6 replies to this topic

[ElPirana]

I'm almost halfway through Carl Jung's autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

 

 

I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying this book!  It's been very interesting to read about Jung's experiences through his childhood that helped form the type of thinking he had later in life.  I'm really looking forward to finishing this book.  I would recommend anyone read this if they have any interest whatsoever in Jung.

 

 

[Moonless]

I love this book. I like listening to the audio book as well.

 

Isn't his life pretty cool?

 

I suggest you read the red book next! I like it best because it is very mystical and more entertaining than his dry collected works.

[RainbowCatepillar]

I made it to the last chapter of the book a couple months ago and got distracted by life. I need to finish. Such an interesting and inspiring story!

 

Spoiler alert for those who haven't read the beginning chapters.

 

I have to admit, I found it quite hilarious that his first archetypal dream was the one in which he walked down into that dusty, ornate basement and saw the ginormous erect penis in all its regal, phallic glory.

 

I totally get it was a symbolic dream, but the immature part of myself couldn't help but crack up! Totally didn't expect that!

Who would've imagined that a giant penis sparked one of the greatest minds to ever exist on Earth?! Lol

[ElPirana]

I love this book. I like listening to the audio book as well.

 

Isn't his life pretty cool?

 

I suggest you read the red book next! I like it best because it is very mystical and more entertaining than his dry collected works.

I'd love to read the Red Book, but I might have to wait a while, it's around $200 or so and I'm on a bit of budget.  I keep an ongoing list of books that I want to read, so I still have plenty of others to keep me busy until I can buy the red book.

 

 

I made it to the last chapter of the book a couple months ago and got distracted by life. I need to finish. Such an interesting and inspiring story!

 

Spoiler alert for those who haven't read the beginning chapters.

 

I have to admit, I found it quite hilarious that his first archetypal dream was the one in which he walked down into that dusty, ornate basement and saw the ginormous erect penis in all its regal, phallic glory.

 

I totally get it was a symbolic dream, but the immature part of myself couldn't help but crack up! Totally didn't expect that!

Who would've imagined that a giant penis sparked one of the greatest minds to ever exist on Earth?! Lol

hahahaha yes I agree that was an interesting dream, I was also not expecting it!  He seems to have had a number of insights and questioned life in such a way since his childhood that I can relate with now...I mean in ways that I started questioning things in the last few years.  Most of my life was pretty ignorant in these types of inquiries, and even when I did start questioning such thing, it was often prompted by reading other people's ideas rather than coming to those on my own.  I find it intriguing when I come across people who are naturally inquisitive.

[DonShadow]

"That is the man-eater!"

[ElPirana]

One of the things I really like about this book is that C.G. Jung describes dreams that he has had throughout his life and then describes his interpretation of them.  One of my favorites is toward the end of the book, in chapter eleven, On Life after Death.

 

 

 

I had dreamed once before of the problem of the self and the ego.  In that earlier dream I was on a hiking trip.  I was walking along a little road through a hilly landscape; the sun was shining and I had a wide view in all directions.  Then I came to a small wayside chapel.  The door was ajar, and I went in.  To my surprise there was no image of the Virgin on the altar, and no crucifix either, but only a wonderful flower arrangement.  But then I saw that on the floor in front of the altar, facing me, sat a yogi in lotus posture, in deep meditation.  When I looked at him more closely, I realized that he had my face.  I started in profound fright, and awoke with the thought: “Aha, so he is the one who is meditating me.  He has a dream, and I am it.”  I knew that when he awakened, I would no longer be.

 

I had this dream after my illness in 1944.  It is a parable: My self retires into meditation and meditates my earthly form.  To put it another way: it assumes human shape in order to enter three-dimensional existence, as if someone were putting on a diver’s suit in order to dive into the sea.  When it renounces existence in the hereafter, the self assumes a religious posture, as the chapel in the dream shows.  In earthly form it can pass through the experiences of the three-dimensional world, and by greater awareness take a further step toward realization.

 

The figure of the yogi, then, would more or less represent my unconscious prenatal wholeness, and the Far East, as is often the case in dreams, a psychic state alien and opposed to our own.  Like the magic lantern, the yogi’s meditation “projects” my empirical reality.  As a rule, we see this causal relationship in reverse: in the products of the unconscious we discover mandala symbols, that is, circular and quaternary figures which express wholeness, and whenever we wish to express wholeness, we employ just such figures.  Our basis is ego-consciousness, our world the field of light centered upon the focal point of the ego.  From that point we look out upon an enigmatic world of obscurity, never knowing to what extent the shadowy forms we see are caused by our consciousness, or posses a reality of their own.  The superficial observer is content with the first assumption.  But closer study shows that as a rule the images of the unconscious are not produced by consciousness, but have a reality and spontaneity of their own.  Nevertheless, we regard them as mere marginal phenomena. 

 

The aim of . . . [this] dream . . . is to effect a reversal of the relationship between ego-consciousness and the unconscious, and to represent the unconscious as the generator of the empirical personality.  This reversal suggests that in the opinion of the “other side,” our unconscious existence is the real one and our conscious world a kind of illusion, an apparent reality constructed for a specific purpose, like a dream which seems a reality as long as we are in it.  It is clear that this state of affairs resembles very closely the Oriental conception of Maya.

 

Unconscious wholeness therefore seems to me the true spiritus rector of all biological and psychic events.  Here is a principle which strives for total realization which in man’s case signifies the attainment of total consciousness. Attainment of consciousness is culture in the broadest sense, and self-knowledge is therefore the heart and essence of this process.  The Oriental attributes unquestionably divine significance to the self, and according to the ancient Christian view self-knowledge is the road to knowledge of God.

 

 

 

 

[EYMAIOS]

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Very few know that C.G.Jung was an Initiated Alexandrian Grostic and a dedicated carrier of a 19 century long spiritual legacy.

During his lifetime he managed to walk the thin line between science and mysticism without falling.
His true legacy is the Red Book published post mortem on his instruction.

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The chapter: "Septem Sermones ad Mortuos" is a precious Gnostic Legacy.

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You may download the texts of the red book in PDF:
 

 

https://www.academia...h_ocr_no_images