Smaragd wrote:990 time=1590917147 user_id=418]
Nayana wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2020 9:05 pm
"metaphysical qualites"
Do you think Jung has chosen to limit the meaning of "metaphysical" purely because the scientific world has had problems with it? I simply do not understand what he is saying if I don't understand metaphysical as a term unbound from restrictions and fully blazing behind emptiness and every phenomena seen and unseen in the cosmos, not devoid in any subjective or objective realities.
As I would understand him, he may have chosen the term "metapysical" only to point towards the similarity between the divine principles depicted in a mandala and those refering to the self, while the divine mandala serves as a basis here. I think that the word "metapysical" can barely hold any relevance for consciousness other than by describing the "otherness" of any given experience that, since it lies outside of everyday consciousness, goes beyond the usual experience of selfhood. During this time's texts, Jung actually defines this further himself, see dream 9!
II. The Mandalas in the Dreams
Before continuing the series of dreams, this time with the mandala symbolism in focus, Jung shows where he sees the symbol in the dreams discussed before:
1. Visual impression 5 : A serpent draws a circle around the dreamer
2. Dream 17: a blue Flower
3. Dream 18: Man with gold coins in his hand. marked space for a variety show
4. Visual Impression 19: red sphere
5. Dream 20: A globe
If we remember how a mandala describes the center of personality for Jung, these symbols open up a little. The serpent appears to point towards said center, in case of this dream already taken by the dreamer. The marked space depicts the frame of the mandala, again pointing towards the middle where the show itself may have taken place. The sphere and the globe are both perfectly round objects, in turn pointing towards its middle point as the point that allows to grasp it properly.
In course of the follwing pages, Jung begins with the new dream series in relation with the mandala symbolism, starting to count anew based upon the dreams above.
6. Dream
the dreamer is chased by an unkown woman. he runs in circles.
To Jung, the serpent in visual impression 5 anticipated a movement now undergone by the dreamer himself. According to Jung, personified aspects of the unconscious would often anticipates what later is experienced. In this case, the dreamer is hustled into a circular movement by the woman as an anima symbol. By this, a potential middle point is implied. Interestingly enough, in this stage the center cannot be reached by the dreamer himself, despite being chased by the anima.
7. Dream
The Anima blames him for not caring enough about her. There's a clock that says five minutes to (?).
I think its clear that unconsciousness implies a certain urgency in the matter. Personally, I see a certain 'force' and demand in both this dream and the one before. Jung even notes a feeling of tension that is always present in circular movement. Lets keep in mind how he himself sees the unconscious as autonomous, and how we ourselves can experience something unconscious to "find its way" into our lives, regardless of our knowing or intention.
8. Dream
On a Ship. He's working on a new method of determining his position. Soon he's too far, soon too close, but the right place is in the middle. A map is there, on which a circle is drawn with the centre point.
The center in question clearly marks this dream as refering to the mandala symbolism. Interestingly enough, outside of the map - and the stars as a common means of navigation, as Jung mentions - the "frame" is utterly missing (my interpretation). Maybe the sea itself has its relevance for unconscious movement to which the dreamer is exposed.
9. Dream
A pendulum clock that always runs without the weights sinking any lower.
To Jung, this clock appears to be a perpetum mobile, being in an eternal circular movement. In this he sees a metaphysical attribute and characterizes this term further. From his psychological standpoint, metaphysical refers to a "statement" of the unconscious, not a hypostasis. Correspondingly, the ever moving clock is characterized as transcendent and, in turn, as in grave contrast to the normally perceived level of 'I', which naturally will not experience a perpetum mobile or the relative timelessness represented by it.
10. Dream
The Dreamer, the doctor, the goatee and a doll woman are on the peterhofstatt in Zurich. The latter is an unknown woman who does not speak and to whom no one speaks. There's doubt to which of the three the woman belongs.
To Jung, the dreamer is the conscious I, the goatee the "employed" intellect (mephisto) and the puppet woman the anima. As no one speaks to her nor knows where she belongs, the dreamers relation to the unconscious is unclear and not developed. While the dreamer himself and the goatee are connected to the ego, both the puppet woman and the doctor as a possible reference to Jung himself (without any concrete contact) belong to the non ego.
Jung considers the possibility of all four characters symbolising the totality of the personality. Its center could not be the conscious 'i', which he describes as the most dominent of the functions of consciousness (thinking, intuate, feel, sense), but has to consist in the self as embodiment of total personality.
That very center he sees allegorized by god; and he continues to further unfold similar ideas. In the context of his term of "metaphysical", the mention of the Atman from the upanishad-philosophy is especially interesting to me. He sees atman as the personsal self as well as the kosmic quality of self itself, which renders - in a sense - the former a concrete and individual expression of the latter. (personal interpretation.)
From Gnosis, he mentions the idea of Anthropos, Pleroma, the Monad and the spark of light:
"this same is he (monogenes) who dwelleth in the monad which is in the setheus and which came from the place of which one can say where it is... From him it is the monad came, in the manner of a ship, laden with all good things, and in the manner of a field, filled, or planted with every kind or tree, and in the manner of a city, filled with all the races of mankind... this the fashion of the monad - all these being in it: there are twelve monads as crown upon its head... and to its veil which surroundeth it in the manner of a defence there are twelve gates.... this same is the mother-city of the only-begotten."
Setheus is explained to be a name of god, Monogenes to be the son of god. The monad is said to be the spark of light and an Image of the father, with which monoges as the son of god is identical. In that way, Setheus is "the house and the dewller in the house", rendering monogenes the personifcation of said god who brought himself into being, being his own agent of manifestation (personal interpretation).
To be perfectly honest, I am unsure wheter I grasp the reason and depth of why Jung brings up this idea here. In a sense I think that the relation between Monogenes and Setheus as its father may be similar to Atman as personal and universal principle, as the father (atman as universal) brings forth the son (the personsal), whereas the son remains but an agent of the father. It is, after all, from the son that came "all the good things", which I can imagine to relate to the indiviual manifestation of all-common principles of the self. But I'd be glad if you have another and possibly more fitting idea!
Jung himself, however, sees a relation to the alchemical idea of the lapis here. He quotes: "Me igitur et filio meo coniuncto, nil melius ac venerabilius in mundo fieri potest" ("nothing better and more venerable can happen in the world than the union of myself with my son", Tractus Aureus). As it is the father speaking here, it seems that a union of the unspecific principle with the individual is thematized. Anyway I believe that we can recognize the idea of union as an alchemical ideal attributed to the Lapis.
In relation to the dream, however, the female principle is still missing, to which Jung relates with the following quote from Tractatus Aureus, Chapter 4:
"The king rules, for which his brethren bear witness, saying, "I will be crowned and adorned with the tiara, and I will be endowed with your kingdom, and I will bring joy to the heart, and I, clothed in my mother's arms and breast in her substance, will make my substance stick together and rest, and I will put together the invisible from the visible; then the hidden appearance will appear, and all that the philosophers have hidden will be made of us. Understand, preserve, meditate these words, O you who listen, and do not search for anything else. Man is created from the beginning by nature, whose entrails are flesh, and from no other substance."
Here, the mother is the principle that makes the king - related to the lapis, according to Jung - "put together the invisible and the visible", which may relate to the formation of the center of personality in contrast to the 'i'', driven by the female principle symbolizing the unconscious.
This particular interpretation of Jung has been hard to grasp for me; I hope that you either can see sense or have far better approaches towards this particular matter.