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Modern Outsider

The Enigma of the German Soul: Paths to the Modern Culture And Modern Religion in General?

It was the German-Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (Born 1875 Died 1961), who founded Analytical Psychology that developed, or rather formulated and popularized the practical ideology of the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is a spiritual life force dimension that is beyond our conscious reach but yet it is the spiritual force that determines and shapes our lives. This collective unconscious has different qualities and that visits each person or group of people and through these people expresses itself on the physical outer life. The collective unconscious therefore determines destinies of nations and different human races. You can access the collective unconscious by relaxing, letting your ideas melt aware and be in the state of calm, nonjudgmental and acceptance. Carl Jung's concept of transcending in essence means losing yourself and falling into a trance. Some of the aspects of these teachings have been excavated from Hindu religion of India, but it is not and throughout history there were never restricted or relative to India only.

These Jungian techniques of reaching the unconscious are now so popular as they have been proven to have powerful effect on people's consciousness or improving their lives. They have even in most instances become a personal religion of many people who are more and more turning to seminars and listening to tapes and CDs of personal development gurus and coaches practicing these transcendence teachings on a landslide.

There are all sorts of New Age spiritualist gurus like Dr Wayne Dyer and a number of others in the business of this. These teachings are the hot subject of innumerable workshops, television shows, bestselling books and movies. Currently we have the best selling movie by Wayne Dyer called The Shift. In many cases some of the principles being taught are the truth when weighed according to the Holy Bible.

With the teachings of the collective unconscious by Carl Jung there is the idea of archetypes. An archetype is an unlearned tendency by a person, a nation or race to experience things in a certain way. The archetype has no form of its own, but it acts as an "organizing principle" on the things we see or do. For example the baby just wants something to eat, without knowing what it wants. There is something invisible that is beyond the realms of our conscious reach that tells the child to cry to get the food.

Jung describes archetypes as indefinite specific spiritual qualities that arrest a person, nation, and race. These archetypes are not biological things and are beyond the realms of science and university teachings and research. That is why Carl Jung established his movement outside academia, medicine and science. Archetypes are more spiritual demands that took over a person or nation, racial grouping and they express themselves physically into this outer world through the lives of a person, nation or a particular race.

Consequently according to Jung, you have the archetypes that influence Germans in a different way, English in a different way, Africans in a different, and Indians etc. Further late in 1909 Carl Jung first began to hypothesize about the unconscious mind reasoning out that it has a deeper phylogenetic or definite racial layer. These issues are discussed in Jung's 1909 Jahrbuch essay on "The Significance of the Father in the Destiny of the Individual".

But who was Carl Jung? Carl Jung's dreams, visions, hunches, miraculous cures, psychokinetic and clairvoyant experiences, his transcendence experiences, his confrontations with dead people in the Land of the Dead where he met spirit persons by the names of Philemon, Salome and Elijah are the genesis of the current movement of personal development – transcending yourself.

But precisely who was Carl Jung? The first thing to consider is Carl Jung's essential German identity superimposing his Swiss identity that he is generally known. In terms of politics and nationality Carl Jung was Swiss and he disassociated himself outwardly from the Germans. Culturally and biologically however, Jung identified himself very strongly with his German roots or more specifically with his Germanic ancestors. His grandfather Carl Jung senior was the illegitimate child of the great Goethe, the epitome of German genius par excellence, and the German philosophy Frederick Nietzsche's model of ubermensch (the  Overman, Overhuman, Above-Human, Superman). An   Overman, Overhuman, Above-Human, Supermanas described by Professor Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, overcomes the herd perspective and is capable of reaching higher dimensions and then coming back to create new perspectives that he shares with the rest of humanity. Little needs to be said about Goethe: he was by all respects an unusually gifted creative thinker superior in all terrains of thinking, a man who influenced every cultural aspect, movements, currents trends, that we still are influencing today, namely the western tradition.

And so Carl Jung was, rightly so, quite smitten and floored by the fact that it is Goethe's blood that was flowing in his veins as his great-grandson. Throughout his life and teachings Carl Jung placed greater emphasis on his paternal roots, that his greater ancestral influences are strictly German archetype. According to the German historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) it is only culture that distinguishes between "civilization and culture".

Clinical psychologist Professor Richard Nolk of DeSales University remarks about Carl Jung that: It is evident that in the writings and letters of Carl Jung for the first 60 years that he undoubtedly felt himself to be part of the community of Germanic Volk that is united in its faith in a field of spiritual life energy, the spiritual energy that has special transcendence. In this spiritual life energy every German individual dead or living has a common feeling of belonging. In this context the German people are the elite race of the human race.

Walter Struve in his encyclopedic book Elite versus democracy in Germany discusses the phenomenon of the formation of cultural elites. Cultural elite theorists claimed that the ability to create or understand "high culture" in its many forms was a gift of an elect few who must then personify these heights of refinement for the rest of society. The aim is to have a select few initiates who would form a vanguard for a new cultural and spiritual reawakening of Germany and the world. That is the reason you before Carl Jung you had Keyserling and his School of Wisdom. However Noll notes that:

"perhaps for some of these philosophies and cults the term spiritual elitism is more appropriate… the cults of spiritual elitism went beyond the appreciation of culture that was emphasised".

In 1925 Carl Jung was 50 years old. It was during this period that he set out an extensive trip across the United States spreading his gospel of mysteria.  Immediately after the United State trip he went on to Africa meeting, interacting and mixing with Africans as an ordinary person. From then on Jung's fame as a modern prophet or seer took root and shape, and many wealthy pilgrims were arriving in Switzerland, Zurich from English speaking lands to feet from the hands of an Oracle. In the 1930s Jung was portrayed in the media as a modern prophet, spiritual guru or wizard like sage. According to the information at the Harvard University Jung's Oral Archives Carl Jung this time even tossed about establishing a worldwide Jungian university, but he backed off from the idea after realizing the heavy administrative and organizational energy that will be needed to run such a facility. A world wide Jungian university might not have been created as such but still his ideas have spread far and wide an extra-ordinary achievement that any university cannot match.

Many people in our modern culture have made Jung and his ideas the basis of a personal religion that either supplants their participation in organized Christian churches or accompanies their worship in organized Christian churches [Side remarks about organized Christian churches: organized churches are characterized by a head usually called a pastor who has helpers usually called deacons, elders etc. The idea or principle of a pastor being the boss of a church is not original Christianity as Christ taught it and later his disciples carried further. Christ's teachings were a personal individual religion with God – an individual person directly worshipping God outside a synagogue. He hated strongly Pharisees and other organized churches and called people to come out of such organizations and walk with God alone as individuals without any imposition of pastors. Becoming free individual worshippers of God is the essence of original Christianity - addressing yourself directly unto God in the spirit of absolute faith in His Holy Bible. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Just take that one step to approaching God without any restrictions as a free individual].

Belief in the collective unconscious and its powers is strong with Carl Jung's religion for it forms people's central iconography of the transcendent, a great chain that unites people with the spirit world – their satisfaction of the spiritual cravings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

Dr Chris Kanyane has Ph.D (History) obtained from Central Western University, Arlington, Texas (US). Is a Board Member for International Journal of Peace and Development Studies. He is also the author of two historical biographical books; Turfloop and Eugen Weber Greatest Historian Of Our Times: Lessons of Greatness To The Future. 

Dr Chris Kanyane will work long and hard in helping you to dig your life story out of your spiritual reservoir with a mixture of encouragement and research – for more details contactwww.globalresearchcentre.org

 

need help with a "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" discussion question?

Casting an "innocent" or an "outsider" into a modern, sophisticated world in order to skewer certain aspects of that society is not a new idea. Think of some more examples of books or movies that shows the flaws of the modern world through the eyes of an innocent, a child, or an outsider. WHat effect does this produce? What effect is Twain able to achieve by telling this story completely from the prospective of Huckleberry Finn?

there are many people in this modern world who are stuck in this society and do the things that pleases the society whereas huck says whats in his heart. he is not that much educated and he is innocent in a sense that he is so far away from all these kind of matters so when something happens he says whatever in his heart not just what scoiety wants him to say.

Art Brut - Modern Art

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 3:05 pm and is filed under paintings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.