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2 First published by Routledge Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN FA Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge Madison Avenue, New York, NY Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business John Ryan Haule Typeset in Times by Refi necatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall Paperback cover design by Andrew Ward All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. This publication has been produced with paper manufactured to strict environmental standards and with pulp derived from sustainable forests. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Haule, John Ryan, Jung in the st century / John Ryan Haule. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references.. Jungian psychology.. Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav),.. Archetype (Psychology). Evolutionary psychology.. Coincidence. I. Title. II. Title: Jung in the twentyfi rst century. BF.JH.' dc ISBN: (hbk) ISBN: (pbk)

3 Contents Abbreviations Jung s challenge to science PART I Shamanism and the mastery of altered states Jung on the mastery of altered states The nature of shamanism Mastery of shamanic states of consciousness Shamanic mastery: Ayahuasqueros in the Amazon Meditation and mastery PART II The border zones of exact science The lawful irrationality of synchronicity The promise of parapsychology Seeing at a distance and its mastery Psychokinesis: Mind and matter A crisis of metaphysics Darwin s dilemma: Evolution needs a psychoid principle vii

4 vi Contents Sketches of a universal psychoid field Vision and reality Notes References Index

5 Chapter Jung on the mastery of altered states The history of consciousness from the Upper Paleolithic to the modern world can be briefly described as a one-way trend from maximally polyphasic societies that valued altered states of consciousness for the vital information they provided about self, world and transformation to monophasic societies in which materialism and linear thinking are the sole source of legitimate meaning and where transformation seems to be an impossible dream. Twenty thousand years ago, shamanistic practices were universally available and widely employed, but as society became more complex and hierarchical they were gradually replaced with less effective rituals. Personal encounters with transcendent experience became rare, and religion began to consist of symbolic dramas that portrayed a world of belief for people who no longer knew or even imagined that direct numinous experience was possible (Walsh : ). Even in the theocentric European Middle Ages, mysticism aroused suspicions of heresy. Today, altered states of consciousness are so misunderstood and underappreciated that to most people they suggest pathology, gullibility or deliberate deception. Along with William James, C. G. Jung was one of the earliest psychologists and remains today one of the very few to have vigorously opposed this sad trend toward a flat and lifeless mechanical world so devoid of transcendence and wonder that even religion seems powerless to transform it. Indeed, Jung found it probable that any one who has immediate experience of God is a little bit outside the organization one calls the Church (CW: ). The Churches stand for traditional and collective convictions which in the case of many of their adherents are no longer based on their own inner experience but on unrefl ecting belief, which is notoriously apt to disappear as soon as one begins thinking about it. Belief is no substitute for inner experience. (CW: ) In an atmosphere where even the Churches cannot be counted on to support inner experience, the most ordinary sort of altered state, the dream, has little value. Even Freud, while recognizing the utility [of dreams] in therapy, saw the material as reflections of the culturally aberrant. Only Jung saw them as a vehicle of

6 Shamanism and the mastery of altered states transcendence (Laughlin et al. : ). A major aim of Jung s Complex Psychology has been to reintroduce polyphasic consciousness, where certain doors and windows [are left] open to [the reality] of other worlds (Ibid.: ). This is not a call to go unconscious, but rather a challenge to the West to become as clear about our psychic capabilities as we are about the objective world to effect an unprecedented integration. In the past three or four centuries, the West has learned how to investigate the empirical world. We have taught ourselves how to think precisely and how to measure differences that are too fine to distinguish with our unaided senses. Having learned in principle how our senses work, we have invented machines to extend them. For example, with telescopes we can see nearly as far away in space and time as the postulated Big Bang, and to see with segments of the electromagnetic spectrum that our sense organs cannot register, such as radio waves and microwaves. In the other direction, we have mapped and measured the movement of subatomic particles. Western science has been unrelenting in mastering our extraverted senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. In the s it was still possible to wonder what good could come of experimenting with telescopes and microscopes. But not today, for three and a half centuries of steady work have gone a long way toward mastering our powers of extraverted investigation. In contrast, we have hardly begun to imagine that other powers might also be susceptible of mastery, namely our introverted capacities for altered states of consciousness. We have yet to determine what they are good for, how we might use them, how we might extend them, in what ways they are reliable and when they ought to be distrusted. The modern West has not subjected shamanism, meditation and other uses of altered states to the steady work that might finally throw off our unconsciousness in this domain. A great deal remains to be done, and probably will not be done as long as our society stays rigidly monophasic; but there is evidence from anthropology, neuropsychology, and various schools of meditation to suggest that when we do take up this work we will open a rich field for investigation. Jung on the mastery of altered states Mastery is not a word that Jung was inclined to use. In fact, he emphasized letting go of our Western tendency to identify with our ego and to try to control everything in our lives, for relinquishing ego-centered control helps us to discover aspects of our unconscious wholeness. It is the first step in becoming aware of non-ordinary states of consciousness and the fact that thoughts are simply given to the ego, that they come from somewhere unconscious. It leads, in short, to original thinking. Jung avoided mentioning mastery, evidently, lest he seem to imply that more monophasic ego-control was desired rather than less. My Toronto colleague in the study of mysticism, however, Dan Merkur, has convinced me with his book, Becoming Half Hidden: Shamanism and Initiation

7 Jung on the mastery of altered states Among the Inuit (), that a shaman s accomplishments cannot be understood without addressing the issue of mastery. Merkur makes it clear that shamans distinguish themselves from the ecstatically gifted laity by the degree of control they exercise over their altered states. Shamans neither passively enjoy nor passively suffer their trances. Rather they actively employ them, more or less consciously, to serve their own religious goals (Merkur : ). While an apprentice, the shaman-to-be is guided in her altered states by the suggestions of a master shaman. The goal of the training is to help her gain a degree of voluntary control over what happens when she journeys through the greater cosmos. This kind of mastery is quite different from what our monophasic society is apt to appreciate. To the extent that a shaman is taken on cosmic journeys in which he seems to leave his body behind, his observing ego is a passive recipient of the ecstatic experience. But because he learns to go where he wishes in that larger cosmos and because he deliberately seeks out and obtains important information, he retains a significant measure of initiative. Shamanism, therefore, requires a peculiar balance between deliberate choice and submission to an agency that is quite foreign to our ego. This ambiguous region is precisely the area that Jung s work addresses, and it is why I believe I am being faithful to Jung s intentions when I call it mastery of altered states. We have already encountered several of the techniques Jung recommends for gaining mastery. First and most obviously, he urges us to attend to the state of our consciousness and to take note of the subtle changes that indicate our unconscious is expressing itself. Dreams, especially, are to be recollected and recorded, for they represent visions of ourselves and of the world that are likely to clash with and befuddle our ordinary assumptions. These first two techniques amount to catching our everyday consciousness in the act of changing. Normally, we Westerners preserve the monophasic illusion when we ignore these changes or dismiss them as absurd. Jung urges us to bring them into focus and learn from them, and that cannot be accomplished unless we discipline ourselves to relax our ego-centered vigilance while sharpening our attention. In active imagination, Jung s most characteristic exercise for exploring nonordinary consciousness, we can distinguish at least three techniques: first, to still the chattering mind that would belittle the images and thoughts that manifest in our altered states, second, to attend to the original thinking that manifests as a curious gift from elsewhere, and third, to get involved emotionally and morally in the visionary events that unfold within us. In dealing with potentially neurotic issues, Jung would have us recognize our complex reactions for what they are, stereotyped altered states that play themselves out under the cover of a powerful and habitual emotional bias that is inadequate to the situation at hand. He would have us observe the operation of the complex as the ego-alien automatism that it is, thereby providing some opportunity for the more rational cerebral cortex to get involved. By attending to dreams and subtle changes in our waking consciousness, by practicing active imagination, and by managing our complexes, we also train ourselves

8 Shamanism and the mastery of altered states to utilize the transcendent function that makes psychological transformation possible. When we find ourselves faced with irreconcilable opposites, powerful conflicting tendencies that must be taken seriously, it is important to know that these are autonomous inner forces that deserve respect but cannot be acted upon directly. In this situation, Jung urges us to hold the tension between the opposites and observe them as they grow stronger. The task is to allow ourselves to feel pulled this way and that, while resisting the temptation to end the conflict with an arbitrary decision that would accomplish little more than to relieve the tension in the short run. In this way, we can induce the transformative/unitive state of consciousness that is characterized objectively by rhythmic harmony in the brain and subjectively by the emergence of a reconciling symbol in consciousness (CW: ). A sixth and final technique of mastery that Jung employed might be called active imagination in tandem (cf. Haule c). This is a practice that is not described in the Collected Works but rather in Jung s addresses to the students of the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich during the s (Speaking: ). He implies that the analyst and analysand inhabit a mutual emotional field during their analytic sessions. He says that if the analyst does not hide behind a professional persona but remains natural, spontaneous, open, and vulnerable, images, ideas and feelings will emerge out of the shared emotional field just as they do out of one s own personal emotional state when one is practicing active imagination in private. Within the mutual field of analysis, the original thinking that emerges is relevant to both parties. Jung says it is as if a two-million-year-old man were to enter the room with the wisdom of the human race at his disposal. If they are open to it, the two parties will come to know themselves against the wisdom of the Great Man. It is very much as though a shaman s spirit familiar were to appear. The danger for the analyst is that she may be tempted to think that it is her own wisdom that she articulates. Jung insists, therefore, that the essential discipline is to remember that the Great Man is an other, a visitor from the unconscious who is very much not the ego.

10 Good Questions about Life and Death

10 Good Questions about Life and Death Our birth is nothing but our death begun (Edward Young, Night Thoughts) 10 good questions about life and death christopher belshaw 2005 by Christopher Belshaw BLACKWELL