The pagan in me wants to embrace Jung wholeheartedly, because so much of neopaganism is based on Jungian ideas. I've been hearing about the collective unconscious and archetypes my entire life and how Jung is the great thinker. (A decent article that, if read with archetypes in mind, relates the general beliefs of neo-paganism to Jung can be found here.)
So I thought I'd have no problem with the general mysticism of Jung, but combined with the alchemy, I found myself giving him the same sort of skepticism that I felt with Freud. Both were amazing thinkers and to see how Jung builds upon Freudian ideas was really interesting. Jung seems like Freud without the need to shock the reader, although both are basically saying that human beings can be reduced back to the most basic desires and needs. For Freud, it's sex (or ambition, which could even be argued to lead back to sex in the sense that successful animals have a better selection of sexual partners). For Jung, it's the elements that all human beings share - the archetypes that show up in our psychology, because it is how we tell stories and relate to the world. To a neopagan, that means finding the God and Goddess (archetypes?) within all humans, which perhaps Jung would have agreed with.
The end result is, at least to me a hopeful one -- all human beings are essentially the same, no matter what constructs they use to separate themselves (gender, "race", culture, ideology, etc.). Freud and Jung may have been amiss on some of their ideas, but they do leave the world with that legacy, which is a pretty radical one for their time. Jung, despite his racist ideology about "primitive" peoples, pointed out over and over again how they shared the same thing that "civilized" peoples did.
Comments (2)
I think yours is a interesting interpretation of Jung (and Freud). For my part, I found myself becoming more open-minded about Freud's ideas after I read Jung. But I like your suggestion that Freud and Jung were both basically preaching the same message - that everyone is basically the same regardless of the outer packagings.
Also, I have not heard of term "neopaganism" until your blog and I found myself intrigued by what I read from the link you provided.
Posted by vitaminc | September 24, 2006 3:43 PM
Posted on September 24, 2006 15:43
A really interesting sidepoint, the first century Christians used the word "pagan" as we might use the word "redneck." Hence the term "country dweller." Christianity was the new up and coming cosmopolitan religion, people of money and status were starting to adopt it-for mostly those reasons, money and power. Following this, "pagan" acquired the connotation, and eventually the definition, of non-Christian, or non-monotheisitic. Ironically, every Christian concept is rooted in a pagan idea, from the death and resurrection of the king/god to the wine and bread of Christ's body and blood. Resulting in an amalgam of pagan ideas, a collection of borrowed pre-Christian ideologies, making Christianity, if a thing is the sum of its parts, the most pagan of all religions.
Posted by Scott Cheshire | September 29, 2006 9:59 AM
Posted on September 29, 2006 09:59