This Blog is dedicated to the Life, Work and Legacy of Carl Jung and Depth Psychology.
Showing posts with label Edward F. Edinger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edward F. Edinger. Show all posts
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Edward F. Edinger: The psychological implications of Prayer
I thought this would give me an opportunity to say a few words about the psychological implications of the passage that we know of as the Lord’s Prayer.
This comes from the sixth chapter of Matthew. Let me remind you of how it goes:
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses [or debts] as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. . . .
That prayer has been on the lips of millions and millions of individuals at the times of greatest crisis. It is laden with psychological impact. It is divided into seven "petitions." (Jung speaks of the sixth petition as the words "lead us not into temptation.")
When looked at psychologically you see right away that it is a formula for maintaining a connection between the ego and the Self. Let me just illustrate that briefly with each of these seven petitions.
Petition 1. "Hallowed be thy name," or "Thy name be sacred."
That means I must remember the transpersonal sacred dimension of life.
That is what the ego is reminding itself to remember that life is not just secular, it has a transpersonal dimension.
Petition 2. "Thy kingdom come." The ego here is announcing that it recognizes that the rule of the Self should prevail.
Petition 3. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Here the ego is saying, "I am going to live my life out of the same rule that you bring to your kingdom."
Petition 4. "Give us our daily bread." (The Vulgate says, "Give us our super-substantial bread," which I think puts a nice angle onto it.) The idea there would be a petition or request for the inflow of nourishing images and meaning which is the psychological bread.
Petition 5. "Forgive us our trespasses," or "our debts." I prefer ”trespasses" (though debts is the more common translation) because it emphasizes the nature of the ego’s sin against the Self. Its characteristic sin is the inflation of identifying with the Self in other words, trespassing on the Self’s territory.
Petition 6. "Lead us not into temptation," is the one Jung refers to, because the fact is that the Self in its de- sire for total realization, total incarnation of its opposite nature, leads one into evil as well as into good. It is quite understandable that that petition would be included.
Petition 7. "Deliver us from evil." Protect us from disruptive dangers that you cannot help but lead us into. Edward F. Edinger, Transformation of the God Image, Pages 75-76.
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Edward F. Edinger: When the soul is born it drinks lethe so that it forgets its prenatal life.
[There is a slight misprint in the image above. The correct word should be: aletheia.]
In ancient Greece, the term for truth was aletheia, which is interesting because it is a negative term.
The a is a privative prefix which signifies "absence of," and what is absent is lethe, the water of forgetfulness, which is what one drinks when one comes intoconscious existence.
When the soul is born it drinks lethe so that it forgets its prenatal life.
For the ancient Greek, truth was aletheia, meaning the absence of forgetfulness or the presence of memory.
Plato uses this term aletheia to distinguish the eternal world of forms from the phenomenal world of appearance; aletheia refers to the world of forms.
The world of appearances is only a copy or an imitation of that eternal world; aletheia is the original.
Thus Plato could say in Timaeus: "As being is to becoming, so is truth [aletheia] to belief."
Belief is a kind of copy of truth, not the real thing. ~Edward F. Edinger, Aion Lectures, Page 128.
Carl Jung across the web:
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Great Sites to visit:
1. Jenna Lilla's Path of the Soul http://jennalilla.org/
2. Steve Jung-Hearted Parker's Jung Currents http://jungcurrents.com/
3. Frith Luton's Jungian Dream Analysis and Psychotherapy: http://frithluton.com/articles/
Friday, March 10, 2017
Edward F. Edinger: So the fruit of the tree is eaten and the inevitable consequences unfold.
The development of Ego Consciousness is a ‘crime’ against the original state of Wholeness that preceded it.
Reparations must be made to the unconscious for this ‘crime’. That is what Jungian Psychology tries to accomplish. Edward F. Edinger
Note: A complete citation is needed.
“The drama of temptation and fall begins when the original state of passive inflation turns into the active infla- tion of a specific deed.
The serpent’s whole approach and appeal is expressed in inflationary terms—when you eat of this fruit, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.
So the fruit of the tree is eaten and the inevitable consequences unfold.
It all begins because Adam and Eve dare to act on their desire to be like God.
The myth depicts the birth of consciousness as a crime which alienates man from God and from his original preconscious wholeness.
The fruit is clearly symbolical of consciousness.
It is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which means that it brings awareness of the op- posites, the specific feature of consciousness.
Thus, according to this myth and the theological doctrines that rest on it, consciousness is the original sin, the original hyhris, and the root cause of all evil in human nature.
However, others have understood it differently.
The Ophites, a Gnostic sect, worshipped the serpent.
They had essentially the same view as modem psychology.
To them the serpent represented the spiritual principle symbolizing redemption from bondage to the demiurge that created the Garden of Eden and would keep man in ignorance.
The serpent was considered good and Yahweh bad.
Psychologically the serpent is the principle of gnosis, knowledge or emerging consciousness.
The serpent’s temptation represents the urge to self-realization in man and symbolizes the principle of individuation.
Some Gnostic sects even identified the serpent in the Garden of Eden with Christ.
Eating the forbidden fruit marks the transition from the eternal state of unconscious oneness with the Self (the mindless, animal state) to a real, conscious life in space and time.
In short, the myth symbolizes the birth of the ego.
The effect of this birth process is to alienate the ego from its origins. It now moves into a world of suffering, conflict and uncertainty.
No wonder we are reluctant to take the step to greater consciousness (Picture 4).”Edward F. Edinger, Ego and Archetype, Page 19.
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