Dregs of Yore

Reflections on Ch. 3 - The Transformation of Libido, Part II, Symbols of Transformation by Carl Jung. A cursory knowledge of Freud might lead one to believe that his theories on psychosexual development and the concept of libido explain every act of behaviour in terms of sex. However, upon reading further, one understands that Freud talks about libido as an intrinsic energy that albeit has sexual expressions in sexual as well as non-sexual situations, but is a broader component of the life force. In short, it is a “bundle of instincts” , of which, the sexual instinct is a constituent and seems to encroach in the domain of other instincts.  “The Indian fire-bringer was called Matarisvan, and the activity of fire-making is always referred to in the sacred texts by means of the verbmanthāmi, ‘to shake, to rub, to bring forth by rubbing.” - Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation. That being said, Jung explains the discovery of fire from the sexual energy in man by means of rhythm...

Reflections on Ch. 4 (The Hymn of Creation), Part I, Symbols of Transformation by Carl Jung   1. “The God image thrown up by a spontaneous act of creation is a living figure, a being that exists in its own right and therefore confronts its ostensible creator autonomously. As proof of this, it may be mentioned that the relation between the creator and the created is a dialectical one, and that, as experience shows, man has often been the person who is addressed.”                 - Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation. When one communicates with one’s unconscious, it hurls back the God-image that replies to our invocations.  Prayer evolved as a means of dialogue with the collective unconscious (which also contains the God figure that humans represent inwardly and outwardly). Beginning our prayers with “Almighty God” or “Our father who art in Heaven”, we constructed the “omnipotent” to represent all that we knew and all th...

It is a rare occurrence indeed to find a "moral" idea that Nietzsche stands for. There are plenty of ideas of the old philosophers and moralists, as well as his contemporaries, which he calls into question. However, he is vague when it comes to praising a philosopher, simply because, more often than not, he does not put his finger on the precise idea of that philosopher that he holds in high regard. “Honesty, granting that it is the virtue of which we cannot rid ourselves, we free spirits—well, we will labour at it with all our perversity and love, and not tire of "perfecting" ourselves in our virtue, which alone remains: may its glance some day overspread like a gilded, blue, mocking twilight this aging civilization with its dull gloomy seriousness!”   After all the criticism about “truth-telling” and his disclosure of our artistry of speech, Nietzsche settles upon honesty , as a virtue of man. Granted, he calls it a virtue “of which we cannot rid ourselves” (almos...

The chaos unleashed by the death of the father figure is unmatched by the death of the father, especially when the former precedes the latter. As per Jungian analysis, the father archetype takes the form of the judge, the tyrant, the king, the wise old man, the benevolent God, the guardian, the provider, the leader, and the executioner. It is an embodiment of law and order, strength, resilience, discipline, rationality, inspiration and perseverance. To find that one’s biological father is not representative of the archetypal father (or less representative thereof than is ideal) leads to the death of the father figure, which is a painful realization, especially to arrive at in childhood. It leads to a collapse in truth and faith in authority figures, disappointment and subsequent loss of respect for one’s father, a collapse in structure, and a questioning of moral values.  Depravity and incompetence elicit disgust, and when the child is privy to the depravities and incompetence of ...

Homo habilis evolved opposable thumbs somewhere between 2.1 and 1.5 million years ago. The evolution of this feature, I believe, was responsible not only for an increased range of motor movements (freeing up our forelimbs from walking requirements, giving fresh use to forelimb-based skills), but also responsible, at least in part, for the development of our problem-solving ability, goal-directed behaviour, pattern recognition, and abstract and symbolic thought. A number of professions, today, require the use of our hands. When we stretch out our hand to grasp or pick up an object, let’s say, a coffee mug, we align the shape of our hand into a hollow shape that would roughly match the dimensions of the coffee mug itself. By doing so, we are integrating the objects in our environment with our state of existence, and using them not only to navigate the world around us but also to manipulate it - a rather Piagetian perspective though. Gripping also symbolises possession. The experience of ...

On the subject of nature and nurture, fate and free will, I would say that the Piagetian state of the child exploring the world around it with awe and curiosity, learning to map it using its sensory systems and implementing goal-directed behaviours that can be reduced to conscious muscle movement is strangely akin to the picture of a prehistoric man exploring the brutal unfathomable world around him. “What once dominated waking life, while the mind was still young and incompetent, seems now to have been banished into the night - just as the primitive weapons, the bows and arrows, that have been abandoned by adult men, turn up once more in the nursery.” - Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation.   Our ancestors breathed their learning into our genetic code, much of which directs our behaviours and shapes our perceptions. It is this collective unconscious which represents fate or nature, and it is the Piagetian child that embodies free will. This is the idea of reincarnatio...