limited ego consciousness and that might explode it disastrously.

The primitive procedure of isolating victorious warriors when they return from battle serves the same protective function. Victorious warriors may be inflated by victory and might turn their strength against the village itself if they were permitted in. Hence there is a few days' cooling ofI period before reintegration iuto the community takes place. There is an interesting ancient Mithraic ritual called "The Rite of the Crown" designed to protect against inflation.

The following procedure was enacted during the initiation of a Roman soldier into Mithraism. At sword's point a crown was ofIered the can- didate; but the initia te was taught to push it aside with his hand and affirm "Mithra is my crown.

One such technique is the use of koans or enigmatic sayings. An example would be: A pupi! The seven deadly sins; pride, wrath, envy, Iust, gluttony, avarice, and sloth, are all symptoms of inflation. By being labelled sins, which require confession and penance, the individual is protected against them.

The basic message of the beatitudes of Jesus is that blessing will come to the non-inflated personality. There are also many traditional procedures to protect the in- dividual from the alienated state. Understood psychologicaIly, the 1 Willoughby, Harold R. All religions are repositories of trans- personal experience and archetypal images. The innate purpose of religious ceremonies of all kinds seems to be to provide the individual with the experience of being related meaningfully to these transpersonal categories.

That is true of the Mass, and of the Catholic confessional in a more personal way, where the in- dividual has an opportunity to unburden himself of whatever cir- cumstances have brought about a sense of alienation Erom God. Through the acceptance of the priest as God's agent, some sense of return to and reconnection with God is established.

All religious practices hold up to view the transpersonal categories of existenceand attempt to relate them to the individual. Religion is the best collective protection available against both inflation and alienation.

So far as we know, every society has had such supra- personal categories in its collective ritual of life. It is quite doubt- fuI it collective human life can survive for any period without some common, shared sense of awareness of these transpersonal categories. However, although collective methods protect man from the dangers of the psychic depths, they also deprive him of the in- dividual experience of these depths and the possibility of de- velopment which such experience promotes.

As long as a living religion can contain the Self and mediate its dynamism for its members, there wiU be little need for the individual to have a personal encounter with the Self. He will have no need to find his individual relation to the transpersonal dimension. That task will be done for him by the Church. This raises a serious question, i. This is a dangerous state of affairs because, when such categories do not exist, the ego is likely to think of itself as everything 01' as nothing.

Furthermore, when the archetypes have no adequate container such as an established religious structure, they have to go somewhere else because the archetypes are facts of psychic life. One possibility is that they wiU be projected into banal 01' secular matters. This movement, happens in or Nazism, any one 1he lof aradical numberright, of political and in sonal, secular, ar political actions becom. Per- ever a religious motivation is acting un onsciously Communism, the radicalleft. The samj sort of dynamism it causes can fanati- be When the collective psyche is in a st bIe state, the vast majority of individuals share a common living myth ar deity.

Each in- dividual cism withprojects his inner God-image alI its destructive the Self to the religion consequenies. Such a 6. The Self or god-image is still unconscious, Le. Although the co munity of believers will be in relative harmony with one anoth r because of their shared projection, the harmony is illusory an to some extent spurious. In relation to the church the individual wiII be in a state of col- lective identincation or panicipation mrstique and will not have ma de any unique, individual relation fO the Self.

If now the outer church loses its capapity to carry the projection of the Self, we have the condition whic '1 Nietzsche announced for the modern world, "God is dead!

What will happen now? There are seve 'al possibilities and we see examples of each in contemporary life See Fig. Such a person succu bs to inRation. Stable State ofl a community of Religious believers. Communism Figure 7. The third ppssibility is that the projected supra- tainer wiU be reprojected o to some secular 01' political movement personal Case 3, value which Fig. The outstanding current example tainer for religious meaning.

Both sides of the partisan conRict deriveon their war each energy other. God hfmself is caught in the coils of the dark conRict. The fourth possible way of dealing with the loss of a religious projectionWhere is shown in arm[s ignorant Cas 4,clash Fig. If when the individual night. The connection between ego and Self is now consciously realized. This is rey a modern phenomenon, and indeed could not exist as long f-s the transpersonal values were satisfactorily contained in a tradifonal collective religion.

But once the traditional symbol system reaks down, it is as if a great surge of energy were returned t the individual psyche, and much greater interest and attention then becomes focused on the subjectivity of the individual.

It is out of this phenomenon that depth psychology was discovered. The very existence of depth psychology is a symptom of aur time. Other evidences are in all the arts. In plays and novels the ma t banal and commonplace individuals are described exhaustivel in their most petty and personal aspects. A degree of value a d attention is being given ta inner subjectivity that never befo e happened. Actually this tendency is a pointer toward things to come.

If it is pursued to its inevitable conclusion,it cannot help but lead mare and more people ta a rediscovery of the lost sup apersonal categories within themselves. Jung The egodescribes becomes this happening aware, as fa lows: experientiallt, of a transpersonal center When a summit of life is reached, when the bud unfolds and from the lesser Two," andthe thegreater greateremerges, figure, then, whichasope INietzschesays, "Onewhich always was but becomes re- mained invisible, appears to the lesser ersonality with the force of a I revelation.

Re who is truly and hopele sly liule will always drag the revelation of the greater down to the l veI of his littleness, and will never understand that the day of ju gement for his littleness has dawned. But the man who is inwardly great will know that the long expected friend of his soul, the immorlal one, has now really come, "to him lead by captivity whom this captive" immortal Ephesians had ah1ays f: 8 , been that is, confined to seizeand hold held of deadliest periI!

Whenever man consciously encounters a divine agency which assists, commands or directs, we can un- derstand it as an encounter of the ego with the Self. The encounter generally occurs in the wilderness or in a fugitive state, i. Moses was a fugitive from the law, pasturing his father-in-law's sheep in the wilderness when Yahweh spoke to him from the burning bush and gave him his life-assignment Exodus 3. Francis Thompson, in his poem The Kingdom of God is Within You, uses this image: The angels keep their ancient places;- Turn but a stone, and start a wing!

But when so sad thou canst not sadder Cry-and upon thy so sore 10ss Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross. Ris initial encounter with Yahweh occurred in the midst of normallife but could not be ac- cepted, Le.

Only after futile efforts to escape which lead him to ultimate despair in the belly of the whale could Jonah acknowledge and accept the transpersonal authority of Yahweh. When a woman or the anima in a man' s psychology encounters the Self it is often expressed as celestial impregnating power. Danae while imprisoned by her father is impregnated by Zeus through a golden shower and conceives Perseus Plate 2.

Similarly, the annunciation to Mary is commonly depicted with impregnating rays from heaven Picture A more psychological version of the same image is used by Bernini in his sculpture, The Ecstasy of St.

Theresa Picture A modern example of this theme is the striking dream of a woman which was preceded by a long process of psychological effort: 1see a young man, naked, glistening with sweat who catches my attention first by his physical attitude-a combination of the falling motion of a Pieta figure and the energetic release position 3 Thompson, Francis, Poetical Works, London, Oxford University Press, , p. Pic ture He's in a group of other men who in an ambiguous way seem to be supporting him.

He stands out Irom them partly by the color of his skin bronze and its texture anointed, as it were, with sweat but mainly by the fact that he had an enormous phallus in the form of a third, extended, leg Picture The man is in agony with the burden of his erection.

This shows not only in the athletic expense of efJort musculature and sweat , but also in the contortion of his facial expression. My sympathy for his plight, and my astonishment admiration, intrigue at his male member, draws me to him. We then join in intercourse. Just his entry is enough to cause in me an orgasm so deep and wide- spread that 1 can feel it in my ribs and lungs It's full of pain and pleasure in an indistinguishable sensation.

My entire insides are, literally, "up-set," and my womb, specifically, feels as though it has made an entire revolution- inside-outor degrees, I'm not sure which. In addition to The Discus Thrower Picture 17 and Michael- angelo's Pieta Picture 18 , the three-legged man also reminded the dreamer of an alchemical engraving Picture 19 and a picture of a three-footed sun-wheel Picture 20 she had once seen.

Thus the dream figure is a rich condensation of multiple images Opposite: Picture The dreamer has been penetrated and transformed by a masculine entity of creative power.

Re is an athlete of both body and spirit St. Re is associated with the ultimate spiritual principle the sun and also expresses the whole process of psychic trans- formation the alchemical picture. For the dreamer, this dream initiated a whole new attitude and awareness of Iife. As its sexual imagery suggests, new levels of physical responsiveness were opened. In addition, the whole sen- sation function, heretofore largely unconscious, became available. Most important of all was an increase in authentic individual au- tonomy and the emergence of very sizable creative talents.

By the accompanying associations it is evident that this dream expresses a decisive encounter not only with the animus but also with the Self. The triadic symbolism indicates emphasis on the process of concrete, spatio-temporal realization. See Chapter 7. An outstanding example of the breakthrough of the ego-Self axis is the conversion of the apostle Paul Acts 9: , Picture Jonah tried to escape his vocation by flight; Saul attempted to escape his by persecuting the representatives of his own destiny.

The very intensity of his attack against the Christians betrayed his involvement with their cause, for, as Jung says, "The important thing is what a man talks about, not whether he agrees with it 01' not. Jung has written about Job in his Anstcer to Job. Symbols of Transformation. Encounter 77 Picture PAUL, Woodcut