The process of individuation. C. G. Jung and analytical psychology

Archetype and symbol.

Collective unconscious. Archetypes. So, in the last lecture we talked about the new ideas that Jung introduced into understanding the nature of consciousness and the individual unconscious. However, Jung suggested the existence of another deeper layer in the structure of the personality, to which contents of practically unknown origin belong. Their distinctive feature- mythological character. They seem to belong to a layer of the soul, characteristic not of any individual person, but of humanity in general. Jung called this level of mental life the collective unconscious and pointed out that the content of the collective unconscious is inherited and is the same for all humanity, regardless of nation, race, gender, etc.

Archetypes are present in fairy tales, myths, legends and folklore, they are an integral part of every culture. Here are some of these common archetypes - motifs: Hero, Dragon, Savior, Whale swallowing the Hero, etc.

Jung connects the origin of archetypes with the multimillion-year history of the evolution of the human brain. The human brain is historical. Its structure reflects the history of its formation. The fundamental structure of the soul/brain has a hierarchical structure that is common to all people. Here are the “imprints” of the fundamental experiences that people have encountered over the centuries, along with the accompanying emotions and affects, which create “the readiness to live life according to the boundary lines embedded in the psyche.”

The relationship between the concepts of “archetype” and “instinct” in Jung’s theory is interesting. In his early works, Jung viewed the archetype as “the psychic analogue of instinct.” In later works he speaks of the archetype as an intermediate link between instinct and image. There is an interdependence between them and neither archetype nor instinct has a separate or primary existence in relation to each other.

Archetypes are bipolar, that is, they express the innate duality of objects and phenomena. For example, the archetypal father image can be divided into the helping, supportive, strong father and the suppressive, terrible father. The real image of the father is built as a result of the mediation of the archetypal system by real experience. If actual experience reinforces one of the extremes, the evolution of the father image is disrupted and this may interfere with normal personality development.

Jung organized the archetypes into distinct groups; he noticed that there was a tendency to personalize the unconscious. There are several possibilities for representing archetypes as a series or hierarchy. Let's take the most common approach and look at the most important archetypes.

At the beginning of the archetype system we see Person. A persona is a social mask or guise that we put on to address the world. Persona denotes many roles that we play in accordance with social requirements. The main task that a Person performs is to restrain strong primitive emotional impulses, necessary for life in society. However, just as an actor can be mistaken for his character, so a Persona (Mask) can “grow to the skin.” In the case of identification with a Persona/deception by one’s own Persona, a person is “reduced” to one single role and is alienated from true emotional life.

The next archetype Shadow, includes everything that every person fears, despises and cannot accept in himself, the “dark side of personality.” Jung does not equate the concepts of “Shadow” and “sin”: all objects cast shadows. The Shadow expresses the same thing for humanity as a whole, and for a particular culture at a particular point in time.

The Ego may be aware of some parts of what is in the Shadow, but the Shadow itself can never be conscious. Bringing something to the conscious level also strengthens the unconscious, so the more differentiated the Ego, the more problematic the Shadow.

Jung repeatedly emphasizes that the shadow should not be considered “bad.” The dark side of a person is, in essence, also his side. Jung views the Shadow as the source of vitality, spontaneity and creativity in the life of an individual. Therefore, as personal growth occurs, integration of the shadow, recognition of the unrecognized, but human, must occur. “Assimilation of the Shadow gives a person a body ... an animal sphere of instincts.” Recognizing the Shadow allows a person to see that the root of his problems in life is in himself.

In relation to a particular culture, the Shadow includes all those who are outside that culture/social system (criminals, psychotics, eccentrics, etc.), as well as national enemies. The presence of such people can be seen as an inability to assimilate one's Shadow. If this inability persists for a long time or intensifies, then the social Shadow can “explode”, as in the case of fascism, racial or national clashes and destroy “its” culture.

Next “are located” two opposing archetypes Anima And Animus, which, according to Jung, express the innate androgynous nature of people. Anima represents the inner image of a woman in a man, his unconscious feminine side; Animus is the inner image of a man in a woman, her unconscious masculine side.

But let's make a small digression. Jung dwells in detail on the psychological characteristics of men and women. In addition to the male and female archetypes, he talks about two different archetypal principles of psychological functioning. He calls the masculine principle Logos(“word” – expresses commitment to rationality, logic, reliance on intelligence and orientation towards achievements); he calls the feminine principle Eros(Psyche's lover - desire for connectedness). Logos and Eros are independent of anatomical gender and exist in every man and woman. Logos and Eros are equally important, however, in Jung's work there is confusion about the relationship between principles and gender (it is ambiguous). Jung emphasizes that Eros and Logos are complementary, accessible to both sexes and constructive only in partnership.

But! The dichotomy of the psychological functioning of people is preserved in Jung in symbolic form - as a man and a woman within the personality.

Jung's Anima and Animus represent not only the male/female part of the psyche, but also an innate aspect of functioning that is distinct from the conscious, and therefore full of possibilities and potentials. In a dream, an encounter with an Anima or Animus can be interpreted as representing alternative ways of perceiving, behaving, and a different value system. For example, Animus is associated with focused thinking, consciousness, and respect for facts; Anima - with imagination, fantasy, play. Animus and Animus figures often act as sources of wisdom and information. The main thing here is that these are images of general principles that apply to all people, and if they are not available to a person at the moment, then this has individual, and not gender-related, reasons.

Animus and Anima often manifest themselves in projection onto a real man or woman, then they can cause attraction between people, since they carry the germs of understanding and communication with a representative of the opposite sex. Through projection, a woman and a man get to know each other, attract each other. Being archetypal structures, Animus and Anima precede and condition experiences. But the projection of Anima and Animus not only facilitates our heterosexuality. The projection of what in a person belongs to the opposite sex is a projection of the unconscious potential, the “image of the soul.” In this way, a woman can see or feel for the first time her masculine sides, which she is not aware of, but which she needs. The man here “takes out” of her and “shows” her her own soul.

The projection of Anim/Animus onto a partner is the norm, not a pathology. A pathological condition occurs when one projects one's Shadow onto the Animus/Anim, or is overly identified with him/her. In the first case, the person begins to see and feel in the partner what she most fears and rejects in herself. In the second case, the individual will demonstrate behavior that expresses the stereotypical shortcomings of the opposite sex. A man can become unbalanced, irrational, effeminate; a woman - too self-confident, prone to arguments, committed to facts. A woman “captured” by the Animus can be described as a “bad edition” of a man and vice versa.

One of the surprising conclusions from these provisions is the conclusion about the psychological significance of actual sexual relations. According to Jung, these relationships enrich the psychological processes in the individual (and vice versa, internal processes contribute to the establishment of sexual relationships). This may be one of the reasons that a person needs more than just a sexual partnership.

Self- the most important, deepest, central archetype in Jung’s theory. It represents the core of the personality around which other elements are organized and integrated. The Self is an unconscious prototype of the Ego; the Ego first merges, then differentiates from the Self. Jung gives the following working definition of the self: “the potential for the integration of the personality.” However, such integration is not easy to achieve and cannot be achieved until middle age. Moreover, the archetype of the Self is not realized until there is complete harmony of all aspects of the soul, consciousness and unconsciousness.

The Self has two properties that distinguish it from a number of other archetypes: 1) it functions as a synthesizer and mediator between opposites in the psyche; 2) The Self is the main agent of the production of deep, awe-inspiring symbols, which by their nature are regulating (psyche) and healing (mental illness).

Symbolism is generally a characteristic feature of mental formations generated by archetypes. A symbol is not a sign; the sign stands for something already known. A symbol denotes something unknown, “non-denotable” directly, something that cannot be expressed in words. (Let us remember here that this is exactly how Jung characterizes the nature of archetypes: inexplicable, undesignable, indescribable primordial forms, primordial images.) So, the symbol “points to a meaning that cannot be described,” that is, to an archetype.

Unlike Freud, Jung leaves behind symbols not a protective, but a healing function. Symbols promote the integration of opposites in the psyche; their work is aimed at regulating the psyche in the interests of the natural development of the individual. Using symbols, our unconscious may try to “tell” us in a dream, first of all, that the harmony between the parts of the soul is disturbed (for example, between the rational and irrational principles of cognition, differentiated and undifferentiated functions, male and female parts of the soul, etc.). Symbols can express an emerging physical disorder (illness), which is not yet consciously realized by the subject, but has already been “noted” by the unconscious (for example, the dream of a crab lizard in the Tevistock Lectures).

But most often, the symbols that appear in dreams or fantasies (“day dreams”) represent attempts by the Self to integrate the soul, to bring it to a “more advanced” state. According to Jung, symbols associated with the Self are numinous, i.e. mysterious, awe-inspiring, enriching, indescribable in words. According to Jung, just contemplation and “experience” of these symbols can harmonize the psyche. It is no coincidence that, as a form of therapy, Jung advised his patients to sketch the figures/patterns/landscapes that struck them in their dreams and creatively experiment with these sketches (complete them, continue and develop the pattern or action started in the dream, etc.).

Not only pictorial symbols can be numinous - states of bodily sensations, encounters with works of art or natural phenomena can give this kind of experience. This is close to what some psychologists (like Maslow) called “peak experiences.”

Jung many times warned his followers against an unambiguous, simplified interpretation of symbols. He said that the individual should be analyzed in his entirety, and not the symbol. In this sense, statements such as “birds in dreams always symbolize spirituality” or “water symbolically represents the subject’s problems” should be considered anti-Jungian.

Individuation. Consideration of the role of the Self in the mental processes of development and integration of the personality (=human soul) leads us to the need to consider the significance of these processes in the life of the individual. This formulation of the question, in turn, forces us to turn to the problem of individuation in Jung's theory.

According to Jung, the ultimate life goal of a person is the complete realization of his “I”, that is, the formation of a single, unique and integral individual. The development of each person in this direction is unique, it continues throughout his life. The essence of individuation is to achieve a personal fusion of the collective and universal, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the unique and individual. The form and style of individuation depend on the person, but, nevertheless, some mythological and literary images more or less accurately reflect the “path of individuation”: journey, death and rebirth, initiation, etc.

Individuation is not the same as individuality or the achievement of individual identity. Healthy ego functioning may be necessary for individuation, but it does not replace it. According to Jung, in the first half of life the ego struggles to free itself from the mother figure and establish its independence and stability; this leads to unconvincing one-sidedness. In the second half of life, a person strives to go beyond the differentiated Ego and focuses on the meaning of life and supra-personal values; For this, stability and independence of the Ego was needed.

Individuation involves recognition and acceptance of those aspects of oneself that are initially repulsive and seem negative, as well as openness to the possibilities available in the repertoire of the opposite sex, which can act as an entrance or conduit to the unconscious. This integration leads not only to greater self-realization, but also to the individual's awareness that he has a Self.

How universal is the process of individuation? – Jung does not give a clear answer to this question. At the beginning he said that individuation is natural, like the basic instincts. At the same time, Jung said that individuation is available only to those who have a “strong ego,” good social adaptation and those who “function genitally.” This suggests that individuation is available to a limited number of people, some elite. The search for individuation captivates many, but only a few achieve results.

Lecture 21: INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY BY A. ADLER.

At the heart of Jung's teaching is the idea that every individual has an inherent desire for wholeness, or individuation. Just as creation itself has a purpose and direction, so each person strives with all his might towards his destiny, or integration of personality, and this wholeness is achieved to varying degrees and in different ways depending on the individual. This craving manifests itself in the process of individuation, which usually occurs in adulthood, after passing through the previous, more materialistic stages of personality evolution. Just as external or social and natural factors can benefit or harm the growth of the body, so external factors have a beneficial or harmful effect on the materialization of this innate craving and process of individuation. Genetic predispositions also create barriers to individuation. For the complete development of the personality, it is necessary that each of its facets, which the individual must introduce into his consciousness, be fully developed, or individuated. Absolute self-realization, if achievable, is only in extremely rare cases.

The various elements of the individual personality are not only fully developed, but also harmoniously fused with each other. As the individual becomes aware and expresses these unconscious facets, they themselves develop in a more complete manner. In the process of this, the so-called “transcendental function” (also inherent in the personality) comes into play, reconciling opposites in such a way that the personality acts, no longer relying on one or another opposite, but immediately and spontaneously on both, that is, on the integrated self. While Jung considered individuation a process primarily characteristic of adulthood and old age, modern Jungians tend to think that it begins in childhood. The impulse toward individuation intensifies in adulthood, and this process is influenced beneficially or detrimentally by a variety of life experiences.

19. Jung's teaching on mental types

There are special personality types, characterized by extraversion or introversion, and four functions of consciousness: sensation, thinking, feeling and anticipation (intuition).

In the soul of every individual there is a personal unconscious, consisting of a personal biography, and a collective unconscious, consisting of images or archetypes common to all people; these images often appear in dreams, fairy tales and myths.

Each individual is designed in such a way that he has an internal desire for perfection, or for his destiny.

Individuation, or the achievement of personal integrity, takes place in the second half of life.

Dreams originate in the “comprehensive depths” and seek to fill gaps in the life of a waking individual, making it easier for him to recognize the imperfections of his personality and helping him overcome them.

Dream interpretation

Since the key point of Jungian psychotherapy is individuation, great importance in this process becomes dream interpretation, since they are thought of as manifestations - one might even say, messages - of the unconscious, which compensate for the gaps in the individual’s reality. Remembered dreams can make a more direct contribution to the individual's desire for wholeness. Through exploration and comprehension of the symbols and structure of dreams, a person is able to recognize and satisfy the need to develop the missing or undeveloped aspects of his mental life that find expression in dreams. Analyst helps expand (amplification) dreaming using “directed association” and references to similar situations in fairy tales, myths, religions, and so on. Directed association takes into account spontaneous connections established on the basis of dream material and built to it. According to Jung, Freud's “free association” can too easily lead away from the core meaning of a dream.

The individual can also use active imagination to enhance contact with various dream elements. So, you can remember a character from a dream and enter into a conversation with him, or pick up a dream from the end and continue it in your imagination, thereby ensuring the presence of images from a dream in reality and facilitating (harmonizing) contact between the conscious and unconscious. Under normal conditions, this technique is used at a later stage of psychotherapy and is used with more mature individuals. One may also engage in physical activities that symbolize under- or undeveloped aspects of the personality. Jung, for example, practiced painting and engraving, using them to express unconscious impulses. An individual in whom the thinking function predominates may be advised to dance or sing. These activities not only allow one to become aware of elements of the unconscious, but also give an outlet, so to speak, to an undeveloped function.

In all this the emphasis is not on individuation as such, but on self-knowledge and self-expression. Self-realization thus turns out to be something of a by-product of this process.

By focusing on the reconciliation of opposites and the synthesis of all components of the personality into one harmonious whole, Jung in many ways resembled the alchemists with whom he was seriously fascinated. And indeed, we have the right to say that in many respects he was a Gnostic alchemist; in the book “Memoirs. Dreams. Reflections”, Jung himself directly connected his work with alchemy: “I very soon [after intense study of Gnosticism and alchemy] saw that analytical psychology coincides in a most curious way with alchemy. The experience of the alchemists was, in a certain sense, my experience, their world was my world. Of course, this was a discovery of exceptional importance, because I came across the historical counterpart of my psychology of the unconscious. The possibility of comparison with alchemy and the inextricable continuity with Gnosticism enriched the content of my psychology. When I delved into these ancient texts, everything fell into place..."

Thanks to his openness and passion for religious and spiritual issues, Jung gained followers not only among psychologists and psychiatrists, but also among clergymen of many religions. Although in an article entitled "Psychoanalysis and the Healing of Souls" Jung made a clear distinction between analysis and pastoral care, an increasing number of clergy are turning to his work, finding in it a deep interest in the human soul and an acceptance of things usually considered "spiritual", transcendental or supernatural. It is necessary, however, to distinguish as clearly as possible between his personal views on religion and his psychological observations and theories.

Jung: individuation

To quote from the book:

Samuels E., Shorter B., Plot F. Critical vocabulary of analytical psychology by C. Jung. - M: ESI, 1994. - 182 p.

Self(Self, Selbst ). Following Jung's concept, one can define the self as the archetypal desire to coordinate, relate and mediate the tension of opposites. Through the self, a person faces the polarity of good and evil, human and divine. Interaction requires the maximum of human freedom in the face of the seemingly incomprehensible demands of life, the only and highest judge of this is the revealed meaning.

The Self is the archetypal image of the unity of the personality as a whole. The Self is the unifying principle in the human psyche. It occupies a central place in the control of psychological life and is therefore the highest authority in the fate of the individual. Sometimes Jung speaks of the self as the initiator of psychic life, in other cases he refers to it as the goal. “The Self is not only the center itself,” writes Jung, but the entire circle, embracing both consciousness and the unconscious, it is the center of this integrity, universality, just as the Ego is the center of the conscious mind. The relationship between the Ego and the Self never ends; their lifelong interaction means individuation.

Symbols of the self often have a numinous quality (mysteriousness, mystery) and carry a sense of necessity.

Individuation(Individuation ) is the individual’s acquisition of selfhood, integrity, inseparability and separation from other people or collective psychology. This is a key concept introduced by Jung into the theory of personality development. It is associated with concepts such as ego, archetype, self, consciousness and unconscious. In a somewhat simplified form, this can be represented as follows:

The ego is in the process of social adaptation of the individual,

The self is in the process of individuation (accumulation of personal experience and self-realization).

In the process of their interaction, the person begins to realize in what respects he or she is a unique human being, and at the same time simply a man or a woman.

Individuation presupposes a certain degree of opposition to social norms that have no absolute value. The process of individuation contains religious overtones.

Jung perceived faith, conscious or unconscious, as the willingness to trust in a transcendent power, as a prerequisite for numinous experience. The numinous cannot be conquered, one can only open oneself to it. Jung wrote about numinity as a dynamic factor or effect independent of the derivative act of the will. In any case, numinosity causes a specific change in consciousness. This experience turns out to be so deep, “transcendent,” that descriptions cannot convey the extent of its impact.

Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning circle. Refers to a geometric figure in which a circle is enclosed within a square or a square within a circle. The mandala has more or less regular multiple ratios and is divided into 4 or a multiple of 4 parts. Jung interpreted the mandala as an expression of the psyche and, in particular, the self. Mandalas express the desire for wholeness or present cosmic wholeness.

Archetypes of Persona, Anima, Animus and Shadow

The most distinct and clear definition shadows was given by Jung in 1945: “This is precisely what a person would not want to be.” This simple statement summarizes the definition of the shadow as the negative side of the personality, the sum of all the unpleasant qualities that one would like to hide, the “other personality” in the person himself, his own dark side. Jung was well aware of the reality of evil in human life.

Again and again he emphasized that we all have a shadow, that every real substance casts a shadow, that the ego is related to the shadow as the shadow is to darkness, and that it is the shadow that makes us human.

“Everyone carries a shadow with him, and the less connected it is to the individual conscious life, the darker and denser it is. If a bad quality is recognized, then there is always a chance to correct it. In addition, it is in constant contact with other interests, so that it is subject to continuous modification. But if the shadow side of the Self is suppressed and isolated from consciousness, then it will never be corrected, and can always break through at the most inopportune moment.” In other words, the shadow cannot be eradicated, which is why analytical psychologists use the term “coming to terms with the shadow.”

A personin the Jungian concept, it is an archetype, that is, an inevitable and omnipresent given. In any society, ways and means are needed to facilitate relationships. This function is implemented through a person. IN different cultures The criteria for a person are different. A persona is not inherited or fake. It is simply a form of compromise that a person has chosen to live in society. The persona acts as an intermediary between the ego and the outer world, in much the same way that the anima and animus mediate between the ego and the inner world.

AnimaAnd Animus they are images of the soul growing out of an archetypal structure. They remain below the threshold of consciousness, act as guides into the inner world of a person and reveal the creative potential of the individual, leading him to individuation.

Jung classified Anima and Animus into the same class of “not-I” images. The “not-I” state for a man correlates with something feminine, and for a woman - with something masculine.

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A person’s “I” is constantly in a state where, like a ball, it is moved and thrown back and forth in the great rotation between the psyche and the world. The mutual close intertwining of the psyche and the world exists because the world, i.e. external objects and events are loaded with mental energy, for example, feelings, desires, expectations, ideas, etc. It is the psychic energies projected outward that “charge” psychically objects and events. The psyche, so to speak, pours out into the world. The reverse process - the return of projections into the subject - is, accordingly, an act of self-knowledge: A person to that extent becomes himself, i.e. realizes his true essence, in which he manages to attach to himself, i.e. integrate these very externally projected contents into the psyche. If this can be accomplished more or less well and completely, a person approaches himself, realizes his original and own essence; the latter means that he will live in proportion to it. In other words, he realizes the existence of the “Self”, or self-sufficiency. Jung calls this event individuation.

The long and complex process that leads to the realization of the Self and the experience of “independence” is what Jung calls the process of individuation. The return of first insignificant projections, and then of deep and powerful archetypal projections, occurs along a monstrously difficult and dangerous path. This path is difficult and dangerous, because the energy associated with projections flows (due to integration) to the unconscious and activates it; consciousness is now crowded and haunted by much stronger unconscious contents than before. “Isolation in only-I-being has paradoxical consequences: from now on, non-personal, collective contents appear in dreams and fantasies, which at the same time are the very material from which well-known schizophrenic psychoses are built. For this reason, this situation is not at all safe, the release of the I from the entanglement of projections (among which, ultimately, the transference to the doctor plays a major role) leads to the fact that the I, which until now has been dissolved

in relation to his personal environment, is now in danger of dissolving into the contents of the collective unconscious."

When this stage is reached, something happens that always amazed Jung himself: “Contrary to the dangerous tendency of dissolution, something like a counteraction rises from the collective unconscious itself in the form of a process of centering, which can be described quite unambiguously by means of symbols. This process creates nothing less than a new center of personality, which is at first characterized by a symbol superior to the Self, then this new center actually turns out to be superior to the Self." This new psychic center is the "Self".

Return of archetypal projections, i.e. dealing with the unconscious components of the personality places the highest demands on the psyche; a person is required to exert all his strength, because dealing with the collective unconscious entails monstrous consequences for the I-consciousness.

Jung says in this regard: “When the unconscious parts of the personality are made conscious, then there occurs not only an assimilation of that from which the I-personality existed long ago, but a change in the latter. The great difficulty now is to characterize this kind of change. How As a rule, the Self is a well-coordinated and tightly coupled complex that cannot be easily changed (because of the consciousness associated with it and its continuity) and which should not be changed unless we want to prepare pathological disorders.It is in the field of psychopathology that we find excellent analogies to such a change in the ego, there we encounter not only neurotic dissociations, but also schizophrenic fragmentation and even complete dissolution of the ego. In the same area we also observe pathological attempts at integration - if this expression is appropriate here. This happens in more or less stormy and rapid intrusions of unconscious contents into consciousness, while the I shows itself incapable of assimilating everything that penetrates into it. If the structure of the ego-complex is so strong and strong that it can withstand the onslaught of unconscious contents without its structure being fatally shaken, then assimilation can take place. In this case, however, not only the unconscious contents change, but also the ego. It is true that it is able to preserve its structure, but it shifts, as it were, to the side from its central and dominant position and, as a result, finds itself in the role of a suffering observer who lacks the necessary means to publicly declare one's will under all circumstances; and he succeeds less and less in the latter, as the will weakens, and not because certain considerations prevent it. The “I” cannot detect anything around itself, since the influx of unconscious contents revives and takes possession of the personality; from these contents the appearance of a personality is constructed, which surpasses the ego in volume and intensity. This experience paralyzes an overly egocentric will and convinces the ego that its retreat into the background, despite all the difficulties, is still better than a hopeless struggle in which - ultimately - the person is left in the cold. Thus, the will (as free energy) is gradually subordinated to a stronger factor, i.e. a new holistic appearance, which I designated as the Self."

The process of individuation in no way implies awareness of the Self. The Self is much broader than the Self; it includes the Self. Rather, the process of individuation “is the production and deployment of an original, potential wholeness.” Individuation is self-formation and self-realization, where “self” should be understood as the Self in Jung’s sense. Self-realization (or realization of the Self) means acting in full harmony and taking into account the whole psyche, thanks to which, in fact, the Self appears and becomes effective.

3. Stages of the individuation process

Jung repeatedly emphasized that individuation can only be understood through own experience actually experiencing it. He explained equally unequivocally - thereby depriving many therapists of their halo - that the psychotherapist ultimately does not play any decisive role, that individuation is an independent mental process. It doesn’t matter whether individuation is the result of the healing of neurosis or whether the so-called “healthy person” consciously strives for it for some other reason, in both cases we are talking about a process of individual development, where the psychotherapist figures not as a stimulant, but at most as something. something like an obstetrician. The process of individuation can be understood based on the images that the soul produces during this process, primarily in dreams: the course of the entire course of the individuation process is described in detail by Jung in his work “Zur Empirie des Individuationsprozesses”.

Jung's method of therapeutic support for the process of individuation is twofold. He calls it "analytical" (which means recognition and raising to the level of consciousness) at the "object level" - regarding the personal unconscious and the Shadow; The “object” level is because the subject projects all the impulses of the unconscious primarily onto the object. Jung calls his method synthetic-constructive (which means integration and construction of a more global center) at the subjective level - regarding the collective unconscious; The stage is “subjective” because at this stage the subject recognizes that all problems come from his own psyche, he ensures that the projected images and forces return back to the psyche.

In order to be able to better understand this process and to get a more accurate idea of ​​the complexity and sophistication of the psychology that Jung represents, let us dwell in detail on the individual stages of this process.

3.1. Object stage

The very first prerequisite for what Jung calls individuation is the analysis of one's personal unconscious, i.e. those parts of the unconscious that constitute the uniqueness of a person are brought to his consciousness. This means, first of all, the integration into consciousness (but not identification!) of the so-called Shadow, because it is primarily the “lower” parts of one’s own Person, those parts that are repressed due to the fact that a person cannot unite them with the idea about yourself; Yes, these parts cannot be combined with the role that a person plays in society. Integration causes, on the one hand, that a person falls in his own eyes and sinks into the baseness of human life; on the other hand, there is a simultaneous destruction of the role (Mask, Persona) that the person played before. The persona - as a deceptive individuality with which the I-consciousness identifies itself - must be broken and abolished. If a person learns to separate himself from the role he plays in life, then the precondition for subsequent individuation is fulfilled.

Everyone knows how monstrously difficult this task is. And yet, only in this way can the truly complex and dangerous problems of the individuation process be resolved. The transformation (elimination) and integration of personal repressions entails excessive activation of the collective unconscious. Jung suggests that psychic energies bound by this very repression become free and activate the collective unconscious; they bring to consciousness those contents the existence of which a person had not previously even suspected. This entails far-reaching consequences: “To the extent that the influence of the collective unconscious grows, consciousness loses its leading power. It imperceptibly becomes driven, and the unconscious and "The impersonal process gradually takes over the leadership. Thus the conscious person, without noticing it, becomes one of many other pieces moved by some invisible player on the chessboard. And it is the one who plays the game of fate that is not consciousness and its intention." This process can proceed successfully only when “consciousness is able to assimilate the contents produced by the unconscious, i.e. understand them and process them.” The main question at this stage is how the individual will react to the unconscious contents penetrating into his consciousness and their fascinating, blinding power.

Possible negative reactions:

1. Destruction of the Person: unconscious, and under certain conditions even contradictory tendencies overwhelm the consciousness (inflation), which in extreme cases can lead to schizophrenia.

2. Regression to more early stage development, i.e. restoration of one's former Persona.

3. Identification with the collective psyche, which is equivalent to the inflation of consciousness, now elevated only to the level of the system. Access to the collective psyche means renewal of life; a person can be swallowed up by all this and act as a prophet of the ideas that have their origin in this identification. Instead of processing the onslaught of the unconscious and, in a sense, overcoming and integrating it, an uncritical identification occurs.

All these dangers must be constantly kept in mind and remembered in the course of subsequent work, even if there is even the slightest hint of this. The entire path is characterized as a constant struggle with the psyche and within the psyche, as a constant overcoming of fears that arise already at the stage of mastering the Shadow, but rightfully and to a greater extent relate to the collective unconscious.

3.2. Subjective stage

After the dismantling of the Persona and the integration of the personal unconscious, a more difficult and lengthy phase of the process comes next: the integration of archetypes. This is a dispute between the Self and the collective unconscious.

By integration of an archetype, Jung means the return and acceptance back into the psyche of an archetypal projection from an object. The energy previously associated with desire (and in general with expectations and fears) now returns back to one’s own soul, but not in order to put an end to these desires, etc. as if with illusions, but above all so that a person 1) no longer blindly identifies himself with archetypal desires and impulses, so that he learns to distinguish himself from them and 2) comprehends his own content of the archetype and recognizes it as something present in psyche. So, if the desire (associated with the archetype of the mother) to be hidden and protected is projected onto the bodily mother, then, speaking of integration, it is not supposed to abolish this desire as meaningless and impossible, but to recognize it precisely as the priority of any projection and as an approximation - by returning the projection to the psyche - to the goal, i.e. finding this concealment in one’s own psyche, in some center above the Self (in the Self).

Significant transit points of the subsequent process of individuation: after the complete and final integration of the personal unconscious in relation to the collective unconscious, a decisive phase begins - we are talking about bringing back the projections of the Anima archetype, respectively, the Animus. The archetypes of Anima and Animus are autonomous complexes of the unconscious and as such they are relatively independent of the Self. The Anima is always initially projected onto the mother, who provides the child with protection from immersion in the unconscious (after all, Anima symbolizes the unconscious, and the latter is tightly intertwined with the mother); later - on women who arouse men’s feelings (both positive and negative). The same is true of the animus. Both archetypes stand on the threshold between consciousness and the unconscious. Jung is even ready to admit that they are actually psychological functions, i.e. those psychological functions that communicate and maintain the relationship between consciousness and the collective unconscious. Because of their autonomy, they are personified in mental experience. The return of these projections and their integration into consciousness is a painful process of separating one's own Persona from identification with archetypes and recognizing them as the very real functions that build bridges leading to the unconscious. "Dealing with them must bring their contents to light; and only if this task is completed and if there is a satisfactory awareness of the consciousness regarding the processes of the unconscious, playing out in the Anima, will the Anima really be felt only as a simple function."

If it is not possible to untie archetypes from objects and depersonify them, then they develop something like autonomous domination in the psyche. “Mental anomalies arise, states of obsession of all degrees: from ordinary moods and “ideas” right up to psychoses.”12 The goal, therefore, is the opposite - to overcome the autonomy of archetypes and turn them into a function of “connecting consciousness with the unconscious.”

Thanks to this, the archetypes lose their monstrous “demonic” power, with the help of which they took possession of a person and could even destroy him. Anima and Animus occupy their proper place in the general economy of the psyche, i.e. they integrate. The same thing is quite legitimately expressed in other words: the unity of intellect and feelings is a necessary condition for the formation of integrity; for the intellect guarantees the Animus, and the feeling guarantees the Anima.

/If this milestone has been successfully overcome on the path of identification, then the next important step is the integration of the archetype, which Jung calls mana-personality. "Mana" among primitive peoples is a certain occult quality, a mana-personality, or a person endowed with special occult powers and knowledge. The integration of this content is the archetype of the magician, or the Old Sage. When Anima (respectively Animus) loses its fascinating power, i.e. when their "mana" weakens, the appearance of a mana-personality emerges from the unconscious. To put it less figuratively: the archetype, which can be detected through the images described above, declares its claim to possess the psyche. He is the dominant of the collective unconscious. How, however, does the ego behave in this situation? Jung says: "In this respect, our pitifully limited Self, if it has even a spark of self-knowledge, can only draw back and abandon all illusion of power and meaning. This is a deception: the Self has not overcome the Anima and therefore has not mastered its mana. Consciousness has not become master over the unconscious, Anima suffered a loss in her lordly daring to the extent that the I was able to deal with the unconscious. This trial, however, is not a victory of consciousness over the unconscious, but the creation of a certain balance between both worlds." The great danger and above all the “normal” consequence of the above-described overcoming or dissolution of the Anima (Animus) is that the Ego believes that it acquired, along with the dissolution of the Anima, that extraordinary numinous and occult power that made the Anima so blinding and bewitching; in reality this opinion is an expression of identification with the archetype of the mana-personality. Jung writes that in his experience he has not yet observed a single developmental process in which at least a fleeting identification of this kind did not take place.

However, how does the process of individuation proceed further in the case of positive development? Now you need to remove the identification from the mana-personality, untie yourself from this archetype and realize the difference between yourself and it. This again means - as in the case of Anima and Animus - to become aware of one's own content and the compelling power of the mana-personality archetype: "Awareness of the contents that build the mana-personality archetype means for men a second and true liberation from the father, for women - from the mother, and at the same time the first feeling of one’s own individuality.” This entails a feeling of a certain superiority and wisdom. Jung therefore describes the consequences of the integration of the mana personality as follows: “The mana personality is, on the one hand, the one who knows the most, on the other, the one who wants the most. Through awareness of the contents underlying this personality, we find ourselves before having to reckon with the following fact: on the one hand, we have learned something more than our neighbors, and on the other hand, we want something more than others." This superiority in wisdom and will is somehow built into the psyche. Individuation promotes a rapid transition to higher levels of consciousness expansion.

What is actually meant by a real expansion of consciousness becomes clear from the words of Jung when he states, a little pathetically, that as a result of the formation of wholeness, a person becomes unlike other people: “The man who has usurped the new kind knowledge, undergoes a change or expansion of consciousness, due to which his consciousness becomes different from the consciousness of his neighbors. He rose, it is true, above what today passes for humanity (“you will be like gods”), but thereby he also moved away from man. The torment of this loneliness is the retribution of the gods: he can no longer return back to people. He, as the myth says, is chained to a secluded rock in the Caucasus, abandoned by gods and people."

If the autocracy of the mana-personality archetype dissolves and awareness and integration of its content occurs, then we come to a person who does not give in to mental machinations, who can no longer be captured and limited. What then happens to mana? “We only know that neither consciousness nor the unconscious has mana; it is also true that since the I no longer makes any claims to power, obsession does not arise, that is, the unconscious also loses its intoxicating power. In this In the state of mana, it must fall to the lot of something that is conscious and unconscious, or neither conscious nor unconscious. This something is the sought-after center of personality, something indescribable. Something between opposites, or something that unites opposites, or the result of a conflict, or the result of energetic tension is the formation of personality, the most individual step forward, the next step." This focus is nothing other than the Self, the next and at the same time the last stage (and goal) of individuation. From an intellectual point of view, this is a psychological concept, something that replaces the unknown in ourselves; for Jung, this is certainly a fact; it can only be described fragmentarily and in the most approximate way, because its essence goes beyond the limits of our conceptual capabilities of comprehension.

Integration aspect

1. Integration of the personal unconscious (Shadows!)

2. Integration of the contents of Anima, or Animus (Anima and Animus realize the function of a bridge with the unconscious).

3. Integration of the contents of the mana-personality archetype (mana).

4. Consequence: Integrity! A new higher center of the psyche, which can be characterized as a close combination of opposites; therefore, only to him and exclusively to him alone is the property of mana rightfully due.

The essential content of this very emotional impulse is consciously built into the psyche, as a result of which the projections of this content (which were in objects) return again to the subject.

The decisive stages of this process can be compared with each other and generalized if this process is considered simultaneously both in the aspect of distancing (the true personality from the non-self) and in the aspect of the formation of integrity and integration (psyche):

Distancing Aspect

1. Distancing from the Person

2. Distancing from identification with Anima or Animus.

3. Distancing from identification with the mana-personality archetype.

4. Consequence: formation of the Self. The Self as the new focus of the Person, true and own individuality, insusceptibility to any other psychic forces and authorities.

In this sense, individualization is “a process of differentiation that aims to develop the individual personality.” This is the path on which mental energy is each time again abstracted from the previous connection and entanglement, after which it immediately rests on a new object, in relation to which exactly the same way of behavior is carried out - until, finally, Something (Self) becomes distinguishable and definitely distinguished ), present above the Self; this Something, or Self, takes the lead and seizes dominance in the economy of psychic forces.

4. Additions

To avoid misunderstandings and in order to clearly present Jung's theory, we will add some additional remarks.

4.1. Individuality and versatility

Perhaps the impression has arisen that the process of individuation leads to something like individualism and isolation of man. Jung strongly disputed this assertion. On the contrary, since the individual is a part of the whole, and since the individuated person experiences this circumstance consciously in his own experience, then individuation leads to the development of a completely independent Person, which, with its structure and its essence, not only recognizes collective norms and collective connections, but also realizes them in life: “Since the individual is not only an individual being, but his existence presupposes collective relationships, the process of individuation does not lead to disunity, but to an increasingly intense and universal interconnectedness with the collective.” According to Jung, the greatest misconception is the confusion of individuation with individualism: “Individualism is the deliberate protrusion and emphasis on uniqueness as opposed to duties and respect towards the collective. Individuation means precisely the better and more complete fulfillment by a person of his collective destiny; after all, a comprehensive account of the individual’s uniqueness leaves greater hopes for favorable social consequences than neglect or even suppression of this originality." In this regard, the collective component is naturally responsible not for collectivity (understood in the sense of flawed individuality and freedom), but rather for the conscious constitution of the Persona - suitable for living together in the universal interconnectedness of life and co-organized with one's own personality structure - in other words, for the universality of the Persona .

4.2 Process teleology

The entire process of individuation occurs, according to Jung, purposefully; it is assumed that the individual himself accepts in this process Active participation. There is something like an “onslaught” on the Self, and sometimes one can even talk about the action of something otherworldly behind the reactions of the unconscious. This is best illustrated by Jung's explanation of a patient suffering from neurotic indigestion (he had painful spasms similar to those caused by hunger):

"As a result of the analysis, an infantile passionate longing for the mother, the so-called maternal complex, was revealed. Thanks to this insight acquired during the analysis, the symptoms disappear, but a longing remains, which cannot subside at all along with the statement that it is nothing more than a complex mother. What was previously quasi physical hunger and physical suffering now becomes mental hunger and mental suffering. A person languishes and yearns for something and knows that it is completely wrong to assume that this is a mother. Meanwhile, there is the fact of a longing that is not yet satisfied, and to answer the question of what this yearning means is much more complex than to reduce neurosis to the mother complex. Longing is a constant demand, a painful, active emptiness that can sometimes be forgotten, but which can never be overcome by willpower. It always arises again and again. Unknown at first Where this yearning comes from is probably not even known, what, in fact, a person yearns for and what constitutes the object of his yearning. Many assumptions can be made, but the only thing that can be confidently stated about this is that on the other side of the maternal complex, the unconscious Something expresses its demands and always - regardless of our consciousness and incomprehensible to our criticism - this Something again and again gives its voice and declares itself."

This Something that presses and oppresses is the archetype of the Self, and that towards which this monstrously powerful yearning is directed and directed is the realization of the Self.

4.3. The need for individuation

Jung asks the question to what extent what is called individuation is worthy of our aspiration, and to what extent it can be considered necessary for humanity as a whole. A non-individuated person is given over to the mercy of any psychic impulse - powerless, unfree, thrown like a ball onto a field of psychic forces. Such a person acts and acts as if it were not himself: “Disunity with oneself is precisely that neurotic and intolerable state from which a person would like to free himself. However, it is possible to free oneself from this state only when a person can "to be so and to act as he feels himself. In relation to this, people have a feeling, at first probably vague and uncertain; but then, as it develops progressively, this feeling becomes more and more strong and distinct." Unconscious contents give rise to "blinding illusions that distort and invalidate ourselves and our relationship to others. For these reasons, individuation for certain people inevitable - not only as a therapeutic necessity, but also as the highest ideal, as the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe best thing that can be done<...>. The idea behind this ideal is that from right discretion comes right action, and that there is no healing or improvement of the world that does not begin with the individual himself."

It follows from this that individuation is a necessary prerequisite if a person wants to establish a better and more socially attractive world!

plunged into student memories,<...>thought that his marriage was not quite what he imagined it to be. He did a lot of good to people - too much - and, as a result, he was easily irritated. Both parents made great efforts to live a pious faith, and as a result, difficult scenes arose between them more and more often." Jung explained his tense relationship with confessional dogmas by the fact that he was never able to obtain from his father a satisfactory answer to questions about nature evil, grace, suffering, destiny, etc., because he - as it seemed to his son - did not experience firsthand the true religious connection with God, experienced by his son already in his youth. His subsequent interest in theological problems, the history of religion (among Jung's addressees more 70 theologians) and culture Jung explained by inner need: “I realized that there was a fatal connection between me and my ancestors. I am convinced that I depend on them, on the things they haven’t resolved, on the questions they haven’t answered.<...>. And I always believed that I had to answer the questions that fate had posed to my ancestors, that I had to at least continue what they had not accomplished."

Jung's mother - Emilia Jung * (ur. Preiswerk) (1848-1923) came from a burgher family. Among her immediate family there were seven priests. “A living warmth emanated from her, it was cozy and good to be with her. She loved to chat, but she was ready to listen to everyone. She obviously had literary talent, taste and depth. But these qualities of hers never properly developed.” They remained behind the appearance of a plump, good-natured, elderly woman; She loved to feed guests and was an excellent cook; finally, she was not without humor.<...>It seemed to me that she consisted of two halves, one was harmless and humane, the other dark and mysterious." One can probably say that Jung acquired his first experience of the duality of human nature while observing his mother. The latter often served as the object of both his childhood fears and nightmares, and the driver of life. When describing his mystical experience and “encounters with the unconscious,” Jung mentions not his father, but his mother. And also his wife, Emma Jung (ur. Rauschenbach, 1903-1955). It is significant that the death of his mother and Jung correlates his wife with the stages of the construction of the Tower - which became for him not only a place of residence, but also “a place of maturity, a mother’s womb, where I could become what I was, am and will be.” An entire chapter in Jung’s book “Memoirs” is devoted to the description of the Tower , reflections, dreams." In 1922, Jung bought a plot of land in Bollingen on Lake Zurich, where in 1923 he began construction of the Tower. Throughout his life, this Tower was constantly completed and rebuilt by Jung. Its architecture was supposed to correspond to the inner structure of the soul, to express the path of individuation. “In that Tower, I wanted to have some space just for myself.<...>I was alone in my room. I always kept the key with me; no one dared to enter here without my permission. For several years I painted the walls, depicting everything that took me away from everyday life, from today. It was a place where I indulged in reflection, where I gave free rein to my imagination, all this was difficult and often unacceptable: - so, it was a place of spiritual concentration."

The need for concentration and the experience of experiencing the “Other” in oneself were inherent in Jung from childhood. He describes that for the first time during his school years he realized that there were two people living in him: Number 1 and Number 2; Subsequently, this Number 2 even received a name - Philemon. “Deep down in my soul, I always knew that there were two people in me. One was the son of his parents, he went to school and was stupider, lazier, sloppier than many. The “other,” on the contrary, was an adult - even an old one - skeptical * distrustful, he He moved away from people. He was close to nature, the earth, the sun, the moon, he knew all living beings, but most of all - night life and dreams, everything in which he found the living God.<...>. I was looking for peace and solitude for my Other." Relationships with the "Other", the experience of immersion in my own unconscious were the cause of serious conditions: at the age of 12, Jung experienced severe neurosis with fainting fits; an accidentally overheard conversation between his parents and a doctor - and the prospect of a terrible illness - frightened the boy so much that he "forced" himself to be cured. After the break with Freud, Jung had another, equally strong "immersion" into the unconscious, when he experienced terrible visions with rivers of blood. The period of depression lasted until the outbreak of the First World War. In this state, Jung conducts experiments on himself, allowing the unconscious to uncontrollably dominate the consciousness. Almost until 1918, Jung, like a medium, fulfills what the unconscious demands of him, namely, technically speaking, he performs a regression into childhood. In the evenings, after work, he “stacked cubes” like a little boy. At the same time, Jung recorded all his inspirations and fantasies in his diary, the so-called “Red Book”. Thus, he empirically discovered the path of synthesis of the unconscious with consciousness, a path that was called the path of individuation. Subsequently, Jung turned to his unconscious in those moments when his consciousness was in a state of disorientation and confusion, but he had already mastered the ability to do this intentionally and under control. “As you know, the main subject of study for Jung is the unconscious, because health or illness, success or failure of personality building depends on what kind of relationship develops between it and consciousness. Consciousness interests Jung only insofar as it is able to find the right position in communication with the unconscious."

General scheme of spiritual growth

At the beginning of this book, Dr. Jung introduced the reader to the concept of the subconscious, its individual and collective structures, and its symbolic form of expression. Having described the importance of symbols created by the subconscious, that is, their healing or destructive effects, Dr. Jung showed how difficult it is to interpret them correctly. The success of a particular interpretation depends on whether it resonates with the patient and whether it carries meaning for him. Thus, in the symbolism of dreams, possible ways meaning formation.

Hence, if we continue Jung’s thought, another question arises: what is the purpose of the life that an individual lives in the totality of all his dreams? What role do dreams play not only in a person’s momentary mental state, but also in his life as a whole?

As a result of Jung's examination of a large number of people and the study of their dreams (according to his calculations, at least 80,000 dreams are obtained), it was established that all dreams not only correlate to one degree or another with the life of the dreamer, but are also components of one huge network, in which a variety of factors are intertwined psychological impact. It was also discovered that all dreams seemed to follow a certain order or general scheme. Jung called this pattern the “process of individuation.” Since dreams present various scenes and images every night, it is difficult to notice any order in them without being a careful observer. But if you trace your own dreams over several years, studying their content sequentially, it will become clear that certain images emerge, disappear and are repeated again. Many even dream of the same characters, views or situations several times, and if you track them over a successive series of dreams, you will find that they gradually but noticeably change. These changes can be accelerated correct interpretation dreams and their symbols, since it influences the dreamer's conscious attitude towards dreams.

Thus, the life of our dreams creates an intricate pattern in which individual traits or inclinations are visible, now disappearing, now appearing. If you observe for a long time how this ornate pattern is woven, you will notice that this action is secretly directed or regulated by something, causing a slow and subtle process of spiritual growth - the process of individuation.

Gradually it leads to the emergence of a more versatile and mature personality, and then, as it intensifies, its results even become noticeable to others. The fact that we often speak of someone being "arrested" shows that such a process of growth and becoming is considered possible for every individual. And since spiritual growth cannot be caused by a conscious volitional effort, but arises involuntarily and naturally, in dreams it is often symbolized by a tree, whose slow, powerful and natural growth fits into a certain pattern.

The directing center from which the mentioned regulatory influence emanates seems to represent a kind of “key atom” in our psychic system, its core. We can also say that this center invents, organizes and generates dream images. Jung called this center the Self and described it as encompassing the entire human psyche, in contrast to the ego, which represents only a small part of the psyche.

For centuries, people have intuitively known about the existence of such an inner center. The Greeks called it the inner Daimon; in Egypt he was expressed by the concept of the soul - Ba, and the Romans revered him as the “genius” inherent in every individual. In primitive communities he was often considered a guardian spirit, embodied in an animal or fetish.

An unusually pure, unclouded perception of this center is characteristic of the Naskapi Indians, who still live in the forests of the Labrador Peninsula.

These simple people hunted for a living and lived in isolated family groups so far apart that they were unable to develop a system of tribal customs or collective religious beliefs and ceremonies. In his lifelong solitude, the Naskapi hunter is forced to rely on his own inner voice or on the revelations of the subconscious. He has no religious teachers to tell him what he should believe, and no rituals, festivals or customs to help him. In his worldview, the soul of a person appears simply as an internal “companion”, whom he calls “my friend” or mista-peo, which means “Great Man”. Mista-peo dwells in the soul and is immortal; at the moment of death or shortly before it, he leaves the person, and later reincarnates into other creatures.

Those Naskapi Indians who pay attention to their dreams, trying to discover their meaning and experience their authenticity, can find a deeper relationship with the Great Man.

He favors such people and often sends them good dreams. Thus, the main duty of every Naskapi is to follow the instructions that are given to him in dreams and then capture their contents in art. Lies and dishonor drive the Great Man from the inner kingdom of the personality, while generosity and love for neighbors and animals attract him, giving him strength. Dreams give the Naskapi the full opportunity to determine their path in life, not only in the inner world, but also in the natural world around them. They help them predict the weather and provide invaluable assistance in hunting, on which their lives depend. We mention these very wild people because they are not contaminated by the ideas of our civilization and still have a natural understanding of the essence that Jung calls the Self.

The self can be defined as an internal regulatory center, distinct from the personal consciousness, which can only be understood by studying one's dreams. They tell us that the Self is the center that constantly guides the development and maturation of the personality. But this versatile and integral state of the psyche initially looks only like an innate, but not manifested, possibility. Throughout a person’s life, it can manifest itself only partially or develop relatively fully. The degree of development depends on the desire or unwillingness of the ego to listen to the messages of the Self. But, as the Naskapi noted, those who are receptive to the hints of the Great Man dream more useful and perfect dreams. It should also be noted that existing in us from the moment of birth Big man becomes more discernible within the receptive personality than within the one who neglects it. The receptive personality also becomes more complete and whole.

It may even seem that the ego was born by nature not in order to endlessly follow its own involuntary impulses, but in order to help the psyche find integrity. It is the ego that sheds light on the action of the entire system, allowing it to become conscious, and therefore realized. If, for example, I have an artistic gift that is not recognized by my ego, nothing will happen to it, as if it did not exist. It can only be realized if it is noticed by my ego. The innate but hidden integrity of the psyche is not identical to the integrity that is already fully embodied.

This can be depicted as follows. The seed of a mountain pine contains the entire future of the tree in latent form, but each grain falls at a certain time in a certain place, differing from others in such specific properties as the quality of the soil, rockiness, slope of the earth, its openness to the sun and wind. The latent integrity of the pine tree in the seed responds to all these conditions by avoiding rocks and being attracted to the sun, resulting in tree growth. Thus, an individual pine tree gradually enters the world, translating the integrity inherent in it and bringing it into the light of reality. Without a living tree, the image of a pine tree is nothing more than a potency or an abstract idea. Likewise, the realization in the individual of his uniqueness is the goal of the individuation process.

There is an idea that this process arises arbitrarily in a person (like any other living being) in the subconscious; as a result, innate qualities of character are released. But, strictly speaking, the process of individuation is possible only if the individual knows about it and consciously maintains a living connection with it. We do not know whether the pine tree has any idea of ​​its growth, whether it can enjoy or suffer from the adventures that befall it, but man is certainly capable of consciously participating in his development. He even understands that by making free decisions from time to time, he can actively interact with his innate integrity. This interaction refers to the process of individuation in the narrow sense of the word.

Man, however, experiences something that is not captured by our pine tree metaphor. The process of individuation is broader than the relationship between the innate germ of wholeness and the events presented by fate. The subjective experience of this process creates the feeling that some transpersonal force is actively intervening in creation. Sometimes it feels as if the subconscious is determining its path in accordance with a secret plan. It seems as if something is watching you - something that you do not see, although it sees you - perhaps it is the Great Man hidden in the heart who expresses his opinion about you through dreams.

But this creatively active element of the psychic core can begin to act only when the ego gets rid of all intentions and desires and tries to move to a deeper level of existence, approaching the original. The ego must be able to listen carefully to the inner aspiration for growth and rely on it, without thinking about what will come of it. Many existentialist philosophers sought to describe this state, but they only succeeded in exposing the illusory nature of consciousness. They came straight to the door leading to the subconscious, and... could not open it.

In countries with an older culture than ours, people better understand that the utilitarian approach to conscious planning of one's actions is not suitable for the path leading to the inner development of the individual. One day I met an elderly lady who had not achieved much in life in terms of material well-being.

But she managed to create a good family with a bad husband and develop as a person. When she complained to me that she had achieved nothing in her life, I told her a parable told by the Chinese sage Zhuang Tzu. The woman immediately understood the idea and felt great relief. The essence of the parable is this: “The wandering carpenter Stone saw during his travels a huge old oak tree standing in a field near the altar in honor of a local deity.

The carpenter said to his apprentice who was admiring the oak tree: “This is a useless tree.

If you make a ship out of it, it will soon rot; if you make tools, they will break. You can’t make anything useful out of this tree, that’s why it’s so ancient.”

But that same evening, when the carpenter went to bed in the inn, an old oak tree appeared to him in a dream and said: “Why do you compare me with your home trees - hawthorn, apple, pear, orange - and all the others? fruit trees? Even before the fruits on these trees ripen, people attack them and harm them, breaking branches and tearing off branches. Their own fruits harm them, and they cannot live out the time allotted to them by nature. This happens everywhere, which is why I tried for a long time to become completely useless. You pathetic mortal! Imagine that if I were useful in every way, would I reach such a size? Moreover, you and I are creatures of God, how can one creature exalt itself so much as to condemn another? You, useless mortal, what do you know about the usefulness of trees?

The carpenter woke up and thought about his dream. Later, his student asked why only this one tree served to cover the altar, to which he replied: “Shut up! And not a word more about it! This tree grew here on purpose, because in any other place people would not have spared it.”

The carpenter clearly understood his dream. It became clear to him that the simple fulfillment of one's destiny is the greatest achievement of man and that our consumer ideas must give way to the demands of the subconscious part of our psyche. In psychological terms, this metaphor would sound like this: the tree symbolizes the process of individuation, giving a lesson to our myopic ego.

Under the tree, which had fulfilled its purpose, there was, as noted in Chuang Tzu’s parable, an altar. It was a rough, uncut stone on which people made sacrifices to the local deity who “owned” this piece of land. The symbol of the altar (that is, the altar), indicates the fact that in order to carry out the process of individuation, a person must consciously submit to the power of the subconscious, without thinking about what should and should not be done, what is right and what is wrong, or what happens or it doesn't happen. You just need to listen to the inner integrity - the Self - in order to understand what to do in each specific case. Our attitude should be like that of the mountain pine tree discussed above. She does not get annoyed when a stone interferes with her growth, and she does not make plans on how to overcome this obstacle. She simply strives to feel where she should grow - to the left or to the right, up or down the slope. Like this tree, we must succumb to this almost indistinguishable, but noticeably distinguished impulse from others, which arises from the desire for uniqueness, for creative self-disclosure. This is a process in which we continuously search and find something that is not yet known to anyone. Hints or guiding stimuli come not from the ego, but from the whole psyche - the Self.

Moreover, it is useless to spy on how someone else is developing, because each of us has our own unique task of implementation. Although many of the problems people face are similar, they are never identical. Thus, all pine trees are very similar to each other (otherwise we would not consider them pine trees), but none can exactly replicate the other. Due to these factors of similarity and difference, it is difficult to generalize about the myriad variations in the individuation process. In reality, each person does something unique in this process, inherent only to him.

Many people have criticized the Jungian approach because of its lack of systematic presentation of psychological material. But such critics forget that this material itself is a living experience, experiences charged with emotions, which by their nature are irrational and changeable. Therefore, it can be systematized only in the most general terms. Modern depth psychology in its development has encountered the same difficulties as physics. elementary particles. In other words, when we are dealing with statistical averages, a rational, systematic description of the facts is possible, but when trying to describe an individual mental phenomenon, we cannot do more than present an honest picture of it from as many angles as possible. Likewise, scientists must admit that they do not know what light is. All they can say is that under some experimental conditions light obviously consists of particles, while under others it appears to be a wave. But it is unknown what he really is. The psychology of the subconscious and any account of the process of individuation faces similar definitional difficulties. But we will try to give here a brief description of their most typical features.

The first manifestations of the subconscious

For most people, the years of youth are characterized by a state of gradual awakening, during which the individual gradually begins to understand the world and himself. Childhood is a period of enormous emotional stress, and the first dreams of a child often reveal in symbolic form the basic structure of the psyche, showing how it will later affect the fate of a particular individual. As an example, Jung once told a group of students about a young woman who was constantly plagued by anxiety, to the point where she committed suicide at age twenty-six. As a child, she dreamed that Red Nose Frost entered the bedroom where she was lying in bed and pinched her stomach. She woke up and found that she had pinched herself. But the dream did not frighten her, she simply remembered it. The fact that she did not react emotionally to the strange encounter with the demon of cold - the demon of frozen life, did not bode well for the future and was itself abnormal. She later committed suicide just as coldly and dispassionately. From this single dream one can deduce the tragic fate of the dreamer, predicted by her childish soul.

Sometimes the future in symbolic form is foreshadowed not by a dream, but by some very vivid and unforgettable real event. It is well known that children often forget events that seem important to adults, but retain distinct memories of some unnoticed incident or story. When we carefully study any of these childhood memories, we usually find that it personifies (if we consider it as a symbol) the main problem of the developing child's psyche. When a child reaches school age, his ego begins to develop, and the stage of adaptation to the outside world begins. This stage is usually accompanied by a number of painful experiences. At the same time, some children begin to feel very different from others. And this feeling of being different and unique causes a feeling of sadness, which partly explains the feeling of loneliness in many teenagers. The imperfection of the world, its evil, which the teenager encounters both within himself and outside, become conscious; he is forced to try to cope with persistent, but still unconscious internal impulses, as well as with the problems of the external world.

When the normal path of development of consciousness is disrupted, children often escape from external or internal difficulties, withdrawing into themselves as if in a fortress, and when this happens, their dreams and symbolic pictures of the subconscious strangely often reveal the motif of a circle, square or “core”, which we will consider in more detail. below. This has a connection with the aforementioned psychic core, the vital center of the personality, from which all structural development of consciousness begins. Naturally, the image of such a center will manifest itself especially clearly in the case when the mental life of the individual is under threat. From this center or core the entire process of formation of self-consciousness is directed (as far as we know). In this case, the ego, apparently, acts as a double or structural pair of the original center.

At this early stage, many children are seriously trying to find some meaning in life in order to cope with the chaos overwhelming their internal and external worlds. Others are drawn by a stream of inherited and instinctive archetypal stereotypes still hidden in the subconscious.

The latter are not interested in the deep meaning of life, because their experience of love, communication with nature, sports games and work already satisfies them with its immediate meaning. They are not necessarily more superficial - they usually carry through life with less friction and anxiety than their more introspective peers.

Likewise, if you travel in a car or train without looking outside, only the moments of starting, braking and sudden turns make it clear that you are moving at all.

The real process of individuation - conscious interaction with one's inner center (psychic core) or Self - usually begins with a feeling of mental pain accompanied by suffering. This initial push is like a kind of "calling", although we don't often understand it. The ego, on the contrary, perceives it as an obstacle to its will or desire, usually projecting the source of the obstacle onto some foreign object. God, financial difficulties, a boss, a spouse, or anything else can be a scapegoat for the ego. Or, on the surface, everything looks good, but in reality the person is languishing from deathly boredom, which devastates and deprives everything around of meaning. Many myths and fairy tales symbolically describe this initial stage of the individuation process under the guise of a king who has become ill or has begun to grow old. The reader is also familiar with such typical plot devices as the description of the barren royal couple; a monster who stole all the women, children, horses and treasures of the kingdom; or a demon blocking the path of the king's army or his ship; or darkness, cold and drought (floods) that attacked the country. In other words, the first encounter with the Self looks like a dark shadow hanging over the future. It was as if the “inner friend” had come like a hunter to lure the helplessly struggling ego into a trap.

From myths it is clear that a magical thing or talisman that can save a king and his country from misfortune is always something very unusual. In one tale, a “white blackbird” or “a fish with a golden ring in its gills” is needed to cure the king. In another the king wants to get " living water", or "three golden hairs from the head of the devil", or "the golden braid of the Tsar Maiden" (and then, naturally, the owner of the braid).

Be that as it may, the thing that can exorcise the devil is always unique and not easy to find.

The same thing happens to a person during the first crisis in his life. He is looking for something that cannot be found or that nothing is known about. At such moments, all well-intentioned and sensitive advice urging you to try to be more responsible, take time off, not work too hard at work (or work harder), have more or less contact with people, or come up with some kind of hobby is completely useless. None of these tips will help or, at best, one in a thousand will help. There seems to be only one effective way.

Its essence is to face the approaching darkness head-on, without prejudice and with complete sincerity, and try to understand what the hidden purpose is and what it wants from you.

The secret purpose of the approaching darkness is usually so unusual, unique and unexpected that it can be unraveled, as a rule, only through dreams or fantasies born of the subconscious. If you focus your attention on the subconscious, avoiding snap judgments or rejection, it can throw out a stream of symbolic images and clues into consciousness. But this doesn't always happen. Sometimes it first offers a series of painful discoveries about what is wrong with your conscious behavior and with yourself. And then the process of assimilation of bitter truths begins.

Shadow Awareness

Regardless of the form in which the subconscious first appears: as a glimpse of knowledge or as a bitter revelation, after a while there usually becomes a need to adjust conscious behavior in accordance with the information received, that is, to accept the “criticism” of the subconscious. Through dreams, a person becomes acquainted with those aspects of his personality that he preferred, for various reasons, to turn a blind eye to. Jung called this process awareness of the Shadow (he used the word “shadow” to refer to this part of the subconscious because it often appears in dreams in the form of a person).

But the Shadow does not represent the entire subconscious, but only unknown or little-known properties and signs of the ego - those aspects of it that mostly belong to the personal sphere and could well be conscious. The individual qualities inherent in the Shadow may also be the result of collective influences coming from sources outside the individual's personal life.

When trying to see his Shadow, a person begins to notice in himself (to his shame) those qualities and impulses, the presence of which he usually denies, although he distinguishes in others: selfishness, laziness of mind and carelessness of thought, projectism, irresponsibility and cowardice, excessive passion for money and things - in a word, all those sins that he had previously thought about: “Nonsense, no one will notice this and, in general, who is not without sin.”

If, when a friend tries to blame you for a mistake, you feel yourself losing your temper, know that this is a part of your Shadow that you are not aware of. Of course, it is natural to feel irritated when other people, no better than you, criticize the Shadow's inherent shortcomings. But what can you do when you are reproached by your own dreams - your inner judge? That’s when the ego finds itself trapped and can only remain silent in embarrassment. Then begins the painful and lengthy work of self-education, the psychological complexity of which can be compared to the labors of Hercules. You remember that the poor fellow's first task was to clean out the Augean stables in one day, in which so much manure from hundreds of heads of cattle had accumulated over many decades that an ordinary mortal would become despondent at the mere thought of it.

The shadow manifests itself not only in what we do not do, but also in spontaneous, unintentional actions. Before you have time to think, a barb has been heard, an intrigue is ready, a wrong decision has been made - and here are the results that no one wanted or intended. Moreover, the Shadow is much more susceptible to pernicious collective influence than the consciousness of its owner. For example, when a person is alone, he feels relatively fine. But as soon as someone around him starts doing bad things, he is drawn to join them for fear that otherwise he will be considered a fool. As a result, he gives free rein to impulses that are not at all characteristic of him. It is characteristic that when contacting people of the same sex, the Shadows of those present seem to be superimposed on the Shadow of each of us, reinforcing common shortcomings. But the Shadow of people of the opposite sex almost does not irritate us, and we easily forgive them for its presence.

That is why in dreams the Shadow appears in the form of a person whose gender matches the gender of the dreamer.

An example is the following dream, dreamed by a forty-eight-year-old man who tried to live mainly for himself and not depend on anyone, worked hard at work and on himself, while suppressing his craving for pleasure and spontaneous actions to a much greater extent , which would suit his true nature: “I had a very large house in the city, but although I lived in it, I had not yet studied it properly.

To get to know each other better, I walked around the house and discovered several rooms, mainly in the basement, that I knew nothing about. There were doors leading to other basements and even underground streets. I felt uneasy when I discovered that several of them were unlocked and some had no locks.

After all, there were people working around who could get into the house. Having risen to the first floor, I went to the backyard, where I also found exits to the street or to other houses. As soon as I began to look around, a loudly laughing man came up to me and declared that we were old school friends. I remembered him too, and while he told me about his life, we headed towards the exit, and then began to wander through the streets.

The air was filled with a strange half-light. We were walking along a huge circular street that goes around the square, when three horses suddenly galloped past us. They were beautiful, strong animals, wild but well-groomed, although without riders (maybe they escaped from the military?).”

The labyrinth of strange corridors, halls and unlocked exits in the basement recreates ancient Egyptian ideas about the afterlife and is well famous symbol, meaning the subconscious with its unknown possibilities. It also marks “openness” to the influence of both the subconscious Shadow and supernatural and alien forces. We can say that the basement means the basis of the dreamer's psyche. In the backyard (symbolizing the yet undiscovered spiritual potential of the psyche), an old school friend suddenly appears. He clearly represents another aspect of the dreamer himself - the former integral part his life as a child, but long lost and forgotten. It often happens that the qualities inherent in a person in childhood, for example, cheerfulness, quick temper or, perhaps, gullibility, suddenly disappear, and it is not clear where and how they went. It is precisely this lost part of the dreamer’s character that is now returning (with backyard) and again tries to make friends. This image is probably a reflection of the dreamer's lost ability to enjoy life, as well as his Shadow facing the outside world.

We will soon understand why the dreamer felt “uneasy” just before meeting this seemingly harmless old friend. When he walks down the street with him, horses jump out.

The dreamer thinks that they may have escaped from the military unit (in other words, escaped from the conscious discipline that has characterized his life so far).

The fact that the horses were without riders shows that instinctive drives can escape the control of consciousness. In the images of an old friend and horses, that hitherto absent positive force, which the dreamer so desperately needed, reappears.

This problem often arises when a person is confronted with the “other side” of himself. The shadow usually contains the values ​​that consciousness needs, but the form in which they are clothed makes them difficult to use. Corridors and a large house in this dream also mean that the dreamer does not yet know his own spiritual dimensions and is not yet able to realize them. The shadow in this dream is typical of the personality of an introvert (a person who strives to move as far as possible from external life). For a person of an open nature - an extrovert, more focused on external objects and the life around him, the Shadow will look completely different.

One young man, possessing a very lively temperament, repeatedly carried out one or another business project, and each time successfully; at the same time, his dreams insisted that he complete the personal creative plan he had begun. Here is one of his dreams: “A man is lying on the sofa, with the blanket pulled over his head. This is a thug, French by nationality, ready for any crime. An official accompanies me down the stairs, and I know that a conspiracy is being hatched against me: the Frenchman is supposed to kill me, as if by accident. (This is how it should look from the outside). As we approached the exit, the villain actually snuck up behind me, but I was alert. A tall, burly gentleman (very rich and influential) suddenly leans against the wall behind me, feeling ill. Taking advantage of the opportunity, I instantly kill the official by plunging a knife into his heart. The remark sounds: “A watery droplet has appeared.” I'm safe now. The Frenchman won't attack me because his boss is dead. (The official and the lucky, portly gentleman turn out to be one and the same person, and the latter somehow takes the place of the former).”

The thug represents the implicit side of the dreamer - his inner world, which has reached a completely pitiful state. He lies on the sofa (that is, passive) and pulls the covers over his face, wanting to be left alone. On the other hand, the official and the prosperous, portly gentleman (somehow constituting one person) personify the outwardly successful activities of the dreamer. The sudden illness of the portly man is connected with the fact that the dreamer actually fell ill several times when he allowed his dynamism and energy to manifest itself too powerfully in outer life. But this lucky gentleman had no blood in his veins - there was only a watery liquid, meaning that the external ambitious activity of the dreamer was lifeless and bloodless, like an automaton. Thus, if the portly husband is killed, it will not be a real loss. At the end of the dream, the Frenchman somehow becomes enlightened. He clearly represents a positive shadow figure who turned into a negative and dangerous character only because the dreamer's consciousness did not agree with it.

The above dream shows us that the Shadow can consist of many different elements: for example, unconscious ambition (lucky, portly husband) and focus on the inner world (Frenchman). Moreover, during a psychoanalysis session, the mention of the French caused the patient to associate with their excellent ability to flirt and have affairs. Therefore, the two shadow figures also represent two well-known motivating forces - power and sex. The power motive appears simultaneously under two guises - an official and a successful gentleman.

An official or civil servant symbolizes adaptation to the team, while a successful man personifies ambition, although it is clear that both serve the power of power. When the dreamer manages to stop this dangerous inner force, the Frenchman suddenly ceases to seem dangerous. On the other hand, sex - an equally dangerous force that controls us - is also receding.

It is clear that the problem of the Shadow plays a large role in all political conflicts. If the person who saw this dream did not pay attention to the problem of his Shadow, he could easily identify the desperate Frenchman with the communist “threat”, and the official and prosperous gentleman with the “money-hungry capitalists”. With such an approach, he would not have noticed that within him there were elements so opposite in meaning. The manifestation of our subconscious aspirations in other people is called “projection” or “influence.” Such influences can be found in large quantities in the ideology and propaganda of any country, as well as in “kitchen discussions”.

All sorts of influences complicate our perception of friends, depriving it of objectivity and thus undermining the possibility of truly human relationships.

There is another negative side to projecting our Shadow outside. When we identify it, for example, with communists or capitalists, part of our personality goes there, leaving us. As a result, we will constantly (albeit involuntarily) act to our detriment, thereby supporting the other side and unknowingly helping the enemy. Conversely, if we are aware of the influence of the Shadow and can discuss any problems with people on whom this influence is projected without fear or hostility, but with attention, then there will be a chance of mutual understanding or at least reconciliation.

Whether the Shadow becomes our friend or enemy depends mainly on ourselves. As both dreams discussed above show, the Shadow is not necessarily in opposition. In fact, she is exactly like any person, for the sake of coexistence with whom you have to give in on something, go against something, or even love something - depending on the situation. The Shadow only becomes hostile when it is ignored or misunderstood.

In some cases, an individual feels the need to show the worst side of his character, suppressing the best. In such cases, the Shadow appears in his dreams in the form of a positive hero. But to a person whose emotions and feelings are closer to nature, the Shadow may appear in the form of a cold and unpleasant intellectual, who in this case personifies hidden barbs and unpleasant thoughts. Thus, the function of the Shadow (regardless of the form it takes) is to personify the opposite side of the ego and those qualities that its bearer most dislikes in other people.

It would be too easy if you could make the Shadow part of your conscious personality only through self-honesty and self-reflection. Unfortunately, such attempts do not always work. Inside the shadow part of the psyche of each of us there are such passionate emotions that the arguments of reason may not be able to cope with. In this regard, bitter experience coming from outside can sometimes be useful. Relatively speaking, to stop the impulses and impulses of the Shadow, you need a brick to fall on your head. Sometimes heroic superhuman effort is required to curb them, but this is usually only possible with the support of the Great Man within us (the Self).

The fact that the Shadow contains an all-encompassing force of irresistible attraction does not mean, however, that it should in all cases be heroically suppressed. Sometimes the Shadow is strong because the urge of the Self is acting in the same direction. In this case, it is difficult to figure out what is behind the internal pressure - the Self or the Shadow. As far as the subconscious is concerned, a person, unfortunately, is in the same situation as in an illuminated area moonlight: all objects are blurry, merge with each other, and you can never figure out what is where or where the beginning is and where the end is. (This condition is known as “contamination” of the contents of the subconscious).

Calling one of the elements of the subconscious the Shadow, Jung correlated it with a fairly specific factor.

But it happens that everything unknown to the ego is mixed with the Shadow, including extremely valuable and significant forces. Who, for example, could vouch for whether the French cutthroat from the above dream was a degenerate tramp or a respectable introvert? Or the rushing horses from another dream: should they have been allowed to run without a bridle? If the dream itself does not reveal the situation, the decision must be made by the one to whom it appeared.

If the dream character embodies worthy, vital forces, they should be included in personal experience rather than suppressed. Here the ego decides whether it will give up pride and self-righteousness in order to experience something that looks very dark, but in reality is not so. This may require the same sacrifices and determination as when taming an irresistible attraction, but in the opposite sense.

The ethical difficulties that arise when a person encounters his Shadow are well described in the 18th book of the Koran, which tells the story of Musa's meeting in the desert with Khadir ("the Green One" or "the first servant of God"). They continue their journey together, with Khadir expressing fear that Musa will not be able to look at his actions without indignation, and warns that he will break up with him if Musa does not accept his actions and does not believe him.

Shortly after this conversation, Khadir sinks the poor villagers' fishing boat. Then, in front of Musa, he kills a handsome young man and finally restores the collapsed wall of the city of infidels. Musa cannot help but express his indignation, and Khadir is forced to leave him. But before parting, he explains the motives for his actions. By sinking the boat, he actually saved it for the owner because the pirates were going to steal it. After all, fishermen can get a boat from the bottom. A handsome young man was preparing to commit a crime; By killing him, Khadir saved his pious parents from dishonor. By restoring the collapsed wall, he saved two pious young men who had hidden their wealth under it from ruin. Only then did Musa, whose indignation was boundless, realize (though too late) that he had rushed to conclusions. Khadir's actions seemed absolutely evil, but this was not true.

With a naive perception of this parable, one might think that Khadir is the rebellious, capricious, evil Shadow of the pious and law-abiding Musa. But that's not true. To a much greater extent, Khadir personifies certain secret inspired actions (an analogy can be found in the famous Indian plot underlying the novel “The King and the Corpse” by Henry Zimmer). It was no coincidence that I did not refer to a dream to illustrate this delicate problem, but chose a well-known parable from the Koran - because it provides such a complete generalization of life experience that you rarely find in someone’s individual dream.

When dark figures appear in our dreams as if they want something from us, we cannot say with certainty whether they represent only the shadow side of ourselves or our Self, or both. To guess in advance whether a negative character symbolizes a defect that we must overcome, or a meaningful part of life that we must accept, is one of the most difficult problems on the path to individuation. Moreover, the images encountered in dreams are often so fragile and complex that one cannot be sure of the accuracy of their interpretation. Then all that remains is to accept the discomfort of ethical doubt and continue to dream without making final decisions or commitments. This is reminiscent of the situation in which Cinderella found herself when her stepmother scattered a handful of good and bad peas in front of her, demanding that she share them. And although the matter seemed completely hopeless. Cinderella began sorting with zeal - and then the pigeons (and in some versions, ants) came to her aid. These helpers symbolize impulses hidden deep in the subconscious, felt only in difficult situations and suggesting a way out of them.

Usually, somewhere in the very depths of his being, a person usually understands perfectly well where he should go and what to do. But sometimes it happens that the clown whom we call “I” confuses us so much that the inner voice cannot reach our consciousness. Sometimes all attempts to understand the hints of the subconscious end in failure. And one thing remains: to gather courage and act on a whim, while being ready to change course if suddenly the subconscious suggests a different path. It may happen (and this is typical) that a person would rather resist the impulse of the subconscious, despite the feeling of the unnaturalness of his actions, than to question what is human in him. (This happens to those who feel predisposed to crime and who need to commit it in order to feel like themselves).

The strength and inner clarity needed to make a decision comes secretly from the Great Man, who does not want to reveal too much. Maybe the Self wants the ego to make its own choice. Or maybe she needs the help of consciousness to express herself. When it comes to complex ethical issues, no one can understand the actions of other people. Everyone must study their own problems and try to determine which solution will be right for them. As one long-lived Zen Buddhist master said, we should follow the example of the shepherd, “with a whip in his hand, making sure that his flock does not graze in other people’s meadows.”

These new discoveries in the depths of psychology cannot but lead to some changes in our collective ethical views, since we will now be forced to use a more individual and sophisticated approach to assessing all human actions.

The discovery of the subconscious is one of the most far-reaching discoveries of recent times. But the fact that recognition of the reality of the subconscious is associated with the need for honest self-study and reconstruction of one’s life prompts many to behave as if nothing had happened. It takes great courage to take the subconscious seriously and to struggle with the challenges it poses. Most people are too idle to seriously think even about the flaws in their morality known to them, and, even more so, too lazy to analyze the influences of the subconscious.

The Woman Inside: Anima

Complex and sensitive issues arise not only from the activities of the Shadow. Often they are brought up by another “inner character.” In the dreams of men, he is personified in the subconscious by the image of a woman, and in the dreams of women, on the contrary, by the image of a man. Often this second symbolic character acts behind the Shadow's back, creating additional and specific problems. Jung called it “animus” in the male form and “anima” in the female form.

Anima is the personification of all manifestations of the feminine in the male psyche: such as vague feelings and moods, prophetic insights, sensitivity to the irrational, the ability to love, a craving for nature and - last but not least - the ability to contact the subconscious. It is no coincidence that in ancient times it was priestesses (like the Greek Sibyl) who were used to unravel the will of the gods and establish contact with them. Especially clear example We find the perception of anima as an internal character of the male psyche among healers and soothsayers (shamans) of the Eskimos and other northern tribes. Some of them even wear women's clothing or depict women's breasts on their clothes to show the feminine side of their nature, which allows them to connect with the “land of spirits” (that is, the subconscious).

In one of the cases that has come down to us, a young man underwent an initiation ceremony under the guidance of an older shaman, during which he was buried in a snow hole. He fell into a state of drowsiness and complete devastation. In this coma-like state, he suddenly saw a woman emitting light. She taught him everything he needed, and, later becoming his guardian spirit, helped him, connecting him with the forces of the other world. Here the anima appears as the personification of the male subconscious.

Individual manifestations of the male anima develop, as a rule, under the influence of maternal traits. If a person's mother provides bad influence, then his anima will most often manifest itself in irritated, depressed moods, a state of uncertainty, anxiety and increased excitability.

(However, overcoming such negative impacts only helps to strengthen masculinity). In the soul of such a man, the negative image of the mother - the anima - endlessly repeats “I am worthless. Everything is meaningless. For others it's different than for me. Nothing makes me happy." Such moods cause melancholy, fear of getting sick, becoming impotent or the victim of an accident. All life seems painful and sad. It can even drive a person to suicide; the anima then becomes the demon of death. In this role she appears in Cocteau's film "Orpheus".

The French call ladies like anime femme fatales (This gloomy type is somewhat softened in the image of the Queen of the Night in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute). The Greek sirens or German lorelei personify another dangerous aspect of the anima - the tendency to indulge in destructive illusions. The following Siberian tale illustrates the behavior of such a destructive anima:

“Once upon a time, a lonely hunter met a beautiful woman in the forest near the river. She waved to him from the other side and sang:

Come to me, good fellow, come to the silence of sunset.

Go quickly, I’m tired of waiting for you.

Let me hug you, let me hug you quickly.

My nest is already waiting for you, my nest is waiting for you.

Come to me, good fellow, this very moment in the calm of sunset.

The hunter undressed and swam across the river, but then the woman turned into an owl and flew away laughing. When he swam back for clothes, he drowned in the icy rapids.”

In this fairy tale, anima symbolizes the unrealizable dream of love, happiness and maternal warmth (“nest”) - a dream that leads far away from reality. The hunter drowns because he chased a seductive but unrealizable fantasy.

In addition, a negative image of the anima can manifest itself in men in the form of sharp, sarcastic, insulting remarks that devalue everything and everyone. They always simplify the truth in some way, distorting it beyond recognition, and therefore carry a destructive charge. Tales in which the maiden-poisoner acts are widespread throughout the world. This is a beauty whose clothes usually conceal weapons or deadly poison. She uses them to kill her lovers on the very first night. In this guise, the anima is as cold and capricious as some inexplicable aspects of nature itself. In Europe, it will make itself felt to this day through the belief in witches.

On the other hand, when a man's perception of his mother is positive, this can also affect the anima in a characteristic way. A man either becomes effeminate, or women begin to extol him in every possible way, which in no way helps to overcome the difficulties of life. This kind of anima can turn a man into a sentimentalist or make him touchy, like an old maid, or sensitive, like the princess and the pea (who, as is known, felt a disturbance under thirty feather beds).

There are also more subtle manifestations of negative anima. In some fairy tales, they are embodied in the image of a princess who asks riddles to suitors for her hand and heart or invites them to play hide and seek. Anyone who doesn't guess correctly or is found is executed - the princess always wins. Anima in this guise involves men in a destructive intellectual game. We can notice that as a result of the anima’s cunning, dialogue with her turns out to be of a neurasthenic pseudo-intellectual kind and only separates men from real life with all its problems. Excessive thinking about life leads to separation from it and loss of spontaneity of perception and self-expression.

Most often, anima manifests itself as an erotic fantasy. These usually occur in men after watching relevant movies, visiting striptease shows or looking at pornographic magazines. This is the crude, primitive aspect of the anima, which becomes obsessive when a man lacks normal sensual relationships, that is, when his perception of life remains infantile.

In all these manifestations, the anima, like the Shadow, has the property of projection, which gives men the impression that we are talking about the qualities of a particular woman. It is the presence of anima that makes a man suddenly fall in love when, upon seeing a woman for the first time, he immediately sees that it is “she.” The man feels as if he has known this woman for a long time, and falls in love with her so hopelessly that to outsiders it looks like complete madness. Women with a “fairytale character” are especially attracted to such anima projections, because men can attribute almost anything to a creature so charmingly vague that no fantasy of his will seem too incredible.

The projection of anima in such a sudden and violent form as falling in love can disrupt family life, giving rise to the so-called “love triangle” with its obvious problems. An acceptable solution to such a situation can only be found by recognizing anima as an inner force. The secret purpose of the subconscious in creating such difficulties is to push the personality towards development and greater maturity by forming integrity first in the subconscious, and then transferring it to the conscious area.

But I've already said enough about the negative aspects of anima. It's time to talk about the positive sides, of which there are no less.

For example, thanks to anime, the right choice of spouse is possible. Another function is no less important: when a person’s logical thinking is not able to distinguish facts hidden in the subconscious, anima helps to reveal them. The role of anima is even more serious in tuning the mind on the same wavelength with internal values.

This opens the way to the hidden depths of the inner self. It looks as if a wave has been found on the internal “radio receiver” that allows you to hear the voice of the Great Man without interference. In establishing this connection, the anima takes on the role of guide or intermediary in relation to the inner world of the Self. This is the role she plays in the above example of a shamanic initiation ritual, the same role that Beatrice plays in Dante's Divine Comedy, as well as the goddess Isis, who appears in a dream to Apuleius, the famous author of The Golden Ass, to prepare him for a more spiritual life.

The dream of a forty-five-year-old psychotherapist may help to clarify how the anima can become an inner guide. When this man went to bed, he thought that it was difficult to go through life alone, without the support of the church. He felt envious of people who were cared for motherly by some community. (He was born into a Protestant family, but has since lost his religious beliefs.) And then he had a dream:

“I am in the aisle of an old church, filled with people. Together with my mother and wife I am sitting at the end of the aisle, as if on additional places. Like a priest, I must celebrate Mass, and in my hands I have a large missal, or maybe a prayer book. I'm very worried. This book is unfamiliar to me and I can't find the text I need. I’m worried because I have to start soon, and here my mother and wife are distracting me with chatter about all sorts of trifles. The organ music fades, everyone is already waiting for me; I stand up decisively and ask one of the nuns kneeling in front to give me her missal and point out the right place in it, which she obediently does. At this moment, the same nun, like an altar boy, leads me to the altar, which is somewhere behind and to the left of me. It seems that we are approaching it from the side nave. The Breviary resembles a sheet of drawings made of hard, thick paper three feet long and a foot wide, on which columns of text alternate with ancient drawings. Before I begin, part of the liturgy must be read by a nun, and I still can’t find the right place. The nun told me it was the fifteenth paragraph, but the numbers are unclear and I can't find it. Nevertheless, I turn to the parishioners with determination and still find the fifteenth paragraph (the penultimate one on the sheet), although I’m not sure if I can make out the words. But I still want to try. This is where I wake up."

This dream means a symbolic response of the subconscious to the thoughts that visited the dreamer the night before. In fact, the dream tells him: “You yourself can become a priest of your own inner church - the church of your soul.” Thus, the dream shows that the dreamer uses the help and support of the church, but not external, but dwelling in his own soul.

The people in the church (that is, the qualities of his psyche) want him to act like a priest and celebrate mass. This does not mean the real service, since the missal appearing in the dream is very different from the real one. It seems that the idea of ​​the mass is used as a symbol, signifying the act of sacrifice in the presence of a deity with whom a person can come into contact. This interpretation of this symbol, of course, is not generally applicable, but represents only a special case. It is characteristic that this interpretation was found in a Protestant’s dream, because actively believing Catholics usually perceive the anima in the image of the church itself, the sacred symbols of which for them are symbols of the subconscious.

Our dreamer did not have such spiritual practice, so he has to follow his own path. And the dream tells him what to do.

It tells you how “Your attachment to your mother and openness to the world (represented in a dream by your extroverted spouse) distract you and instill uncertainty, and meaningless chatter prevents you from celebrating your inner Mass.

But if you follow a nun (introverted anima), she will help you both as a servant and as a priest. She has an unusual missal, consisting of sixteen ancient drawings (four times four). Your mass consists in the contemplation of these sixteen psychic images revealed by your religious anima.”

In other words, if the dreamer overcomes the inner uncertainty caused by the mother complex, he will understand that he is called to serve God and that concentrated reflection on the meaning of the symbolic images of his soul will lead him to the realization of this calling. In this dream the anima appears at last in her true positive role: as a mediator between the ego and the Self. The arrangement of text and pictures in groups of four indicates that the service of this internal Mass is performed for the sake of integrity. As Jung showed, the core of the psyche (the Self) usually expresses itself in the form of a four-level structure. The number "four" is also associated with the anima, since its development, as Jung noted, passes through four stages. The first stage is best symbolized by the image of Eve: purely instinctive and biological connections. The second stage can be observed in the image of Helen in Faust. She personifies the romantic and aesthetic level, which also has features of sexuality. The third stage is represented by the Virgin Mary - an image that raises love (eros) to the heights of spiritual devotion. The fourth type is symbolized by Sapiencia - the highest wisdom, surpassing the highest holiness and purity. Another symbol of this level is the image of Shulamith in the Song of Solomon. (The mental development of a modern person very rarely allows one to reach this stage. The Mona Lisa is very close to such a wise anime).

At this stage we will limit ourselves to stating that the concept of quaternity (or “quaternity”) is often found in certain types of symbolic material. Next we will return to this issue and consider it in more detail.

What does the role of anima as a guide to the inner world mean in practice? This positive function occurs when a person takes seriously the dreams, moods, expectations and fantasies sent by his anima and records them in one form or another, such as writing, paintings, sculptures, musical compositions or dances. Moreover, if he works on this patiently and slowly, then from the depths of the psyche each time new, deeper ideas and impressions emerge, developing and complementing the previous material. After the object of fantasy has been fixed in one way or another, it must be subjected to the test of reason and conscience. At the same time, it is important to consider it as an absolutely real thing: there should not be any, even vague doubts about the seriousness of what is happening or suspicions that this is just a figment of your imagination. If this approach is diligently practiced over a long period of time, the process of individuation will gradually become the only reality and can develop in its true form.

In many literary works, the anima is depicted as a guide and mediator on the path to the inner world: Hypnoerotomachia by Francesco Colonna, She by Rider Haggard, or as immortal woman"in Goethe's Faust. In one medieval mystical text, the anima explains her essence as follows: “I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys. I am the mother of perfect love and fear, knowledge and holy hope... I am the peacemaker among the elements, reconciling them to each other; I turn the warm into cold and vice versa, the dry into wet and vice versa, and the hard I soften... In a priest I am a covenant, in a fortuneteller I am a word, in a sage I am advice. I will kill and bring to life, and no one will escape me.”

In the Middle Ages, in the spiritual sphere there was a noticeable separation of the religious from the poetic and other areas of culture; therefore, the fantastic world of the subconscious began to be realized more clearly than before. During this period, the knightly cult of the lady marked an attempt to highlight the feminine principle in the male character - both in its manifestations in relation to the surrounding women, and in its influence on the inner world of the individual.

The lady, to whose service the knight devoted himself and for whom he performed heroic deeds, naturally personified the anima. The name of the bearer of the Grail in the version of the legend written by Wolfram von Eschenbach is especially significant - Conduir-amour (Guide to Love). She taught the hero that feelings for a woman and treatment of her do not necessarily coincide. Later, however, the desire to develop individual connections with anima was abandoned, because the sublime principle embodied in it merged with the image of the Virgin Mary, who became the universal object of boundless veneration and admiration. When the anima, like the Virgin Mary, was considered an exclusively positive creature, its negative aspects were reflected in the belief in witches.

In China, an image similar to that of Mary is the goddess Guan Yin. A more popular embodiment of anima in China is the “Lady of the Moon,” who endows her favorites with the gift of poetry or music, and sometimes even immortality. This same archetype in India is represented by the goddesses Shakti, Parvati, Rati and many others; among Muslims it is Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed.

The worship of anime as a universally recognized symbol brings serious inconvenience, which is expressed in the fact that it loses its individual characteristics. On the other hand, if you consider it as a purely personal phenomenon, there is a danger that, having projected it into the outside world, you will not be able to detect it in yourself. In the latter case, a person may be overcome by unbearable anxiety, and he will become a victim of his erotic fantasies or completely dependent on a particular woman.

At this stage, only a painful (albeit essentially simple) decision to take seriously the play of one’s imagination and one’s feelings can prevent a complete stoppage of the internal process of individuation, since only in this way can one understand what the considered image of inner reality means. In this way, the anima again becomes the original “woman within”, conveying the vital messages of the Self.

The man inside: animus

The personification of the masculine principle in the female subconscious - the animus - has, like anime in men, both positive and negative features. But the animus does not often manifest itself in the form of erotic fantasies or moods. What is more characteristic of him is not explicit, but unshakable conviction. When such conviction is poured out trumpetingly, insistently male voice or is imposed on others through crude scandalous scenes, then it is not difficult to recognize behind this female masculinity. But even in a woman with a very feminine appearance, the animus can represent no less a tough, inexorable force. Sometimes something stubborn, cold and completely inaccessible is revealed in women.

One of the favorite themes, endlessly exaggerated by the animus, sounds in the thoughts of women something like this: “The only thing I want is love, but he doesn’t love me”; or: “In this situation, two options are possible and both are equally useless” (the animus never believes in exceptions). Few people can oppose the opinion of the animus, because in general it is usually always true, although it rarely fits a specific situation. As a rule, it sounds convincing, but not to the point.

Just as the anima character of men is formed under the influence of the mother, in women the main influence on the animus is the father. The father gives his daughter's animus a special flavor, determined by several indisputable, unproven beliefs that never reflect the individuality of the woman herself.

This is why the animus sometimes, like the anime, embodies the demon of death.

One gypsy legend, for example, tells of a lonely woman who accepts a handsome stranger despite a previous dream warning that this stranger is the king of death. After being with him for some time, she tries to find out who he really is. At first he refuses to reveal himself, saying that she will die if she finds out. She, however, insists. Suddenly he admits that he is death itself. The woman instantly dies of fear.

From a mythological point of view, the handsome stranger is probably a pagan image of the father or the image of a god, acting here as the king of the dead (like Hades who kidnapped Persephone). But from a psychological point of view, this is one of the manifestations of the animus, which tends to isolate women from contacts with people in general and especially from contacts with real men. At the same time, dreams of the future, where emotions are interspersed with sober reasoning, form a kind of cocoon that separates a woman from real life.

The negative animus appears not only in the role of the demon of death. In myths and fairy tales, he acts as a robber and murderer, such as Bluebeard, who kills all his wives in a secret room. In this image, the animus embodies all those half-conscious, cold and destructive thoughts that come to women at night, and especially to those of them who fail to understand that feeling implies some responsibility, and not just pleasure.

It is at such moments that thoughts arise about the fate of the inheritance and other similar things, the mind is entangled in a web of calculating and evil thoughts. In this state, a woman is ready to wish death even for her loved ones. (“When one of us dies, I’ll move to the Riviera,” the wife tells her husband after seeing the beautiful Mediterranean coast, considering the thought relatively innocent due to the fact that it is said out loud).

By harboring secret destructive plans, a wife can drive her husband - and a mother - her children - to illness, accident or even death. It happens that a mother decides to keep her children from getting married, but does not realize it. Such evil intentions are usually deeply hidden in the subconscious. (A naive old woman once told me, while showing me a portrait of her son who had drowned when he was twenty-seven years old. “I prefer that outcome to giving him to another woman.”)

Sometimes, as a result of the influence of the animus on the subconscious, strange passivity and paralysis of all feelings arise, or deep self-doubt, sometimes reaching a feeling of complete worthlessness. Deep inside the animus whispers: “You are hopeless. What's the point of trying? There's no point in doing anything. Life will never change for the better."

Unfortunately, when one of these subconscious states takes over our mind, it seems to us that these are our own thoughts and feelings. The ego becomes identified with them to such an extent that it cannot perceive them separately, and therefore recognize them for what they really are. This is a real “obsession” with a phenomenon emerging from the subconscious. And only after the obsession disappears does the person realize with horror that he spoke and acted in a manner diametrically opposed to his true thoughts and feelings, that is, he was a victim of an alien mental factor.

Like anime, the animus includes not only negative qualities: cruelty, recklessness, talkativeness and unspoken but persistent evil ideas. The animus also has very valuable qualities; its creative potential can pave the way to the Self. The following dream of a forty-five-year-old woman illustrates this well: “Two people in masks make their way onto the balcony, and from it into the house. They are wrapped in black cloaks with hoods and seem to want to torture me and my sister. She hides under the bed, but they kick her out and torture her. Then it's my turn. The leader presses me against the wall, performing magical passes in front of my face. Meanwhile, his assistant is drawing something on the wall. Seeing this, I say, so as not to anger them even more: “Oh, you draw well!” At this moment my tormentor turns to me and it turns out that he has the noble face of a man of art. He proudly says: “Yes, indeed,” and begins to wipe his glasses.”

The fear of the sadistic intentions of these two characters is well known to the dreamer, who often experienced strong attacks of anxiety in her daytime life, during which she was haunted by the painful thought that the people she loved were in great danger or even dead. But the fact that the image of the animus in the dream is bifurcated suggests that the robbers personify a psychic factor that is dual in its effect, which may not coincide with these unbearable thoughts. The dreamer's sister, running away from the men, is captured and tortured. In fact, her sister died very young. She had artistic talent, but she used her talent very little.

It then follows from the dream that the masked robbers are actually artists in disguise and that if the dreamer recognizes their talent (that is, her own), they will abandon their evil intentions.

What is the deep meaning of this dream? It is that regularly recurring attacks of anxiety hide a real mortal danger, but at the same time a creative opportunity. Like her sister, the woman has a certain artistic gift, but she is not sure whether painting can become her life’s work.

The dream honestly warns that she must realize her talent. If she follows this advice, then the destructive and painful energy of the animus will be transformed into meaningful creative activity.

As in the dream just described, the animus often appears in the form of a group of men. Thus the subconscious illustrates the fact that the animus is a collective rather than an individual image. Because of this, women tend to think in group terms, especially often using the words “we”, “they” or “all”, as well as “always”, “should”, “must” (especially when the animus speaks through them).

Many myths and fairy tales tell of a prince who is transformed by a witch into an animal or monster and is turned back into a man by love, symbolizing the process by which the animus becomes a conscious phenomenon (see Dr. Henderson's comments on the meaning of the "Beauty and the Beast" motif in the previous chapter) . Very often the heroine Not allow you to ask questions about her mysterious and remaining unknown lover and husband; or she meets her beloved only in the dark and cannot see him in any way. The hidden meaning of this is that only unreasoning faith and love can help the heroine return her fiancé. But the promise to observe the prohibitions is always broken, and only at the cost of a long and difficult search and deep suffering does she manage to find her lover.

This allegory reflects the fact of real life that the conscious attention that a woman should pay to the problem of her animus takes a lot of time and brings her a lot of worries. But if she understands what her animus is and what it does for her, and most importantly, becomes convinced of its reality and does not allow it to take over her mind, then the animus can turn into an invaluable inner ally who will endow her with truly masculine qualities - initiative, courage , objectivity and spiritual wisdom.

Just like the anima, the animus goes through four stages of development. On the first, it symbolizes simple physical strength, for example, like an athletics champion or a man with a mountain of muscles. At the next stage, he personifies initiative and the ability to plan one’s actions. On the third, the animus represents the “word,” often realizing itself as a professor or religious figure. Finally, in the fourth, the animus becomes the embodiment of meaning. At this highest level, it mediates, like anime, a religious experience through which life takes on new meaning.

It gives a woman spiritual strength, invisible internal support, which compensates for her external softness. The animus in its most developed form is able to eliminate the disconnect between a woman's mind and her spirituality that comes with age, which increases her receptivity to new creative ideas as opposed to men. It is for this reason that women in ancient times became fortune tellers and soothsayers among many nations. The creative courage of their positive animus sometimes gives rise to thoughts and ideas that inspire humanity to strive for new achievements.

The “inner man” in a woman’s psyche can provoke marital troubles similar to those described in the section on anime. The situation becomes especially complicated when one partner's obsession with animus (or anima) is automatically transferred to the other, that is, it has such an irritating effect on him that he (or she) also becomes obsessed. Animus and anima always strive to impoverish the topic and vocabulary of a conversation to create an atmosphere of disagreement, irritation and unpleasant emotions.

As I noted above, the animus, as a positive principle, can personify the entrepreneurial spirit, courage, truthfulness and, in its highest manifestations, spiritual wisdom. Through it, a woman can objectively perceive the process of development of her personality, finding her own path of spiritual development. This, naturally, assumes that her animus ceases to allow itself peremptory statements. A woman must be courageous and mentally liberated enough to question the truth of her own beliefs.

Only then will she be able to perceive the recommendations of the subconscious, especially if they contradict the opinion of the animus. Only then will the manifestations of the Self make their way to her and she will be able to understand their meaning.

The Self: Symbols of Wholeness

If an individual has struggled seriously and for a long time with the problem of anima (or animus) and has achieved the cessation of identifying part of his personality with them, the subconscious again changes the nature of its influence and appears in a new symbolic form, representing the Self - the deep core of the psyche. In women's dreams, this center is usually personified by a supreme female figure - a priestess, a sorceress, an earth mother, or a goddess of nature and love. In men, he manifests himself as a person who initiates secret images or their guardian (Indian guru), a wise old man, a spirit of nature, and so on. Here are two folk tales illustrating the role in which such a character can play.

The first of them is an Austrian legend: “The king ordered the soldiers to place a night guard in the church next to the body of the black princess who died as a result of witchcraft. Every midnight she gets up and kills the sentry.

Finally, one soldier, whose turn it was to guard, got scared and ran into the forest.

There he met an old bard, but in fact the Lord God. The musician told him where to hide in the church and how to behave so that the black princess could not catch him. Thanks to magical help, the soldier manages to save the princess from the spell and marry her.” It is clear that “the old bard, but in fact the Lord God” is, in psychological terms, a symbolic personification of the Self. With its help, the ego avoids destruction and becomes able to overcome the very dangerous aspect of the anima, and even achieve its complete rebirth.

As noted above, in the female psyche the Self is embodied in female images. This is illustrated by the following parable of Eskimo origin: “A lonely girl, disappointed in love, met a sorcerer traveling on a copper boat.

This is the “Spirit of the Moon”, who created all animals and gives luck to hunters. He forcibly takes the girl to heaven. One day, when the Moon Spirit had gone somewhere, the girl went to a hut near his house and met there a midget woman dressed in film from the intestines of a bearded seal, who warned the guest that the Moon Spirit intended to kill her, (It turned out that he kills women, like Bluebeard). The Lilliputian wove a long rope along which a girl can descend blindfolded to the ground on a new moon, when the powers of the Moon Spirit weaken, and the Lilliputian can strengthen this weakness. The girl went down the rope, but, having stepped on the ground, she forgot to open her eyes immediately, as the midget taught her, and therefore forever turned into a spider.”

As noted above, the musician god of the first story represents the “wise old man” - a typical personification of the Self. This image is reminiscent of the legendary wizard Merlin or the ancient Greek god Hermes. The little midget in her strange filmic attire is a prototype of the Self in the female psyche. The old musician saves the hero from the destructive anima, and the midget protects the girl from the Eskimo Bluebeard (in fact, this is her animus in the role of the Moon Spirit).

The last case, however, ends badly, but I will return to this later.

The self does not always appear in the guise of an old sage or an old prophetic woman. These paradoxical images represent something universal for both youth and old age. In another dream of a middle-aged man, the Self appears in the guise of a young man: “A young horseman rode into our garden from the street. (The garden was not surrounded by bushes or a fence, as usual, and anyone could get into it). I had no idea whether he had come for some purpose or whether the horse had brought him here. I stood on the path leading to the workshop and watched him with great pleasure. The sight of the young man on a beautiful horse made a strong impression on me. The horse was small, wild, strong and very agile. She resembled a boar because of the thick gray fur that covered her, shimmering with silver. The young man drove past me, between the workshop and the house. Jumping off his horse, he carefully took it to the side so as not to trample the flower bed with marvelous crimson and scarlet tulips. My wife redid the flowerbed and planted flowers on it.”

The youth here symbolizes the Self, as well as the renewal of life, the creative life force and the new spiritual orientation through which everything comes to life and is activated. If a person follows the instructions of his subconscious mind, it will endow him with such a gift, and life, which was gray and boring, will suddenly turn into a delightful and never-ending adventure, full of creative possibilities.

In the female psyche, the same young embodiment of the Self can take the form of a supernaturally gifted girl. The following dream of one fifty-year-old woman gives an idea of ​​this: “I was washing the sidewalk in front of the church. Then, just as the school children were being sent home, I ran down the street and came to a flowering river, across which a board or tree trunk had been laid. But when I tried to cross the river, one mischievous schoolboy jumped on the board so that it cracked, and I almost fell into the water.

"Idiot!" - I screamed. On the other side of the river three little girls were playing.

One of them extended her hand to help me. I thought that her little hand was not strong enough, but when I grabbed the carry, the girl pulled me ashore without the slightest effort.”

The dreamer is a believer (Protestant), but, as her dream shows, she can no longer remain so. She appears to have lost the ability to return to the church, although she tries to keep the entrance as clean as possible. The dream shows that she must cross a river with standing water. This means that the progress of life has slowed down due to an unresolved religious problem. (Crossing a river is a common symbol of fundamental changes in behavior.) The dream of a schoolboy was interpreted by the dreamer herself as the personification of a previously harbored idea that she could satisfy her spiritual needs by attending college. It is clear that the dream does not really embody this intention. When she ventures to cross the river alone, the personification of the Self, a small but supernaturally strong girl, helps her.

However, the human form, whether young or old, is far from the only one in which the Self can appear in dreams or visions. The different ages at which it appears indicate not only that the Self remains with us throughout life, but also that it exists outside the conscious stream of life in which we perceive the passage of time.

The Self not only does not fit into the framework of the flow of time we are aware of (that is, into our space-time dimension), but is omnipresent. Moreover, it often takes on an appearance that indicates a special kind of omnipresence, namely, the appearance of a gigantic man, embracing and containing within himself the entire cosmos.

When such an image appears in an individual's dream, one can hope that his problems will be creatively resolved, because a vital psychic center has been activated (that is, the whole personality has come together as a single whole to overcome the difficulties that have arisen).

It is not surprising that this image of the Cosmic Man appears in many myths and religious teachings.

He is usually described as bringing help and goodness. He appears in the form of Adam, the Persian Gayomart or in the form of the Indian Purusha. Sometimes it is even described as the fundamental principle of the world. The ancient Chinese, for example, thought that everything that exists began with the giant god-man Pan-gu, who created heaven and earth.

His tears formed the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, his breath became the wind, his voice became thunder, his gaze threw lightning. Pan-gu's good mood was caused by beautiful weather, while Pan-gu's sad mood was caused by cloudy weather. After his death, the five sacred mountains of China were formed from his collapsed body. His head became Mount Taishan in the east, his body became Mount Songshan in the center of China, his right arm became Mount Hengshan in the north, his left arm became Mount Hengshan in the south, and his legs became Mount Huashan in the west.

The eyes turned into the sun and the moon.

We have already seen that the symbolic structures related to the process of individuation gravitate towards the number "four" - like the four functions of consciousness or the four stages of development of the anima or animus. The four again appear here in the cosmic image of Pan-gu. Other combinations of numbers appear in psychic material only in special cases. Natural, unhindered manifestations of the psychic center are characterized by four levels, that is, the presence of four dimensions or other structure emanating from the number series: 4, 8, 16 and so on. The number sixteen plays a particularly important role because it consists of four fours.

In our Western civilization, similar ideas of cosmic man were linked to the image of Adam, the founder of humanity. There is a rabbinical tradition that in creating Adam, God used red, black, white and yellow dust from all over the world. Thus Adam's body "extended from one end of the world to the other." When he leaned down, his head was in the east and his feet were in the west. According to another Jewish tradition, from the very beginning Adam contained all of humanity, that is, the souls of everyone who was destined to ever be born.

Consequently, Adam's soul was "like the wick of a lamp, composed of countless threads." This symbol clearly expresses the idea of ​​the all-encompassing unity of humanity and all its individual particles, Ancient Persia The first man named Gayomart was depicted as a huge figure emitting radiance. When he died, his body turned into various metals and his soul into gold. His seed fell to the ground, and from it the first human couple emerged in the form of two pieces of rhubarb. Interestingly, the Chinese Pan-gu was also depicted covered in leaves, like a plant. Perhaps this is because the first man was represented as an original, living particle, existing on its own and not having any animal manifestations or willpower. On the other hand, Adam is still revered on the banks of the Tigris as the hidden “oversoul” or mystical “guardian spirit” of the entire human race. Residents of this region believe that it came from the branch of a date palm (another repetition of the plant motif).

In the East and in some Gnostic circles in the West, people quickly realized that the Cosmic Man was an internal psychic image rather than a concrete external reality. According to Indian tradition, for example, it is something that lives inside every individual, being its only immortal part. This inner "Great Man" rewards the individual by leading him out of the world of suffering into which he is born, back to the original eternal state. But he can only do this if a person recognizes him and awakens from sleep to be led. In the symbolic myths of ancient India, this figure is known as Purusha, which simply means “man” or “person”. Purusha lives in the soul of every individual and at the same time fills the entire cosmos. According to the testimony of many myths. Cosmic Man is not only the beginning, but also the final goal of all life - the entire universe. “All grains are essentially wheat, all treasures are essentially gold, all generations are man,” wrote the medieval sage Meister Eckhart. From a psychological point of view, this is true. All internal psychic reality every individual is ultimately oriented towards this archetypal symbol of the Self.

In practice, this means that human existence cannot be explained based solely on instincts or actions dictated by hunger, thirst for power, sex, the desire to survive or procreate, and so on. That is, the main goal of a person is not to eat, drink, and so on, but to be a person.

Above and beyond these drives, our inner psychic reality serves to express a living mystery that can only be conveyed in symbolic form.

For this expression, the subconscious often chooses the powerful image of the Cosmic Man.

In our Western civilization the Cosmic Man was identified mainly with Christ, and in the East with Krishna or Buddha. In the Old Testament, this same image appears as the Son of Man, and later, in Jewish Kabbalah, he is called Adam Kadmon.

Some religious movements of the late antique period simply called him Anthropos (Greek for "man"). Like all symbols that point to an unsolved mystery, this one points to a mystery that is not fully known - the hidden secret about the meaning of human existence.

As we have already noted, some traditions claim that the Cosmic Man is the goal of the universe, but the achievement of this goal cannot be understood as an external event. From the Hindu point of view, for example, it is not that the outer world will one day dissolve into the original Great Man, but that the extroverted orientation of the ego towards the outer world will disappear to give way to the Cosmic Man. This will happen when the ego merges with the Self. The vast flow of manifestations of the ego (which flows from one thought to another) and its desires (which flow from one object to another) will subside the moment the Great Man is found within. Indeed, we must never forget that external reality exists for us only as long as we consciously perceive it, and that we cannot prove its existence “in itself and in itself.”

Many examples from different civilizations and different eras show the universality of the symbol of the Great Man. His image is present in the human mind as a kind of goal or expression of the innermost secret of our life. Denoting the ideal of wholeness and completeness, this symbol is often represented as a bisexual being. In this form, the symbol reconciles one of the most important pairs of psychological antipodes: masculine and feminine principles. This union also often appears in dreams as a divine royal or other noble couple. The dream below of a forty-seven-year-old man reveals this aspect of the Self in dramatic form: “I am on an observation deck, below I see a large black beautiful bear with rough but shiny fur. She stands on her hind legs on a stone slab and polishes a flat oval black stone, which becomes very shiny. Not far from there, a lioness and her cub are doing the same thing. But the stones they polish are larger and more rounded. After some time, the bear turns into a fat naked woman with black hair and dark sparkling eyes. I arouse lust in her with my actions and suddenly she comes closer to grab me. I get scared and hide on the scaffolding of the building where I was before. Later I find myself among many women, half of them savages with thick black hair (as if they had turned into people from animals); and the other half are “our” women (of the same nationality as the dreamer. - M. L. von Franz), blondes and brown-haired women. The sonorous and iridescent voices of savages convey a drawn-out and sad motif. Then a young man rides up in a landau, whose head is crowned with a golden royal crown, decorated with sparkling rubies. It all looks very nice. Next to him sits a young blonde woman, probably his wife, but without a crown. It seems as if the lioness and her cub have become this married couple leading a savage tribe. Then all the women (both wild and modern) begin to sing something solemn together, and the royal carriage slowly rolls towards the horizon.”

Here the inner core of the dreamer’s psyche appears for a short time in the form of a royal couple, who came from the depths of the animal part of his nature and the primitive layers of the subconscious. The bear at the beginning of the dream represents a type of mother goddess. (Artemis, for example, was revered in Greece as a bear). The dark oval stone that she polishes means, apparently, the innermost essence of the dreamer’s personality.

Grinding and polishing stones is one of the oldest human activities. In Europe, “holy stones” were repeatedly found wrapped in bark and hidden in caves - they were probably kept there by Stone Age people as receptacles for divine powers. To this day, some Australian Aborigines believe that their dead ancestors continue to exist in the stones as good spirits and that by grinding these stones, they can be charged with power, increasing it in both ancestors and descendants.

The man whose dream we are considering refused to marry earlier. His fear of tying himself into marriage prompted him in a dream to run away from the bear to an observation deck, from where he could passively observe events without participating in them.

Through the motif of the she-bear polishing the stone, the subconscious seeks to show him that he must come into contact with this side of life; it is through the frictions of married life that his inner being can be shaped and polished.

When the stone is polished to a shine, it turns into a mirror, and the bear can look into it. This means that only by accepting earthly problems and suffering can the human soul become a mirror in which the divine forces can see themselves. But the dreamer escapes to an elevated place, that is, he plunges into abstract thoughts, with the help of which he can avoid actions dictated by life. Then the dream inspires him that if he constantly leaves life, then part of his soul (anima) will remain unclaimed. This is symbolized by a group of women - wild and civilized.

The lioness and lion cub who then appear represent the mysterious impulse towards individuation, as shown by their work polishing round stones. ( Round stone- this is a symbol of the Self). The lions and the royal couple are themselves a symbol of integrity. In medieval symbolism, the “philosopher’s stone” (an outstanding symbol of male integrity) was depicted in the form of two lions or in the form of a man and a woman riding them. This conveyed that the impulse to individuate often manifests itself in a veiled form, hiding behind an all-consuming passion for another person. (In reality, passion, which goes beyond the natural needs of love, is ultimately aimed at the mystery of union into one whole. That is why a passionate lover feels that merging into a single whole with a loved one is the only worthy goal of human life).

As long as the idea of ​​universality was conveyed in a dream by the image of a pair of lions, it meant nothing more than an all-encompassing passion. But when the lion and lioness have become a king and queen, the urge to individuate has reached the level of awareness and can now be perceived by the ego as the real goal of life.

Before lions turned into people, only primitive women sang, and they sang very sadly. In other words, the dreamer's feelings remained at a primitive level with a predominance of melancholy. But the hymn of praise in honor of humanized lions is performed by both wild and modern women. The fact that they express their feelings together shows that the internal split in the anima has passed and has been transformed into harmony.

Another incarnation of the Self appeared to one woman who was engaged in so-called “active fantasy.” (Active fantasy is a type of meditation using the play of the imagination, with the help of which one can deliberately come into contact with the subconscious and establish a conscious connection with the psychic sphere.

Active fantasy is one of Jung's most important discoveries. In some ways it is comparable to Eastern meditation techniques such as those of Zen Buddhism or Tantra Yoga, as well as Western techniques such as the Spiritual Exercises of the Jesuits. An essential feature of Jung's method is that the meditator does not have any conscious goal or program. Thus, meditation becomes an isolated experiment of a free individual, which is the opposite of purposeful efforts to subjugate the subconscious. But now we will not dwell in more detail on active fantasy. The reader can find a more detailed description of it in Jung's work "The Function of Transcendence".)

In meditation using the mentioned method, the Self appeared to the woman in the form of a deer, which, addressing her ego, said: “I am your child and mother. I am called an animal medium because I connect people, animals and even stones to one another by entering into them. I am your destiny or your “objective self”. When I appear, I free you from the meaningless dangers of life. The fire that burns inside me burns throughout the entire universe. If a person loses it, he becomes self-centered, lonely, disoriented and weak.”

The Self often takes the form of animals, representing our instinctual nature and its connection with the human environment. (This is why in myths and fairy tales there are so many animals that are human allies). This connection of the Self with the entire surrounding nature and even the cosmos probably stems from the fact that in every person his psychic core is somehow intertwined with the whole world, both external and internal. All higher manifestations of life in one way or another adapt to the surrounding space-time continuum. It is common for any animal, for example, to eat special food, use certain materials to build housing, and live in an environment to which its instinctive stereotypes are precisely tuned. Temporal rhythms also play a role. Suffice it to remember that most herbivores give birth to their young at precisely the time of year when the grass is most juicy and abundant. This is exactly what one famous zoologist meant when he said that the inner essence of each animal extends far beyond the boundaries of its body into the world around it, “spiritualizing” time and space.

In some way completely unknown to us, our subconscious is also tuned to environment- on our circle or society as a whole and, in addition, on the space-time continuum and all of nature. Let's remember the Great Man of the Naskapi Indians: he not only helps to open and understand the inner world, but also tells us where and when to hunt. From their dreams, Naskapi hunters also bring out the words and melodies of magical songs with which they attract animals.

But such specific help from the subconscious was given not only to primitive man. Jung discovered that dreams can help modern people find their way to comprehend inner and outer life and overcome the difficulties they present. Indeed, many of our dreams concern details of our external life and environment. Objects like a tree under a window, a bicycle or car, or a stone found while walking can rise to the level of a symbol in the life we ​​live in dreams and take on a different meaning. If we pay attention to dreams, then in addition to living in a cold, impersonal world, arbitrarily governed by providence, a curtain can be lifted before us, hiding our own world, filled with important and secretly ordered events.

Our dreams, however, usually give primary attention not to adaptation to external life. In our civilized world, they generally try to develop (through the ego) a proper relationship with the Self, because modern ways of thinking and behavior greatly weaken the connection with it. This connection was well developed among primitive people, who relied mainly on the instructions of their inner center. And we, with our inverted consciousness, are so confused by external, completely alien affairs that it is very difficult for the messages of the Self to break through to us. Our rational thinking so often creates the illusion of a clearly defined “real” external world that it largely blocks the ability to perceive. However, through our subconscious nature, we inexplicably perceive what surrounds us in the mental and physical world.

I have already mentioned that the Self especially often appears in the form of a stone, precious or ordinary. Let's remember the stone that was polished by the bear and the lions. In many dreams the core of the psyche. The Self also appears in the form of a crystal. The mathematically precise structure of the crystal gives us an intuitive understanding that even in so-called “dead” matter there is a kind of spiritual ordering principle at work. Thus, the crystal often symbolizes the unity of opposites - matter and spirit.

Perhaps crystals and stones are especially suitable for representing the Self due to their natural nature. Many people cannot resist collecting and storing pebbles of slightly unusual color or shape, without knowing why they are doing it. It’s as if some living secret is hidden in the stones, captivating people. People have collected stones since time immemorial and probably considered some of them to be the abode of life force, surrounded by mystery. The ancient Germans, for example, believed that the souls of the dead continued to live in their tombstones. It is possible that the custom of placing stones on graves partly comes from the symbolic idea that something eternal should remain from the deceased, for which a stone is most suitable. The fact is that, although a person has nothing in common with a stone, the deep center of the human psyche is strangely and specially similar to it (probably because the stone symbolizes simply existing at the maximum distance from emotions, feelings, fantasies and the restless in its quest self-awareness). In this sense, the stone conveys perhaps the simplest and at the same time deep sensation - the feeling of eternity that arises in moments when a person feels immortal and unchanging.

The tendency, found in almost all civilizations, to erect stone monuments to famous people or special occasions important events probably due to its symbolic meaning. The stone that Jacob placed on the spot where he had his famous dream, or the special stones left by people on the graves of local saints or heroes, reveal the nature of the human desire to express a feeling that cannot be conveyed except through a stone symbol. It is not surprising that many religious cults use the stone to represent a deity or place of worship. The most revered shrine of the Islamic world, the Kaaba, is the black stone in Mecca, to which all devout Muslims strive to make a pilgrimage.

In Christian spiritual symbolism, Christ is designated “the stone which the builders rejected” and which became “the head of the corner” (Luke XX: 17). In another context it is called “a spiritual stone from which spiritual drink flows” (Cor. X: 4). Medieval alchemists, who explored the mystery of matter in pseudo-scientific ways, hoping to discover God in it, or at least his seal, believed that the secret was hidden in the famous “philosopher’s stone.” However, some of them vaguely understood that the subject of their search was only a symbol of something that could only be found in the human soul. The ancient Arab alchemist Morienus said: “This thing (the philosopher's stone) is extracted from us: we are the mineral in which it grows, it can be found within us; or, to put it more clearly, they (the alchemists) take it from us. If you realize this, love and approval of the stone will arise within. Know that this is an undoubted truth."

The alchemists' stone (lapis) symbolizes something that does not disappear or change, something eternal. Some alchemists compared this to the mystical feeling of the presence of God in one's own soul. It usually takes prolonged suffering to get rid of the superficial psychic layers that hide the symbolic stone. But in one form or another, most people have a deep experience of the Self - at least once in their lives. From a psychological point of view, a truly religious worldview consists in the desire to discover this unique sensation and gradually tune into it (it is appropriate to note that the stone itself is something eternal) in such a way that attention is constantly directed towards dialogue with the Self.

The fact that this highest and most frequently encountered symbol of the Self is an inorganic object points to another area of ​​search and speculation, namely, the still unknown relationship between what we call the unconscious psyche and what we call "matter" - this is the mystery that psychosomatic medicine seeks to unravel. Studying this as yet undefined and unexplained connection (it may turn out that “spirit” and “matter” are actually the same phenomenon, only one observed “from within” and the other “outside”), Dr. Jung introduced turnover a new concept, which he called “synchronicity”. This term means a “semantic coincidence” of external and internal events that are not themselves causally related. The emphasis in this concept is on the word “semantic”. If, as you blow your nose, a plane crashes in front of your eyes, it is simply a coincidence of two events that makes no sense. Such random coincidences happen all the time. But if you bought a blue suit, and the store delivered a black one by mistake, and on the same day that one of your closest relatives died, this would be a semantic coincidence. These two events are not causally connected, but they are connected by the symbolic meaning that we attach to the color black.

Every time Jung noticed such semantic coincidences in the life of a patient, the impression was created (and the patient’s dreams confirmed this) that a corresponding archetype had started working in his subconscious. Let's illustrate this with the example of a black suit.

The person who received the black suit could also have a dream about death. Then the corresponding archetype would manifest itself simultaneously in internal and external events, carrying the same symbolic message - in this case, the message of death. Since we should note that certain types of events "like" to come together at certain times, we will begin to understand the position of the Chinese, whose theories of medicine, philosophy, and even construction are based on the "science" of semantic coincidences. The classical Chinese text does not proceed from cause and effect, but rather from the “attraction” of one event to another. The same theme runs like a red thread in astrology, and in a meaning close to many peoples’ omens and consultations with oracles. These are all attempts to explain coincidences in anything other than a straightforward cause-and-effect way.

By creating the concept of synchronicity, Dr. Jung outlined a path by which we can more deeply understand the relationship between spirit and matter. Just on this connection appears to be indicated by the symbolic meaning of the stone. But this is still a completely open and insufficiently studied problem that future generations of psychologists and psychiatrists will have to deal with.

It may seem that my discussion of synchronicity has taken us away from the main topic, but I think that at least a brief introductory description of this concept is necessary, since it is possible that this Jungian hypothesis will have significant opportunities for research and practical application in the future. Moreover, synchronous events almost invariably accompany critical phases of the individuation process. But very often they go unnoticed, because we have not learned to monitor such coincidences and recognize their semantic connection with the images of our dreams.

Relation to self

Nowadays, a growing number of people, especially in big cities, suffer from unbearable emptiness and boredom, as if they are fruitlessly wishing for something unrealistic. Cinema and television, spectator sports and political passions may distract them for a short time, but again and again, unsatisfied and disappointed, they are forced to return to the desert of their lives.

The only sensations worthwhile for a modern person are in the inner realm of his psyche. Vaguely aware of this, many are now turning to yoga and other eastern practices. But all this does not give truly new experiences, since a person draws from them only sensations long known to the Indians or Chinese, without coming into direct contact with his inner life center. And although it is true that Eastern methods help to concentrate thinking and direct it inward (which in a certain sense is similar to the introversion of the analytical procedure), there is an important difference. Jung developed a method of independently penetrating a person’s inner center and establishing contact with the living secret of the subconscious without outside help. And this is fundamentally different from driving on a well-trodden road.

Trying to pay daily attention to the living reality of the Self is like trying to live simultaneously on two levels or in two different worlds. At the same time, a person, as before, pays due respect to external duties, but at the same time remains sensitive to hints and signs given by dreams and external events, which the Self usually uses to symbolically indicate its intentions - that is, to the direction in which life is going. flow.

Ancient Chinese texts dealing with this type of experience often use the comparison of a cat watching a mouse hole. One of them says that a person should not allow any extraneous thoughts and, at the same time, his attention should not be too sharp or too dull. There is a very specific required level of perception. “If you train this way... you will get results over time. And when the necessary readiness ripens, like ripe fruit falling to the ground, then as soon as anything touches this inner readiness, it will suddenly cause the highest awakening of the individual. At this moment, the practitioner is like a person who drinks water and finds out whether it is cold or warm. He is freed from all doubts about himself and experiences the greatest happiness, comparable to what one experiences when meeting his father at a crossroads."

Thus, in the flow of everyday external life, a person suddenly finds himself in an exciting inner adventure, since it is unique to each individual and cannot be copied or stolen.

There are two reasons why a person loses contact with the regulating center of his soul. One of them is that one instinctive impulse or emotional image can unbalance and lead to a one-sided perception of the environment. This happens to animals too. For example, a sexually excited male deer can completely forget about hunger and danger. Primitive people were very afraid of such one-pointedness and the loss of balance associated with it, considering it “the loss of the soul.” Another threat to inner balance arises from excessive daydreaming, which usually revolves secretly around certain complexes. In reality, dreams arise only because they connect a person with his complexes; at the same time they threaten the concentration and continuity of his consciousness.

The second obstacle is the polar opposite of the first and is caused by excessive concentration of self-consciousness. Although the discipline of consciousness is necessary for the implementation of civilized activities (we know what can happen if a switchman dreams), it has the serious disadvantage that it tends to block the perception of impulses and messages coming from the vital center. That is why so many dreams of modern people concern the restoration of receptivity to them by adjusting the relationship of consciousness to the subconscious center or Self.

In many mythological depictions of the Self, the cardinal directions are designated. Apparently, this is why the Great Man is often placed in the center of a circle divided into four parts. Jung used the Indian word "mandala" (magic circle) to designate a structure reflecting the core of the human soul, the essence of which is unknown to us. In this regard, it is interesting to note that the Naskapi Indian hunter painted the Great Man not in the form of a human being, but in the form of a mandala.

The Naskapi Indians perceive the inner center directly and naively without the help of religious rites or teachings, while in other tribes they draw a magic circle to restore the lost inner balance. For example, the Navajo Indians use sand drawings in the shape of a mandala to return the patient to a state of harmony with himself and with the cosmos and thereby improve his health.

In Eastern civilizations, such drawings are used to gain inner integrity or to immerse oneself in a state of deep meditation. It is believed that contemplating a mandala brings inner peace, a sense of meaning and orderliness in life. The same feeling causes the spontaneous appearance of a mandala in the dreams of modern people who are not at all committed to such religious traditions and have no idea about them. Perhaps in such cases the positive effect is even stronger, because knowledge and traditions sometimes blur or even block spontaneous experience.

An example of a spontaneously arising mandala is present in the following dream of a sixty-two-year-old woman.

It appeared to her as a prelude to a new, very creatively active phase of life.

“I see a twilight landscape. In the background, the crest of a hill stretches upward and then levels out.

A quadrangular disk, sparkling like gold, moves along the spur. In the foreground is dark soil on which the first shoots have just appeared. Suddenly I see a round table top part which is a gray stone slab, at the same moment a square disk suddenly appears on the table. He left the hill - no one knows how or why."

Landscapes in dreams (as well as in works of art) often symbolize an indescribable mood. In this dream, the twilight light of the landscape shows that the clarity of daytime consciousness has faded. The "inner nature" can now become visible - and indeed, a square disk appears on the horizon. Hitherto the symbol of the Self, the disc, was mainly an intuitive idea on the spiritual horizon of the dreamer, but now in this dream it changes its position and becomes the center of the landscape of her soul. The long-sown seed is beginning to sprout: previously, for a long time, the dreamer paid great attention to her dreams, and now this work has begun to bear fruit. (Let us remember the connection between the symbol of the Great Man and the plant world, as mentioned above). Then the golden disk suddenly moves to the right - where things become conscious. Along with other things, the word “right” often denotes in psychological terminology the sphere of consciousness, adaptation, the state of “rightness”, while the word “left” - the sphere of maladapted subconscious reactions, sometimes even something “sinister”. Finally, the golden disk stops moving and finds peace on the round - attention! - stone table. He found constant support.

As Anizla Jaffe notes later in this book, roundness (the mandala motif) usually symbolizes natural wholeness, while quadrangular shapes represent the consciousness's understanding of it.

In the dream in question, a square disk and a round table meet - as a result, we have a conscious perception of the vital center. The round table, by the way, is well known as a symbol of integrity, which is definitely reflected in mythology. Thus, King Arthur's round table is an image borrowed from the symbolism of the Last Supper.

Indeed, if a person sincerely turns to his inner world and strives to know himself not by reasoning about his subjective thoughts and feelings, but by following such manifestations of his own objective nature as dreams and real fantasies, then sooner or later the Self will appear to him. Then the ego will find inner strength to renew itself.

But there is a serious difficulty, which I have already touched upon in passing. The fact is that each of the personifications of the subconscious - Shadow, anima, animus and Self - has both light and dark sides. We have already seen that the Shadow can be base or mean, representing an instinctive attraction that must be overcome. But it can also represent a desire for growth, which must be supported in every possible way.

In the same way, anima and animus contain different charges: they can give the personality a stimulus for life-affirming and creative growth, or they can cause stagnation and physical death. And even the Self - the all-encompassing symbol of the subconscious - can cause a double result, for example, in the Eskimo legend, when a midget woman offered to save the heroine from the Spirit of the Moon, but actually turned her into a spider.

The dark side of the Self is most dangerous precisely because the Self is the greatest force of the psyche. It can encourage people to “invent” thoughts of their own greatness or other illusory fantasies that can capture the inventor and “possess” him. A person in such a state thinks with growing admiration that he has identified and solved the greatest mysteries of the universe, and as a result loses all sense of reality. A clear symptom of this condition is the loss of a sense of humor and contact with others. Thus, the emergence of the Self can bring great danger to the human conscious ego. Her dual character is perfectly illustrated by the ancient Iranian tale of “The Secret of Bath Badgerd”: “The great and noble Prince Hatim Tai received orders from his king to study the mysterious Bath Badgerd (castle of nothingness). Having discovered the castle after many dangerous adventures, the prince learns that no one who came here has ever returned back, but decides to enter anyway. In a round building he is received by a barber with a mirror and taken to the bathhouse. But as soon as the prince enters the water, there is a clap of thunder, it becomes completely dark and the barber disappears, and the water begins to rise.

Hatim swims desperately in a circle, the water almost reaching the domed roof. The horror of death overcomes him, he says a prayer and grabs the central stone of the dome. There is another clap of thunder, everything changes, and Hatim finds himself alone in the desert.

After long and painful wanderings, he comes to a beautiful structure, in the middle of which there are stone statues in a circle. In the center he sees a parrot in a cage, and a voice from above says, “Oh hero, you probably won’t leave this bathhouse alive. Once upon a time, Gayomart (First Man) found a huge diamond that shone brighter than the sun and moon. He decided to hide it in a place where no one would find it. So he built this magical bath to preserve the diamond. The parrot you see is enchanted. At his feet lies a golden bow and arrow on a golden chain. You can try to hit the parrot with your bow three times.

If you kill him, the spell will be lifted, and if not, you will turn into stone, like all these former people around.” Hatim makes his first attempt but misses.

His legs turn to stone. He misses again - and is petrified up to his chest. The third time he says, closing his eyes: “Allah is great,” and shoots without looking. This time he hits the parrot. Thunderclaps sound and clouds of dust rise. When everything calms down, a huge beautiful diamond appears in the place of the parrot. The statues come to life and people thank him for saving him.”

The reader probably noticed the symbols of the Self found in this story: the First Man Gayomart, a round building in the shape of a mandala, a cornerstone and a diamond. But this diamond is surrounded by danger. The demonic parrot represents the evil spirit of imitation, causing one to miss and become numb (“turn to stone”) psychologically.

As I have already noted, the process of individuation excludes parrot-like imitation of others. Time and time again, people in all countries have tried to reflect in their "outward" or ritual behavior the original religious experience of their greatest religious teachers - Christ, Buddha and other mentors, and as a result have "turned to stone" their souls. Following in the footsteps of a great spiritual leader does not mean copying or experiencing the same pattern of individuation that developed in his life. We just have to try to live our own lives with the same sincerity and faith as he did.

The disappearing hairdresser with the mirror symbolizes the gift of reflection that Hatim lost when he needed it most. Rising water indicates the danger of drowning in the subconscious and getting lost in your own emotions. To understand the symbolic meanings of the subconscious, one must be careful not to be outside or behind oneself, but to always remain emotionally within oneself. It is vital that the ego continues to function normally.

Only by remaining a normal person, boldly aware of his imperfection, can one become receptive to the significant contents of the subconscious and to the processes occurring in it. How can a person withstand the stress of a duel with the entire universe if he sees himself as an insignificant worm of the earth? If you despise yourself as a statistical worthless unit, life has no meaning and you are not worthy of life. But if you feel like you are part of something great, how can you stay within the framework of reality? Indeed, it is very difficult to combine these extremes without going too much into one or the other of them.

Social aspect of the self

The enormous population growth of our time, especially noticeable in large cities, inevitably has an overwhelming effect on us. We think: “Okay. I live in such and such a place, like thousands of other people. If a few of them are killed, what difference does it make to me?

There are too many people anyway.” When we read in the newspapers about the countless deaths of people unknown to us, we realize more and more that our lives are worthless. It is in such a situation that attention to the subconscious brings the greatest help, because dreams show the dreamer the relationship between the smallest details of his life and its most important events.

Theoretically known to us truth; “everything is in our hands” becomes, through dreams, a tangible fact that everyone can experience for themselves. Sometimes you may feel that the Great Man wants something from you and sets special tasks for you. Developing such experiences can help one gain the strength to swim against the tide of collective superstition by taking one's soul seriously.

Of course, this is not always a pleasant task. For example, let's say you want to go on a trip with your friends next Sunday. But the dream forbids you to do this and demands that you engage in some creative activity instead of traveling. If you constantly listen to the subconscious and obey it, it can become an eternal obstacle to your plans.

Your will will collide with it, and if not obey, then at least take it into account. This is partly why the commitments made to the process of individuation often feel more like a burden than an immediate benefit.

Saint Christopher, the patron saint of all travelers, is a fitting symbol of this kind of experience. According to legend, he became proud of his incredible physical strength and wished to serve only the strong. At first he served the king. But, realizing that the king was afraid of the devil, he left the first and became a servant of Satan. He then discovered that the devil was afraid of the crucifixion, and so he decided to serve Christ if he could find him. He followed the advice of one priest, who suggested waiting for Christ at the crossing. In the years since then, he has brought many people across the river. But one dark, windy night, a small child asked him to cross the river. With the greatest ease, Saint Christopher lifted the child onto his shoulders, but with every step his burden became heavier and heavier. When he reached the middle of the river, he felt “as if he was carrying the whole universe.” Then he realized that he was carrying Christ, and Christ forgave him his sins and gave him eternal life.

This wonderful child represents the Self that literally “suppresses” the ordinary man, although it is the only thing that can liberate him. In many works of art, the Christ child is depicted as the sphere of the world or with the sphere of the world, which clearly indicates the Self, because both the child and the sphere are universal symbols of wholeness.

When a person strives to obey the subconscious, often, as we have seen, he cannot act as he wants. But in the same way, he cannot always do what others expect of him. It is often necessary to separate yourself from your usual environment - family, lover or close friends - in order to find yourself. This is why it is sometimes said that appealing to the subconscious leads to antisocial behavior and self-centeredness. In general, this is not true, because it does not take into account such a little-known factor as the collective (or, one might even say, social) aspect of the Self.

In practice, this factor manifests itself in the fact that an individual who follows his dreams for a significant period of time soon discovers that they often concern his relationships with other people. A dream can warn against placing too much trust in someone or suggest that meeting someone you haven’t noticed before can be useful and pleasant. If someone’s image appears in a dream in a similar sense, then two interpretations are possible. A dream character may be a projection symbolizing one aspect of the dreamer's personality.

For example, a person sees his neighbor as dishonest in a dream, which in reality only embodies the dreamer’s own dishonesty. Therefore, the task of interpreting a dream for him is to identify where exactly his own vice is manifested. (This is called interpreting a dream on a subjective level).

But sometimes it happens that dreams actually tell us something about others. The role of the subconscious in this is far from fully disclosed. Like all higher forms of life, man adapts to the living beings around him. He understands to a large extent their sufferings and problems, their positive and negative qualities, their values ​​- and all this is instinctive and completely independent of their conscious assessments.

Our dream life allows us to look into these subconscious sensations and discover that they influence us. Having seen a pleasant dream about someone, we involuntarily look at this person in reality with great interest, without even thinking about why.

An image that comes in a dream can be misleading if it is a projection of one of the dreamer’s inclinations, but it can also provide objective information. Figuring out what is the correct interpretation requires honest and careful thought. Ultimately, however, and this is the case with all internal processes, it is the Self that orders and regulates our relationships with other people, while the rational ego is responsible for identifying misleading projections and dealing with them internally, not externally. . It is in this way that spiritually oriented and fulfilled people find each other, uniting in groups for which social or professional affiliation does not matter. Such a group is not in conflict with others; she is simply different and independent from them. In this way, the consciously carried out process of individuation changes personal relationships. Family ties or community of interests are replaced by another type of unity - the ties of the Self.

Any actions and obligations that are associated exclusively with the outside world cause some damage to the secret processes in the subconscious. It is subconscious craving that brings together those who are suitable for each other. This is why attempts to influence people through advertising and political propaganda are destructive even when generated by idealistic motives.

This raises the important question of whether the subconscious part of the human psyche can be influenced at all. Practical experience and accurate observations show that a person cannot influence his own dreams. There are, however, people who claim that they can do this. However, when one gets acquainted with the material of their dreams, it is discovered that they act like the owner of a headstrong dog when he orders it to do something that it would have done anyway, thereby maintaining the illusion of its authority. Only a long process of interpreting dreams and comparing their messages with personal actions can gradually transform the subconscious. Conscious habits and attitudes may change in the process.

If a person who wants to influence public opinion misuses symbols for this purpose, they may impress the masses if they are true symbols, but it is impossible to know in advance whether or not the subconscious of the masses will be emotionally captured. Here his behavior is completely irrational. No producer, for example, can tell in advance whether a song will become a hit, even if it evokes popular images and melodies. No deliberate attempts to influence the subconscious have yet produced significant results. It seems that the collective subconscious retains its autonomy to the same extent as the individual.

Sometimes, to express its purpose, the subconscious mind can use a motive from our external world, thus creating the impression that it has been influenced by it. For example, I have repeatedly encountered dreams of modern people that talk about Berlin. In their dreams, Berlin acts as a symbol of a psychically weak point - a dangerous place - which, by virtue of this, predisposes the Self to appear. This place is the point where the dreamer is torn by conflicts and where he could therefore unite his internal opposites. I also encountered an unusually large number of dream references to the movie Hiroshima, My Love. Most of these dreams expressed the idea that two heroic lovers must unite (symbolizing the union of internal opposites), otherwise an atomic explosion will occur (symbolizing complete dissociation, the equivalent of madness).

Sometimes, in cases of particularly intrusive influence on the audience, manipulators of public opinion can achieve temporary success. But here only genuine subconscious reactions are suppressed. And both collective and individual suppression lead to the same result - neurasthenic dissociation and mental disorders. Any attempts to suppress the reactions of the subconscious are ultimately doomed to failure, since at their core they are antagonistic to the nature of instincts.

Studies of herd behavior in higher animals show that small groups of about five dozen individuals are optimal for the life of both an individual animal and their group. Man seems to be no exception in this regard. His physical, spiritual, mental health and - which is not found in animals - cultural activity flourish more brightly in a team of precisely this size.

As far as we have understood so far in the process of individuation, the Self clearly strives to create such small groups, while at the same time forming well-defined emotional bonds between individuals and a sense of community with other people. Only when these connections are created by the Self can one be sure that envy, jealousy, competition and all types of negative projections will not tear such a group apart. Thus, unconditional adherence to one's own individuation process also causes optimal social adaptation.

This, of course, does not mean that in this case clashes of opinions, conflicts of obligations or disagreements regarding the “correctness” of something will disappear: the main thing when they arise is to refrain from spontaneous reactions and listen to the inner voice in order to act as the Self wants. Fanatical political activity (but not the fulfillment of necessary duties) appears to be little compatible with individuation.

One man, who completely devoted himself to the liberation of his country from foreign occupation, had the following dream: “With a group of my patriot friends, I climb the stairs to the attic of the museum, where there is a black hall that looks like a ship’s cabin. A middle-aged lady of respectable appearance opens the door. Her name is N. and she is the daughter of N. (N. was the famous national hero of the dreamer’s country, who attempted her liberation several centuries ago. He can be compared to Joan of Arc or William Tell. In reality, N. had no children. - M.L.

von Franz). In the hall we saw portraits of two aristocratic ladies dressed in colorful brocade dresses. When Miss N. began to tell us about these paintings, they suddenly came to life. At first they blinked and moved their eyes, then it seemed that the portraits were breathing. Surprised, everyone headed to the lecture hall, where Miss N.

I promised to talk about this phenomenon. She explained that her intuition and feeling allowed these portraits to come to life. But one of those present became indignant and said that Miss N had gone crazy, and some even left the lecture hall.”

An important feature of this dream is that the anima figure - Miss N. is only a creation of the dream.

Her name, however, coincides with the name of the famous national hero-liberator. (As if she were, for example, Wilhelmina Tell - the daughter of William Tell). Through the hint contained in her name, the subconscious indicates that in our time the dreamer should not try - as in the distant past of N. - to liberate his country by external means. Now, the dream says, liberation is accomplished by the anima (the dreamer's soul) by bringing to life the images of the subconscious. The fact that the hall in the attic of the museum looks partly like a ship's cabin, painted black, has a deep meaning. The black color hints at darkness, night, inwardness, and if the hall is a cabin, then the museum is, in a sense, a ship. This suggests that when the continent of collective consciousness is flooded with subconsciousness and barbarism, this museum-ship, filled with living images, can turn into an ark of salvation that will take those who board it to the other spiritual shore. Portraits hanging in a museum are dead images of the past, and often all images of the subconscious are like that for us until we discover that they are alive and significant. When the anima, in its inherent role as a spiritual guide, contemplates the images, entering into intuitive and emotional contact with them, they come to life.

Indignant people in a dream represent that side of the dreamer’s personality that is influenced by collective opinions and prevents the revival of mental images by not believing in them. This resistance to the influence of the subconscious can be formulated something like this: “What if they start dropping atomic bombs on us? No insight will help then!”

This resistant side of the personality is unable to free itself from thought patterns and extroverted rational prejudices. The dream, however, shows that in our time true liberation can only begin with psychological transformation. What is the purpose of liberating a country if you do not have a meaningful purpose in life - a purpose for which it is worth being free? If a person does not see meaning in his life, then it does not matter whether he leads an empty life under a communist or capitalist regime. Freedom is only meaningful if you can use it to create something meaningful. That is why determining the meaning of life for oneself is of paramount importance for the individual. It follows that individuation should be the primary task of man.

Attempts to influence public opinion through newspapers, radio, television and advertising are based on two factors. On the one hand, they rely on selection mechanisms that reveal trends in existing opinions or desires, that is, collective sentiments. On the other hand, they reflect the prejudices, projections and subconscious complexes (mainly the power complex) of those who manipulate public opinion.

But statistics cannot be fair to an individual. If in a pile of stones the average circumference of one is five centimeters, then a very small number of them actually coincides with this figure.

Obviously, the second factor cannot create anything positive. One who devotes himself to individuation gains the effect of a positive impact on others. It's like a spark jumps from one person to another. This usually happens unintentionally and often happens without words. It was on this inner path that Miss N. sought to direct the dreamer.

Almost all religious systems of the world contain symbols that represent the process of individuation, or at least certain stages of it. In Christian countries the Self is projected, as noted above, onto the second Adam - Christ; in the East the corresponding figures are Krishna and Buddha. For truly religious people, psychoregulation is influenced by religious symbols, which often even turn out to be the basis of their dreams. For example, when the late Pope Pius XII proclaimed his encyclical on the Assumption of Mary, a Catholic woman dreamed that she was a Catholic clergywoman. It seems that her subconscious developed a well-known dogma as follows: “If Mary is now almost a goddess, she must have priestesses.” Another Catholic woman, who did not like some small, external aspects of her faith, dreamed that the church in her hometown was torn down and rebuilt. But the tabernacle with the consecrated angel and the statue of the Virgin Mary had to be transported from the old church to the new one. This dream showed her that some of the man-made symbols of her faith needed updating, but the main symbols - the incarnate God and the Virgin Mary - would survive the changes.

Such dreams demonstrate the keen interest that the subconscious shows in the conscious religious ideas of the individual. This raises the question of whether it is possible to identify general pattern in the religious dreams of modern people. In the manifestations of the subconscious found in modern Christian culture - both Protestant and Catholic - Jung more than once noticed the action of a subconscious desire to supplement our trinitarian formula of the supreme deity with a fourth element, which, apparently, embodies the feminine, dark and even evil principle. In fact, this fourth element has always been present in the sphere of our religious ideas, but was separated from the image of God, becoming its opposite in the form of matter itself (or the ruler of matter - the devil). It seems that at the present time the subconscious mind is trying to unite these extremes, the separation of which makes the light too bright and the darkness too dark. Naturally, the central symbol of religion - the image of the supreme deity - is most susceptible to the influence of subconscious desires for transformation.

A Tibetan abbot once told Jung that the most impressive mandalas in Tibet were created by imagination or directed fantasy when the psychological balance of the meditating group was disturbed, or when some thought could not be depicted due to its absence in the sacred doctrine and, therefore, it must be was first to find. These considerations clarify two fundamental and equally important aspects mandala symbolism. The mandala serves the conservative purpose of restoring a previously existing order. But it also serves the creative purpose of giving expression and form to something that does not yet exist, something new and unique. The second aspect is perhaps even more important than the first, but does not contradict it, because in most cases what restores the old order simultaneously contains some elements of the new. In the new order, the previous structure rises to a higher level. The process is like an upward spiral that grows upward while passing the same point again and again.

Here is a picture drawn by a simple woman who grew up in a Protestant environment, where the mandala is depicted in the shape of a spiral. This woman was ordered in a dream to draw a picture of the supreme deity. Later (also in a dream) she saw him in the book, and not completely, but only the fluttering folds of his robe, the combination of light and shadow making up a breathtaking spectacle, especially against the backdrop of a motionless spiral in the dark blue sky. Enchanted by the robe and the spiral, the dreamer did not notice the other figures on the rocks. Waking up, she wondered what these sacred figures were, and suddenly realized that it was God himself. This caused her a deep shock that lasted for a long time. Typically the Holy Spirit is depicted in Christian art as a fiery wheel or dove, but in this case he appeared in the form of a spiral. This is a new thought that has not yet entered the doctrine, but has spontaneously arisen in the subconscious. That the Holy Spirit is the force that shapes and deepens our religious experience is, of course, not a new idea; what is new is its symbolic image in the form of a spiral.

Based on her next dream, this woman also painted a picture in which she and her positive animus are standing, looking at Jerusalem at the moment when the wing of Satan descends on the city, eclipsing it. The Satanic wing strongly reminded her of the flowing robe of the Lord from the first dream. But in the first case, the action takes place somewhere above, in the heavens and among the rocks through which a terrible fault passes.

The fluttering robe represents an attempt to reach Christ, who is on the right, which is not entirely successful. In the second picture, the same scene is presented from below - from a human angle. When viewed from above, one can see that the part of God is moving and expanding, above which the spiral rises, as a symbol of potential future development. But when viewed from the ground, from the height of human height, the same object in the air turns out to be a dark, ominous wing of the devil.

In the dreamer’s life, these two pictures became reality (exactly how is of no interest to us), but they undoubtedly also contain a meaning that goes beyond the personal. It is possible that they predict the immersion of the Christian world in divine darkness, which, however, contains the possibility of further development. Since the axis of the spiral does not move upward, but to the background of the picture, this development will lead not to greater spiritual heights and not downward to the kingdom of matter, but to another dimension - perhaps to what lies behind these divine characters. And this means to the subconscious.

When religious symbols that are somewhat different from the known ones emerge from the subconscious of an individual, it is often feared that they may negatively affect the officially recognized religious symbols or even lead to the secularization of some of them.

These concerns lead many people to reject analytical psychology and the subconscious mind in general.

Analyzing this unpleasant phenomenon from a psychological point of view, it should be noted that in relation to religion, people can be divided into three types. The first type includes those who still sincerely believe in their religious teachings, whatever they may be. For such people, these symbols and doctrines are so well in tune with their deeply personal feelings that serious doubts have no chance of penetrating their consciousness.

This happens when conscious beliefs and their subconscious basis are in relative harmony. People of this type can allow themselves to consider new psychological discoveries and facts without prejudice and without fear of losing faith. Even if some relatively unorthodox details appear in their dreams, they can be integrated into their overall worldview.

The second type consists of people who have completely lost faith and replaced it with absolutely conscious, rational ideas. For these people, depth psychology simply means an introduction to newly discovered areas of the psyche. Therefore, they can calmly begin a new adventure and begin researching their dreams to check their veracity.

There is also a third group of people, part of whose personality refuses to believe in religious traditions, but faith does not completely abandon them. The French philosopher Voltaire is a perfect example. He violently attacked the Catholic Church (ecrasez l’infame) (“destroy the vermin!” ( French) is the standard ending to Voltaire’s letters to encyclopedists about religion and the church. ( Note ed.), rationally arguing each attack, but on his deathbed, they say, he asked for unction. Whether this is true or not, his mind was definitely that of an atheist, while his feelings and emotions were apparently orthodox Catholic. Such people are like a person trapped in a bus door. He can neither enter nor exit. Probably, the dreams of such people could help them make a choice, but usually it is very difficult for them to turn their face to the subconscious, because they themselves do not fully know their thoughts and desires.

The decision whether to take the subconscious seriously depends ultimately on the courage and integrity of the individual.

The difficult situation of people caught in a no man's land between two states of mind is due in part to the fact that all official religious teachings actually belong to the collective consciousness (called by Freud the "superego"), although once upon a time they arose from the subconscious. This view is disputed by many theologians and historians of religion. They prefer to believe that the beginning was made by some kind of “revelation”.

For many years I searched for evidence that would support the Jungian approach to this problem, but such evidence was very difficult to find, since most of the rituals are so old that it is impossible to trace their origins. However, the example below gives what I think is a very important clue.

Black Elk, an Ogalala Sioux medicine man (who recently died), described in his autobiography, Black Elk Speaks, that when he was nine years old, he became seriously ill and, while in a comatose state, had a stunning vision. He saw four herds of beautiful horses approaching from four directions, and then, sitting on a cloud, he met six grandfathers, who were the spirits of the ancestors of this tribe, “the grandfathers of the whole world.” They presented him with six symbolic objects for the treatment of his people and showed him a new path in life.

But from the age of sixteen, he suddenly began to develop an animal fear of every thunderstorm - he heard that the “dwellers of thunder” were calling to “hurry.” It reminded him of the thunderous clatter that sounded when the horses approached during his childhood vision. One old healer explained to him that his fear arises because he keeps his vision inside himself, and said that he needs to tell his fellow tribesmen about it. Black Elk did just that, and later he and the tribe formalized this vision into a ritual, using real horses for this. After the performance, not only Black Elk himself, but also many other Indians felt significant relief.

Some of them were even cured of their illnesses. Black Elk said: “After the ritual dance, even the horses seem healthier and happier.”

This ritual disappeared because the tribe was soon completely destroyed. But another similar ritual has been preserved elsewhere. Several Eskimo tribes living near the Colville River in Alaska explain the origin of their eagle festival as follows: “A young hunter shot an unusual eagle and was so amazed by the beauty of the dead bird that he stuffed it and began to worship it as a fetish, making sacrifices to it. One day, when the hunter went deep into the mainland while hunting, two bird-like people suddenly appeared next to him and, saying that they were “messengers,” they led him to the country of eagles. There he heard a dull drum noise, and the messengers explained that it was the heart beating of the mother of the dead eagle. Then a woman in black appeared in front of the hunter. She asked to organize an eagle festival in his tribe in honor of her dead son. Then the Eagle Men showed how to do it. After this, the hunter suddenly found himself at the place where he met the messengers, in a completely exhausted state.

Returning home, he taught his fellow tribesmen how to hold a great eagle festival, which they have held regularly since then, observing the custom.”

From these examples it is clear that ritual or religious custom may arise directly from a subconscious revelation experienced by an individual. From these individual endeavors in groups united by a common culture, a variety of religious activities develop that permeate the entire life of society. During the long process of evolution, the original experience, under the influence of words and actions, is transformed, embellished and takes on a more and more refined form. Unfortunately, this process of crystallization has a serious drawback. An increasing number of people have no personal experience of the original experience and can only believe the stories of teachers and elders about it. Most therefore cannot imagine the feelings of a person who has gone through such an experience. Religious traditions in their modern form, formed as a result of centuries of polishing, often reject further creative changes brought by the subconscious. Theologians sometimes even defend “true” religious symbols and symbolic doctrines from newly discovered religious impressions by the subconscious, denying the psyche a creative function. At the same time, it is forgotten that the values ​​for which they fight owe their emergence to the same function. Without the human psyche, which perceives divine inspirations and reproduces them in words or in art forms, no religious symbol would ever become a reality in our lives. (Let us only remember the prophets and evangelists!).

If someone objects that religious reality exists on its own, regardless of our psyche, I can only answer such a person with the question: “Who talks about this if not the human psyche?” No matter what we say, we can never get rid of the existence of the psyche, because we are inside it, and it is the only means through which we can perceive reality.

Thus the recent discovery of the subconscious dispels forever the illusion so cherished by some that man can know spiritual reality as such. IN modern physics Heisenberg's principle of "indeterminism" dispelled the misconception that we can imagine absolute physical reality. Opening the subconscious, however, compensates for the loss. favorite illusions, opening up before us a vast and unknown field of activity, which in a strange way provides an opportunity for both objective scientific research and individual ethical daring.

Unfortunately, as I noted at the very beginning, it is almost impossible to convey the full reality of the sensations experienced in this new sphere. Much here is unique and partially can be expressed only in words. It also dispels the illusion that a person can fully understand another person and advise him on what is optimal for him.

However, this is compensated by the function of the Self, which secretly promotes the mutual attraction of people who are internally close to each other.

Intellectual chatter is thus replaced by meaningful events that actually occur in our psyche. Consequently, serious entry into the process of individuation in the manner revealed above means for the individual a completely new attitude to life, different from the previous one. For scientists, this also means a new scientific approach to external facts. How this will affect human knowledge and the social life of people is impossible to predict. But it seems clear to me that Dr. Jung's discovery of the process of individuation is a fact that future generations will have to reckon with if they are to avoid a slide into stagnation and degradation.