Drogi ku Nieświadomości. Mit i medytacja w psychologii głębi

Abstract

This monograph consists of an introduction, the first part discussing the experience of spiritual development that occurs in the oriental ways of the spirit, the second part devoted to the Jungian and Hillman concept of myth, an afterword, and bibliography. The subject of the first part of the monograph is analysis of the concept of the experience of spiritual development in the thought of Carl Gustav Jung, an outstanding Swiss researcher of Eastern and Western methods of spiritual development. In this section, we engage in hermeneutical reflection upon the Jungian interpretation of philosophical and religious texts of oriental cultures, which is closely related to the relationship between two concepts fundamental to its system: the center of consciousness — the ego and the psychological whole that transcends it — the self. We provide an outline of Jung’s theory of individuation in order to prepare a stable ground for the following considerations on attaining self-awareness as shown in the writings of Chinese Taoism, Tibetan and Japanese Buddhism, and also of Indian yoga. We analyze the successive stages of the Jungian interpretation of the problem of opposites. These include, for example, the Taoist problem of oppositions functioning in the psyche, the problem of the relationship between the notion of the collective unconscious and the Buddhist concept of the universal mind, or the Hindu problem of the nature of the atman experienced in yoga. In this section we also consider a very difficult philosophical problem that initiates the following question: how do we express in terms the almost inexpressible experience of the self? The second part of the monograph concerns the psychological approach to myth according to Carl Gustav Jung and James Hillman. It is a reconstruction of their views on the collective unconscious as a source of human myth-making activity, and an attempt to show to what extent Hillman relies on Jung’s depth psychology, and in which he creates his own point of view on the myth-creating aspects of the psyche. In this part, we present the problem of interpreting the presence of a myth as a phenomenon resulting from collective creation. The most important issues concerning this challenge are raised. We present the views of psychologists regarding the very idea of the unconscious and the relationship of man to myth as an archetypal activity. The issue of the relationship between psychotherapy and myth is also raised. This issue, also widely considered, concerns, inter alia, impoverishment at the level of creating mythical symbols, which contributes to the occurrence of mental disorders at the individual level and a sense of cultural alienation. There is a vast range of disciplines that study myths, ranging from ethnological, anthropological, cultural, and psychological. This part highlights the specificity of theoretical speculations about myth undertaken in the narrow field of Jung’s analytical psychology and the continuator of his thoughts, the creator of Hillman’s archetypal psychology. The concept of the unconscious and the archetype, as well as the situation of the human individual against the background of issues, i.e. the role of myth in culture and its impact on individual existence, are described. The ways to the Unconscious. Myth and meditation in depth psychology focus the reader’s attention on the experience of inner development that occurs under the influence of contact with the unconscious. Both the oriental journey to the roots of the psyche and the journey that revives the archetypal world of the imagination of the Western wisdom seeker recall to mind the space of truth, hidden deep in a cave, which anyone who values universal knowledge, knowledge that brings a human to life, can venture into.