I engage critically with C. G. Jung’s late work on the idea of synchronicities, and related work from other authors at the time. My focus is on methodology, argument analysis and conceptual inquiry (rather than empirical or historical research).
If not a subjective field, then what could be a plausible candidate for a structural principle on which the notion of a psychological individual can be based? (A principle, that is, which “expresses the whole” and “holds it together”?) It’s in answer to this question (remember, we are still reconstructing the argument of the individuation essay, GW IX/I, §§ 489-524) that Jung now (§§ 507-509)...
10. So far, we have seen that Jung explicitly assumes, as a basic premise shared in his tradition, that psychology must cover both consciousness and the unconscious; he also presupposes that a psychological individual (defined as a “whole”) must have a structural principle which “holds it together” and “expresses the whole”; he again assumes, this time with the broader tradition of modern...
In my last post, I reviewed Jung’s definitions of a psychological “individual” and the process which creates it (i.e., the “individuation process”) from the beginning of the individuation essay; and I noted there that it wasn’t entirely clear whether Jung took these definitions to be a premise shared in his own tradition: he doesn’t explicitly say so in the essay, but it appears that he did, at...
Now that we have sorted out these distinctions to some degree, let’s compare how Jung employs them in those passages which introduce the “progression” on the path of individuation. I’m starting with a short, concise essay which Jung published precisely as an introduction to these themes: “Bewußtsein, Unbewußtes und Individuation”. The text sets the context with a brief statement of the basic...
The definitions of consciousness and the “I” contain another distinction on which Jung insists: that between the “field” of consciousness and its center (the “I”). Only on the basis of this distinction can he then go on and ask whether there is a similar center to the larger personality. The field of consciousness is an obvious and unproblematic, though metaphorical notion (carrying its...
From the fundamental idea of the unconscious, Jung’s writing normally proceeds in one of two directions: either towards a distinction between personal and collective unconscious; or else to the question of the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious in psychology. It is the latter direction that is relevant for the individuation progression.
Jung outlines the path of the individuation process in several of his works, and it is instructive to reconstruct his line of thought in each of these. For generally, in passages like that Jung’s thinking is concise and rigorous: it has the quality necessary for theory formation or development of ideas. (In contrast, once he launches into what he calls “amplification”, his texts become amorphous...
It’s not exactly easy to figure out, from the synchronicities essay, what Jung’s conclusion regarding synchronicity actually was. Most likely, he didn’t really arrive at one. In the text itself, there is a bit of a fuzzy overlay of two main viewpoints. One is a metaphysical notion of a “psychoid” background layer behind both the physical and psychic worlds, which both reflect that layer without...
Every question for which we have found an answer does also reveal, at the same time, some uncertain aspects — aspects that aren’t just unanswered yet, but somehow seem all the more difficult to figure out now since we know what we’ve learned. Questions, in a word, lead to answers which in turn always seem to lead to more questions. When we look at this fact of life from the perspective of...
In my last post I have outlined an interpretation of Hillman’s central idea of soul-making, and connected it with the notion of projection (in analytical psychology), the relationship between individual souls and the collective psyche, and the theoretical move of treating both individual human beings and ideas as souls which can be perceived as personalized. In the background of this line of...
Leif Frenzel is a writer and independent researcher. He has a background in philosophy, literature, music, and information technology. His recent interest is Jungian psychology, especially synchronicities and the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious.