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Post by redraven on Jun 17, 2008 18:05:55 GMT -1
Has anyone here read this book by Richard Rudgley which deals with the re-emergence of the Odin archetype in the last 150 years? The reason I ask is a reference to Jung and his theory of a collective group consciousness developed by reverence to different deities over the course of history and how it can re-emerge after centuries in a completely different setting.
RR
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Post by littleraven on Jun 18, 2008 15:00:36 GMT -1
Has anyone here read this book by Richard Rudgley which deals with the re-emergence of the Odin archetype in the last 150 years? The reason I ask is a reference to Jung and his theory of a collective group consciousness developed by reverence to different deities over the course of history and how it can re-emerge after centuries in a completely different setting. RR Personally I am always extremely cautious when mention is made of Jung in this context. Basically, as a psychologist he is completely in opposition to the concept of Gods as present in the understanding of polytheism. It is *very* dangerous* indeed to try to understand paganism from the perspective of psychology. In fact, the neo-pagan dogma of 'everyones truth' is basically rooted in Jungian psychology, perpetuated by 'laypeople' writing on things they don't understand from a position of self-appointed wisdom. |
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Post by redraven on Jun 18, 2008 15:52:20 GMT -1
Rudgley states that "Jung played a very large part, in the re-emergence of paganism in Northern Europe". The reason I am interested, LR, is the concept of a re-awakening group consciousness that is triggered by the energy of previous generations from however far back. This would seem to suggest to me, at least, a possible factor in the formation of a re-awakened interest in Brython, least ways for some of us, before you tell me some of you have had it all your lives  RR |
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Post by littleraven on Jun 18, 2008 19:42:10 GMT -1
Rudgley states that "Jung played a very large part, in the re-emergence of paganism in Northern Europe". The reason I am interested, LR, is the concept of a re-awakening group consciousness that is triggered by the energy of previous generations from however far back. This would seem to suggest to me, at least, a possible factor in the formation of a re-awakened interest in Brython, least ways for some of us, before you tell me some of you have had it all your lives RR I can certainly agree with the possibility that Jung played a part in the 're-emergence' of paganism. In many ways he helped to legitimise it applying a (pseudo?) scientific reasoning to it. Thing is though, Jungs theories *cannot* work in a truly polythesitic/pagan mindset, because they reason that the origins of 'Gods/archetypes' are within the human mind (the neo-pagan individual truth thing). A Polytheistic view will see the Gods as external to the human. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2008 22:38:30 GMT -1
Thing is though, Jungs theories *cannot* work in a truly polythesitic/pagan mindset, because they reason that the origins of 'Gods/archetypes' are within the human mind (the neo-pagan individual truth thing). A Polytheistic view will see the Gods as external to the human. It's been a while since I read any Jung, so forgive me if I'm talking nonsense ... but don't they originate to an extent within the human mind, in that experience of the gods is subjective by nature and so people may interact with the same deity or spirit and percieve it in very different ways. |
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Post by littleraven on Jun 23, 2008 8:36:16 GMT -1
Thing is though, Jungs theories *cannot* work in a truly polythesitic/pagan mindset, because they reason that the origins of 'Gods/archetypes' are within the human mind (the neo-pagan individual truth thing). A Polytheistic view will see the Gods as external to the human. It's been a while since I read any Jung, so forgive me if I'm talking nonsense ... but don't they originate to an extent within the human mind, in that experience of the gods is subjective by nature and so people may interact with the same deity or spirit and percieve it in very different ways. The Jungian originates within, the polytheistic originates without. I think my writing may not have been clear? Or to put it another way, you are not interacting with a 'spirit' if it originates within, you are merely accessing levels of your own subconcious mind. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2008 20:01:24 GMT -1
The Jungian originates within, the polytheistic originates without. I think my writing may not have been clear? No, your writing was perfectly clear ... my understanding was a bit off. Every time this debate's come up before it's been based around whether the nature of deity, rather than deity itself, is the product of the human mind so I misunderstood what you meant when you spoke of origins and individual truths. I think for a fair few people that probably is the case and that's where the real problem lies. |
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Post by Heron on Jun 23, 2008 20:40:30 GMT -1
This is quite a complex issue when it comes to Jung. As far as much neo-pagan and post-modernist thinking is concerned whatever works for you is right and what works depends on your personality and what you like to imagine. It's psychological in the shallow sense that it is created by the mind. The only sense of something outside of the individual is the recognition that shared mindscapes become cultural and so common experience is possible. But there is no need to posit anything outside of our shared experience and there is a very real sense that we only 'pretend' that the gods are there even where it is argued that we have to 'pretend for real'.
But the reason that paganism has always been based in Nature is not because we are all ecologists or naturalists (though many us us are) but because we find our gods in the real world, in particular in wild places. Now when we come to Jung the argument is not so much that we psychologically create the gods but that we may have collectively internalised them as part of our evolution or that our knowledge of them has always been there at a deep level that can't necessarily be directly apprehended by the conscious thinking mind. So while some Jungians might think of the gods as 'just' archetypes as if they have grown independently in our collective unconscious, others might still subscribe to the idea that they are there objectively and that we have collectively internalised them in some symbolic way and that, at least some of us, seem to be able to recognise the objective correlative of these internalised symbols in Nature. There might be some analogy here to the way Noam Chomsky suggests that we have a deep structural knowledge of some sort of universal grammar which allows us to acquire whatever language we are exposed to in the world around us. But that suggests that we have evolved with language rather than developed it ourselves. The idea that we have also evolved with the gods might also be suggested.
But for those of us who have met real presences in the real world know that, whatever archetypal apprehensions are available to us in dreams, through cultural symbols or by meditating on mandalas, that god that parts the leaves and plays the pipes in the forest at Midsummer is no dream.
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Post by megli on Jun 24, 2008 11:11:51 GMT -1
Heron I agree - I don't myself think Jung can be dismissed quite so brusquely (and wrote about this somewhere). Our embodied minds/souls - through which, after all, we experience everything without exception - are also part of nature. Nature is what builds us both physically and mentally, in that our brains are products of evolution as much as our bodies. If the gods were 'only' products of the (infinte) Unconscious, we would *never be able to tell*. They would look and feel just like external, independently existent Gods, because that's the way the human mind seems to work.
Jung positied the idea of the 'psychoid' - a realm of being that was neither the psyche nor physical reality but was both at the same time. This is why, he said, synchronicity works - the inner and the outer are subtly, highly mysteriously congruent. Astrology is similar to the gods, in my view (and you can follow this argument even if you think astrology is bunkum) - the planets are perfectly real, and if every human vanished now the planet Saturn, for instance, would still exist. But there is also an *inner* Saturn, experienced in gravity, slowness, melancholia, grieving and solidity. That is also 'really Saturn', but its sphere of manifestation is human lives and the human psyche, not the the solar-system.
'Archetypal' is not synonymous with 'unreal', and the manifestation of a god in the Unconscious psyche does not preclude that god's external existence as a living entity.
But as we all know, 'Archetypes' and so on are agonisingly difficult to define, and that seems to be part of their nature. We might say that they are ancient, inbuilt patterns of spontaneous imagination, which seem to be hardwired into human beings. They allow us to people the chaos of life with symbols, freighting it with meaning and story. In their ability to pattern life and to instil meaning, in their craving for expression, and in their ability to manifest on multiple levels at once, archetypes are like gods. Note: I am not saying they are gods, or that gods are archetypes.
It's unfortunate that Jung was such a clotted writer, because in many ways he is - in my opinion - a vital and extremely profound thinker. There is something very mysterious and important here which can't be brushed away quite so easily as I sense you wd wish, LR.
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Post by Blackbird on Jun 26, 2008 8:58:25 GMT -1
The problem with Jung is that regardless of what he actually wrote, he's been selectively understood by the shallow end of paganism to justify the 'whatever you believe is true' approach. So I react the same way as LR, though to justify my stance, I suppose I'm reacting to that interpretation rather than Jung's writings.
I must also admit that I don't like Richard Rudgley as a writer, and especially not as a TV presenter...
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Post by megli on Jun 26, 2008 9:10:18 GMT -1
It's partly his own fault he gets misinterpreted - he wrote incredibly badly. (Unlike Freud.)
I'm a fan of James Hillman's post-Jungian archetypal psychology myself.
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Post by redraven on Jun 27, 2008 12:22:04 GMT -1
TBH, I haven't studied Jung much at all, it was the interesting association of a collective independent group consciousness that sparked my interest. The inclination of the writing style pointed to it being an external independent consciousness that was responsible for the subject's association with the fascist doctrines of the 20th century, which, when you think about it, made the inclusion of Jung a little strange. The conclusions of the book, that Odin is/was the responsible deity for these doctrines, are, IMHO, a little weak. It would be entirely possible, with a little research, to substitute Odin for any number of warlike deities, whom by their very nature would share similar attributes. This makes the whole book probably more subjective than I at first realised, shame really.
RR
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