Carl Jung Puns

I was reading Jung and came across a passage where he claimed sentimental men with somewhat immature anima (that is identification with their inner feminine) often are attracted women with “fairy-like” qualities or idealistic fantasies of such a woman because they can “project anything on to a creature who is so fascinatingly vague and weave fantasies around her.”

The MPDG trope seems like a modern incarnation of this same archetype. Pre-Raphaelite painters of the late 19th century were painting otherworldly, ethereal maidens and indie directors of the 00s were creating characters like Natalie Portman’s in Garden State. Not fully human nor fleshed out as an autonomous person, they represent an internal, romantic ideal of redemption in the mind of a certain type of personality...that is typically the melancholic, overthinking, self-conscious, sentimentalist male. They seem a counterbalance of the man’s perceived flaws while maintaining a connection to traits creative types often value (spontaneity, confidence, quirkiness, etc.)

I usually see the MPDG critiqued from the perspective of women who (rightfully) point her out as a one-dimensional foil for a male protagonist but am also equally interested in what she represents in the psyche of the male. I think understanding this, rather than purely dismissing the character as “bad” is important in imagining more mature, nuanced female characters as written by male directors. Does anyone have anything to add here?

“But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yea the very fiend himself - that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved - what then? Then, as a rule, the whole truth of Christianity is reversed: there is no more talk of love and long-suffering; we say to the brother within us, "Raca," and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide him from the world; we deny ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves, and had it been God himself who drew near to us in this despicable form, we should have denied him a thousand times before a single cock had crowed.”

You hear a few say the difficulties or the dangers of reading about his works. At first I realized the potential for incongruency. But more so I'm starting to regret the commitment that is unescapable. It's like opening Pandora's box there is really no way to close it. I'm absolutely exhausted, my head is heavy, my thoughts although are becoming an alignment, are constant. it continues to get deeper and more difficult.

Anyone else experience this?

I've only "educated" myself through YouTube videos about philosophy and psychology but I'm looking to get more serious about it. Which of Jungs books would be easiest for a novice to understand ?

I'm 90% sure this has been asked before so I'm sorry. I couldn't find the post on here though

"Modern man knows himself only in so far as he can become conscious of himself—a capacity largely dependent on environmental conditions. His consciousness therefore orients itself chiefly by observing and investigating the world around him, and it is to the latter’s peculiarities that he must adapt his psychic and technical resources.

This task is so exacting, and its fulfilment so profitable, that he forgets himself in the process, losing sight of his instinctual nature and putting his own conception of himself in place of his real being. In this way he slips imperceptibly into a purely conceptual world where the products of his conscious activity progressively take the place of reality.

Separation from his instinctual nature inevitably plunges civilized man into the conflict between conscious and unconscious, spirit and nature, knowledge and faith, a split that becomes pathological the moment his consciousness is no longer able to neglect or suppress his instinctual side.

The accumulation of individuals who have got into this critical state starts off a mass movement purporting to be the champion of the suppressed.

In accordance with the prevailing tendency of consciousness to seek the source of all ills in the outside world, the cry goes up for political and social changes which, it is supposed, would automatically solve the much deeper problem of split personality."

Does anybody relate to having suppressed their instinctual side and living in a conceptual world? After 5 years of transitioning, and 2 years of 'healing' which was actually 20% healing and 80% observing and (heavily) investigating the world around me, I feel so stuck and whenever I consciously try get unstuck it's like I'm in quicksand and I just get more stuck.

If you've been in this situation and got out, how? Beyond detransitioning I still struggle to see what I can do without continuing to build that conceptual self

I understand the quote is pretty straightforward, but what does Dr. Jung actually mean by this? Thank you in advance and Happy Thanksgiving!

What did he mean by this ?

Excerpt from page 28 (for context he is talking about a man who had a premonition that 4,000 people would die in a volcanic eruption)

“While reading it [newspaper account], he misread 40,000 as 4,000. The mistake became fixed as a paramnesia, so that whenever he told the dream he invariably said 4,000 instead of 40,000. Not until 15 years later, when he copied out the article, did he discover his mistake. His unconscious knowledge had made the same mistake in reading as himself.”

…”I can also confirm, from my own experience, the reading mistake. During the Christmas of 1918 I was much occupied with Orphism, and in particular with the Orphic fragment of Malalas, where the primordial light is described as the “Trinitarian Metis”, Phanes, Ericepaeus” I consistently read Ericapaeus instead of Ericepaeus, as in the text. This misreading became fixed as a paramnesia, and later I always remembered the name Ericapaeus and only discovered thirty years afterword that Malalas’ text has Ericepaeus.”

To anyone who has read this , what were your thoughts on it ? I’m becoming very interested in reading it myself.

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”

This is a quote from Carl Jung

What would the Stoics think of this? Would the Stoics be on board with the idea that everybody has a dark side to them (the shadow)? A very common concept from Carl Jung.

Do you consider this idea?

Recently I have been struggling with anxiety and depression, even long periods of existential dread. Stoicism has always helped me deal and cope with these issues. While it's been a challenging time, and while it has been a challenge, it has also been a great journey, and I know it has helped me grow as a person. One of the ways I have been growing is by reading more and broadening my intellectual horizons. I recently started reading Carl Jung, and have been somewhat intrigued. One of his ideas is the collective unconscious. I'm hoping that we can strike up an interesting conversation on this topic!

The one quote that particularly struck me was this,

>"For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. He said I treated thoughts as if I generated them myself, but in his view, thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air, and added, “If you should see people in a room, you would not think that you had made those people, or that you were responsible for them.” It was he who taught me psychic objectivity, the reality of the psyche. Through him, the distinction was clarified between myself and the object of my thought."
>
>― Carl Gustav Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

If our thoughts are so strongly influenced by the collective unconscious, how can we live a stoic life? I could see this applying to the personal subconscious too. It is influenced by many factors that are completely out of our control, like where we are born, how we are raised, where we go to school, etc. I used to be a Christian, and even though I am no longer a Christian, I still find how it influences my perceptions, judgments, and decisions even now.

TLDR: If our and the collective subconscious is determined by outside factors, how can we live a stoic life?

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"For a time, I faithfully observed the rigorous rules of abstinence until my impatience drove me again to a few pipes. Of the 2 evils, the pipe seems to me the lesser. Everything went very well from the moment I gave up the digitalis." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 105

In this quote, he talks about how felt smoking tobacco was the lesser of two evils when it came to abstinence and consuming tobacco.

I kind of feel the same way in that regard. I have a love for smoking. I do it healthier now by using vapes and nicotine pouches. However, I find that consuming nicotine is essential to my ability to be able to work for long hours.

Here's some more Jung quotes that I found relatable:

"That does not prevent me from having found heavy cigarette-smokers among my introverts and not a few pipe-smokers among the extraverts, but normally with empty pipes." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 564-565

Smoking was one of the pleasures of the day. "A little tobacco assists concentration and contributes to one's peace of mind," was his justification to his doctor. - Aniela Jaffe, Jung's Last Years, Page 129.

- Does anyone else relate?

Where can I start reading about Jung? I have some background knowledge about his theory but I want to delve more into it so I can apply it into my life too. So, where to begin from? Any book/text recommendations?

I was watching Max Derrat's video series on the book Aion by Carl G. Jung when I came to the realization that there are a bunch of references to Carl Jung's work scattered throughout Arc Warden's voicelines and abilities. These references aren't mentioned in the trivia section of the wiki page.

Here's the ones I've noticed, with some of my thoughts added:

• Arc Warden's voicelines mention unity and the Great Unification. His lore is literally all about how he is trying to unite the two ancients that split apart. In Jungian Psychology, the concept of individuation (when simplified) is when the conscious ego combines with the unconscious shadow. Together the two unite to create the Self. Arc Warden refers to himself as "The Self" in a lot of his voicelines.

• In this voiceline, Arc Warden mentions the Primordial Consciousness and how all came from it. Carl Jung wrote about the Collective Unconscious, from which humans get their unconscious instincts and whatnot.

• some of Arc Warden's abilities reflect Jungian individuation in how they affect gameplay. Flux harms and slows its targets unless they unite and stand together. Magnetic field gives 100% evasion unless the targets enters Arc's bubble. Spark wraith unites with enemies to deal damage, and a sentence in the ability description says "Once a target has been found the wraith fuses with them." Tempest double is Arc splitting into light and dark versions of himself, which resemble Jung's concepts of ego and shadow (the tempest double is even dark and shadowy!).

• Arc Warden seems to dislike being split apart into two entities. The lore for Tempest Double states "Warped by the power of its peers, Arc Warden becomes what it despises most: disharmony." . Carl Jung refers to the ego that has not yet successfully merged with its shadow as immature, and he refers to the Self as the ultimate goal for successful individuation (paraphrased). https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Arc_Warden#Tempest_Double

• Arc Warden is obviously themed around electricity and magnetism. In Aion, Jung talks about how magnetism is important in alchemy, and he draws parallels to how ex

My favorite band, MGMT, wrote a single called Metanoia. The cover art for this song is a picture of Carl Jung in a referee shirt, which is great for me because I love the band and Jung! Anyways, a google search (so you don't have to look it up yourself) will tell you that metanoia refers to "a change in one's way of life resulting from penitence or spiritual conversion." MGMT always has interesting lyrics and these lyrics have to be some of their most vague work. I really want to know what they mean, and I'm thinking there might be some correlation between the lyrics and Carl Jung.

Now, you guys are usually really good at analyzing the meaning of things, so I was wondering what you guys make of it:

Song link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIoDpdql_nk

Metanoia, reshaping the world
It can teach you
And reprogram you
It can show you the flood
That's trapped inside
This one's alive
The tail is breathing
And she's listening
Kill the serpent
Divide, disperse and grow
Into an oak
A silver lining on a black scale
Wicked hunter on three hooves he still rode
But where is the fourth?
You can climb there
To your lofty perch
It can teach you the fairytale of hurt

Mystic referee, don't look on me with scorn
I'm a child, I'm a lover being born
Satchidananda
Disregard the path I'm on
You can justify the action, should you bless
My ambition and my indecisiveness
Satchidananda
Let me know that you exist
Watch me tremble as I'm answering the phone
I am separate from everything you know
Mystic referee I promise to return
Once I've given up and lessons have been learned
Satchidananda
You can watch my fire burn

Hospitals and woods confirm
Red in the eyes of everyone
Parasites and lovers scrape the meat from bones
Turned into jade and tiger's eye
Save me some dark hair over a face like hers
She'll help the rain come to a pour
Bathroom floor of stone and tiles broke in two
Warm where they touch her porcelain
Timid skin I'm careful to untie this road
Wrapped in a knot indifferent
Lion's foot unearthing all the things I've seen
But never truly understood
Rotten wood from oceans that were never green
Crumbles beneath the canopy
Secretly

Let's pretend we never touched the sugar

Tonight, under rose
You won't find another wheel to roll
When autumn winds appear
We wear these fears on our right
It just wants to be surreal 'cause
All dres

I came across a passage in this book where Jung talks about the affects of outside influences (maybe not) ; not the good kind I think:

~"The more that consciousness is influenced by prejudices, errors, fantasies, and infantile wishes, the more the already existing gap will widen into a neurotic dissociation and lead to a more or less artificial life far removed from healthy instincts, nature, and truth."~

I don't know why as I read the sentence I agree and disagree with every other word. As if he doesn't want us to dream ( as in goals) and at the same time wants us to find a healthy way of ingesting information. Then I think well should we not interact with those that think on the far left or the far right of an issue. Does he want us to distance ourselves from people we know or think are utterly wrong. I guess my question is what exactly what is he asking of someone that wants to dip a toe into this line of thinking?

I‘m curious. He’s well known.

I was reading Jung and came across a passage where he claimed sentimental men with somewhat immature anima (that is identification with their inner feminine) often are attracted women with “fairy-like” qualities or idealistic fantasies of such a woman because they can “project anything on to a creature who is so fascinatingly vague and weave fantasies around her.”

The MPDG trope seems like a modern incarnation of this same archetype. Pre-Raphaelite painters of the late 19th century were painting otherworldly, ethereal maidens and indie directors of the 00s were creating characters like Natalie Portman’s in Garden State. Not fully human nor fleshed out as an autonomous person, they represent an internal, romantic ideal of redemption in the mind of a certain type of personality...that is typically the melancholic, overthinking, self-conscious, sentimentalist male. They seem a counterbalance of the man’s perceived flaws while maintaining a connection to traits creative types often value (spontaneity, confidence, quirkiness, etc.)

I usually see the MPDG critiqued from the perspective of women who (rightfully) point her out as a one-dimensional foil for a male protagonist but am also equally interested in what she represents in the psyche of the male. I think understanding this, rather than purely dismissing the character as “bad” is important in imagining more mature, nuanced female characters as written by male directors. Does anyone have anything to add here?