>===== Original Message From moq_discuss@moq.org =====
Hi Glenn, Rick
>GLENN:If all things gave off the
>light, why would he see special import in the things he does mention?
>When my pupils were dilated at the eye-doctor, everything in my visual
>field exhibited this fuzzy glow, from furniture to people. I can't think
>of any physical reason, if this is purely a feature of involuntary pupil
>dilation, why some objects would give off the light and others wouldn't.
>
ERIN: I really don't think the glowing object image you are presenting is
necessary. I know you didn't want me to go into Jung because you were having a
hard enough time swallowing Pirsig but Jungian archetypes would really help
here.
Pirsig: (pg 388) Pirsig talks about everybody instantly understands what the
symbol "light" means. Jung was very interested in symbols that were instantly
and univerally recognized. So perhaps these emtionally charged symbols might
trigger the pupil dilation? There may be particular objects that trigger this
response more then others but it is not that they are "glowing".
Summary of Jung taken off internet (keep in mind that I think Jung was very
msytical but some evolutionary psychologists like Jung but with a genetic
rather than a mystic interpretation) (also I think Pirsig falls somewhere in
middle of the two):
But then Jung adds the part of the psyche that makes his theory stand out from
all others: the collective unconscious. You could call it your "psychic
inheritance." It is the reservoir of our experiences as a species, a kind of
knowledge we are all born with. And yet we can never be directly conscious of
it. It influences all of our experiences and behaviors, most especially the
emotional ones, but we only know about it indirectly, by looking at those
influences.
There are some experiences that show the effects of the collective unconscious
more clearly than others: The experiences of love at first sight, of deja vu
(the feeling that you've been here before), and the immediate recognition of
certain symbols and the meanings of certain myths, could all be understood as
the sudden conjunction of our outer reality and the inner reality of the
collective unconscious. Grander examples are the creative experiences shared
by artists and musicians all over the world and in all times, or the spiritual
experiences of mystics of all religions, or the parallels in dreams,
fantasies, mythologies, fairy tales, and literature.
A nice example that has been greatly discussed recently is the near-death
experience. It seems that many people, of many different cultural backgrounds,
find that they have very similar recollections when they are brought back from
a close encounter with death. They speak of leaving their bodies, seeing their
bodies and the events surrounding them clearly, of being pulled through a long
tunnel towards a bright light, of seeing deceased relatives or religious
figures waiting for them, and of their disappointment at having to leave this
happy scene to return to their bodies. Perhaps we are all "built" to
experience death in this fashion.
Archetypes
The contents of the collective unconscious are called archetypes. Jung also
called them dominants, imagos, mythological or primordial images, and a few
other names, but archetypes seems to have won out over these. An archetype is
an unlearned tendency to experience things in a certain way.
The archetype has no form of its own, but it acts as an "organizing principle"
on the things we see or do. It works the way that instincts work in Freud's
theory: At first, the baby just wants something to eat, without knowing what
it wants. It has a rather indefinite yearning which, nevertheless, can be
satisfied by some things and not by others. Later, with experience, the child
begins to yearn for something more specific when it is hungry -- a bottle, a
cookie, a broiled lobster, a slice of New York style pizza.
The archetype is like a black hole in space: You only know its there by how it
draws matter and light to itself.
The mother archetype
The mother archetype is a particularly good example. All of our ancestors had
mothers. We have evolved in an environment that included a mother or
mother-substitute. We would never have survived without our connection with a
nurturing-one during our times as helpless infants. It stands to reason that
we are "built" in a way that reflects that evolutionary environment: We come
into this world ready to want mother, to seek her, to recognize her, to deal
with her.
So the mother archetype is our built-in ability to recognize a certain
relationship, that of "mothering." Jung says that this is rather abstract, and
we are likely to project the archetype out into the world and onto a
particular person, usually our own mothers. Even when an archetype doesn't
have a particular real person available, we tend to personify the archetype,
that is, turn it into a mythological "story-book" character. This character
symbolizes the archetype.
The mother archetype is symbolized by the primordial mother or "earth mother"
of mythology, by Eve and Mary in western traditions, and by less personal
symbols such as the church, the nation, a forest, or the ocean. According to
Jung, someone whose own mother failed to satisfy the demands of the archetype
may well be one that spends his or her life seeking comfort in the church, or
in identification with "the motherland," or in meditating upon the figure of
Mary, or in a life at sea.
Mana
You must understand that these archetypes are not really biological things,
like Freud's instincts. They are more spiritual demands. For example, if you
dreamt about long things, Freud might suggest these things represent the
phallus and ultimately sex. But Jung might have a very different
interpretation. Even dreaming quite specifically about a penis might not have
much to do with some unfulfilled need for sex.
It is curious that in primitive societies, phallic symbols do not usually
refer to sex at all. They usually symbolize mana, or spiritual power. These
symbols would be displayed on occasions when the spirits are being called upon
to increase the yield of corn, or fish, or to heal someone. The connection
between the penis and strength, between semen and seed, between fertilization
and fertility are understood by most cultures.
The shadow
Sex and the life instincts in general are, of course, represented somewhere in
Jung's system. They are a part of an archetype called the shadow. It derives
from our prehuman, animal past, when our concerns were limited to survival and
reproduction, and when we weren't self-conscious.
It is the "dark side" of the ego, and the evil that we are capable of is often
stored there. Actually, the shadow is amoral -- neither good nor bad, just
like animals. An animal is capable of tender care for its young and vicious
killing for food, but it doesn't choose to do either. It just does what it
does. It is "innocent." But from our human perspective, the animal world looks
rather brutal, inhuman, so the shadow becomes something of a garbage can for
the parts of ourselves that we can't quite admit to.
Symbols of the shadow include the snake (as in the garden of Eden), the
dragon, monsters, and demons. It often guards the entrance to a cave or a pool
of water, which is the collective unconscious. Next time you dream about
wrestling with the devil, it may only be yourself you are wrestling with!
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