In Mysterium Coniunctionis, Jung points to a fundamental difference between Christian religion and alchemy. Both are concerned, according to him, with the monumental task of unifying opposites; but Christian religion finds these opposites projected in spirit (Geist) and alchemy projects them into physis (Stoff), whereas “none locates the problem where it originated, namely, in the human soul”...
Is there a difference between spirit and soul? In his survey of what the term "spirit" means, Jung notes in passing that it is “common opinion that spirit and soul are essentially the same and therefore only arbitrarily separable”. And it is true that, in Jung’s work, the use of notions such as “psyche”, “spirit”, and “soul” seems at times arbitrary or at least vague...
Jung’s two essays on synchronicities and on spirit in the fairy tale have a striking claim in common: that there is a “hidden meaning [Sinn] behind the chaotic events in life”. It will be interesting to compare how the two essays introduce the core finding: there is an interesting commonality, and one important difference.
I have explored, in some depth now, a particular archetypal idea: that “there is a hidden meaning behind chaotic life”. The way I have explored it was through Jung’s essay on spirit, which deals explicitly with it. But there is a connection between this idea and synchronicities, which Jung, it seems, didn’t make.
In the case of Spirit, Jung does not talk about an individual’s process of integrating archetypal contents as psychological functions: he claims that such a process happened as an overarching development in the history of the human species. That, of course, is a variation on an origin myth: a phantasy, projected backwards into history.
Inflation of consciousness (or 'ego-inflation') is a danger when engaging successfully with an archetype of the unconscious, and integrating its contents. May something like that have occurred when we integrated the spirit archetype, over those centuries of developing human consciousness?
In everyday parlance, when we refer to a person’s “shadow”, we often simply mean some grim, dark streak of their personality, perhaps even a violent or evil element. But what Jung meant by the “shadow” is a little more complex than this habit of our everyday talk suggests.
To integrate archetypes into consciousness is not without risk. The danger lies in mistaking this process of integration for a victory of consciousness over the unconscious.
Spirit, the archetype of spirit a pre-existent meaning in the midst of chaotic life, has been morphed, over the course of centuries of human history, from of a separated form of being into an integrated function of human consciousness. But precisely how does Jung think such an “integration” might have worked?
In an earlier post, I mentioned Jung’s view that spirit, the archetype of the built-in meaning in our world, was originally a separate being, “facing” us humans, and then over the evolution of the human psyche has become “integrated” into consciousness. What does that even mean?
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.