I read the news today, oh boy… we seem to be living in an age
of craziness, all around the world. I am
reminded of the famous psychologist, Carl Jung, and his notion of psychic
epidemics. He was born in 1875, as the
Industrial Revolution was turning many societies inside out. It was a gold rush for psychologists, because
mental illness was soaring in advanced societies.
Urbanization led to the “insectification” of city dwellers,
which fueled the emergence of mental imbalances. The human mind evolved to function nicely in
small groups, not large crowds. The
neurotic urban hordes bore no resemblance to the Pueblo Indians that Jung had met
in New Mexico. He was fascinated by his
encounter with these shockingly sane and content humans, and he spoke fondly
about them throughout his life. “Such a
man is in the fullest sense of the word in his proper place.”
Three issues spooked Jung.
The world wars, with their new and improved technology, took death and
destruction to unimaginable new levels. Nuclear
war was a big threat, but it was avoidable, in theory. What scared him most was population growth, a
runaway train with no brakes. World population
nearly doubled in his lifetime. It had
soared to almost three billion when he died in 1961. “Masses are always breeding grounds of
psychic epidemics.”
Jung was horrified by the rise of Hitler. “The most dangerous things in the world are
immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads.” Germany suffered from an inferiority complex
following its defeat in the First World War.
The collective unconscious of the Germans begged for a savior, a Messiah. Hitler helped them compensate for their shame
by leading them on a heroic adventure in megalomania. He had a remarkable ability for bringing the nation’s
unconscious into his conscious awareness.
He told the people exactly what they wanted to hear.
After Hitler’s defeat, Jung concluded, “The phenomenon we
have witnessed in Germany was nothing less than the first outbreak of epidemic
insanity, an eruption of the unconscious into what seemed to be a tolerably
well-ordered world.” I don’t believe
that this was “the first” such epidemic.
Many, like the Inquisition,
preceded the Nazis.
Jung died 55 years ago, before the first Earth Day. Since his death, population has more than
doubled again, and continues to soar. Climate
change is getting warmed up for unleashing centuries of big surprises. The sixth mass extinction is now officially
recognized. The list of ongoing catastrophes
is long and growing. On his deathbed
(1961), Jung had a disturbing vision. In
50 years (2011), “I see enormous stretches devastated, enormous stretches of
the earth. But, thank God, it’s not the
whole planet.”
Jung warned that, “It is becoming ever more obvious that it
is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer, but man himself who
is man’s greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no
adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more
devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes.”
Jung was perplexed by the notion of consciousness, a slippery
concept. Consciousness includes being
aware of what our senses are telling us about the here and now. It allows us to think about people and events
in different times and places, and share this knowledge with others. We are very self aware, and know that we will
die. We can think in words, and use words
to assemble reasoned concepts and abstract ideas.
Among our wild ancestors, the development of consciousness
was minimal. They had what Jung called
the “original mind.” A wild lad could
put on a lion mask and literally become a lion, in his mind. Modern insurance salespeople can’t do this,
because they have been trained in the differentiated consciousness of
civilization, which makes the original mind unconscious.
Jung believed that consciousness in humans developed slowly
over a very long time. By 4000 B.C., consciousness
in civilized societies was approaching its modern form. He noted that primitive people were less
conscious than we are. At the same time,
even in its advanced form, consciousness remained highly unstable, far from
finished. Consciousness is merely the
mind’s thin surface, floating on an unconscious ocean. Throughout every day, our minds flutter in
and out of consciousness, frequently drifting off into daydreams and fantasies. Conscious thought is tiresome, requiring
deliberate effort, while fantasyland is effortless.
Education factories indoctrinate students with the notion that
reason is the guiding force in our nation’s affairs. But our ability to reason is flimsy. Like the Germans of the 1930s, we are always
vulnerable to slick talking advertisers, politicians, and woo-woo hucksters. Those with skills for prodding unconscious
fears, doubts, and desires will find many sitting ducks to corral and exploit. Here’s my favorite Jung line: “Our present
lives are dominated by the goddess Reason, who is our greatest and most tragic
illusion.”
Jung was an important pioneer in exploring the unconscious,
home of the ancestral soul, which stores content that is millions of years
old. We drift into the unconscious
whenever we dream, or daydream. When we
remember dreams, we can bring unconscious content into the realm of our
consciousness. This content can provide
important guidance, or solutions to inner conflicts. Instinct can often see the elephant that the conscious
mind blocks out. Instinct is our ally.
Jung believed that, “Loss of instinct is largely responsible
for the pathological condition of contemporary culture.” We are cut off from our roots, making us childish
and infantile. Some primitive people remain
connected to their ancient instincts, and are therefore more stable. Their dreams guide them through life. They inhabit a reality that is sacred,
beautiful, and alive with wonder.
Non-human animals obviously have some degree of consciousness,
but a form far different from that of the glowing screen people. Unlike many domesticated critters, wild
animals are not neurotic basket cases.
Nor are primitive people, who do not suffer from advanced stages of
consciousness. People with advanced consciousness
have conquered the Earth, but Jung wasn’t sure if “this is an advantage or a
calamity.” He could not escape the
paradox that consciousness is “both the highest good and the greatest evil.”
Sometimes, Jung wondered if the solution was to deliberately pursue
the further development of consciousness, complete our unfinished quest, and
become perfectly reasonable. But based
on his long experience with many damaged souls, this notion seemed to be
ridiculous and impossible. At the same
time, “we cannot develop backwards into animal unconsciousness.” But we are, in fact, animals. When we squirted out of the womb, our
standard issue equipment included an animal mind, with an excellent instinct
collection. This mind was fully capable
of spending its entire existence operating without words, tools, fire, or
clothing, like all other animal minds.
In both wild kids, and kids born in captivity, rudimentary
self-aware consciousness (ego) emerges when a child is about four. Kids born in civilization go on to absorb a
highly unstable civilization-grade form of consciousness. It’s fascinating to contemplate children who did
not receive consciousness programming, like the girls
raised by wolves, or the wild boy Tarzancíto.
For Jung, the magic word was individuation, which means becoming
who you are, like a unique acorn develops into a unique oak tree. Every newborn is a unique being, not a blank
slate. The mass mind of industrial
society could care less about that unique being. The mass mind expects everyone to become mindless
status seeking robo-consumers. But the
ancient original mind expects us to use our gifts, and pursue our calling. Individuation allows us to develop a strong
and healthy relationship with the rest of the family of life, so we can avoid
being swept away by psychic epidemics.
Individuation does not happen automatically, it requires
effort to set foot on your own path. Our
ancestors benefitted from initiation ceremonies, in which adolescents received
important visions that revealed their identities and destinies. Modern society provides no such assistance,
hence the mobs of robo-consumers.
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to
avoid facing their own souls.” The path
to healing requires looking inward. Deliberately
move away from the torrents of distractions that bombard our society. Seek solitude and nature. “Imagination and intuition are vital to our
understanding.” Intuition is perception
via the unconscious. It opens channels
to the unconscious, and draws up the life.
Humankind has enormous conflicts to resolve. The experts of our society are largely out to
lunch, still lost in toxic hallucinations of perpetual growth and material
wealth.
So, Jung does not give us the secret formula for mass
enlightenment and a heavenly utopia.
Instead, he gives us a mirror.
Humankind can only heal individual by individual. There are mountains of books describing the
ecological damage we cause. Far less
attention has been given to the psychological twists and turns that have
brought us to the brink. Maybe we don’t
need to study Mars.
The
Earth Has a Soul is an excellent book that presents Jung’s commentary on
our relationship with nature. In Man and His Symbols,
he explains his core ideas to general readers.
Jung wrote the autobiographical Memories,
Dreams, Reflections. C. G. Jung Speaking
presents a series of notable interviews and letters. Diagnosis:
Psychic Epidemic is an essay by Paul Levy.
