A Two-Thousand Year Curse

The other day I posted about the telephone sermon that my firewood cutting, fundamentalist Christian neighbor felt that he needed to give me. I'm a bit worried that come across as anti-Christian or anti-religious or just beyond all of that at times. I don't think I am. I was born and baptized a Christian for gods sakes. I may proclaim that I'm not Christian on the surface but below I am. The great thinker and psychologist James Hillman convinced me of this last year, and he alluded to it here in Lament of the Dead (A conversation about Jung's Red Book that I highly recommend to anyone interested in Jung's work.)

"When I'm talking about the Christians, I'm not only talking about those who are denominationally officially Christian, or go to Church or whatever. We're all Christians. We're all suffering the two-thousand year curse that has been laid on us by what you all like so much, the early Church." (Pg. 218)

Perhaps, I'm just one of the billions suffering from the two-thousand year curse.

Belief and Believing in God

I read the quote below to my 14 year old son this morning. He's a big fan of The Percy Jackson series (My wife is actually reading it right now) and the rest of Rick Riordan's work. And he occasionally wonders out loud if the Greek Gods actually exist. The answer I usually come up with usually is: Well, Carl Jung use to have a latin saying above one of his doorways that said: "Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit. ... Summoned or not summoned, The God is present."

Also, the quote below also reminds me of deer season a few years back. On the afternoon of Thanksgiving, my dad and I were in the bar having a couple of beers after registering a deer I'd just shot that morning. There was a guy about my age (I'm 39)sitting across from us that was close to falling-of-his-barstool drunk. He looked over at me and asked if I believed in Bigfoot. I shot back with, "I don't believe in anything." It just came out.

"James Hillman: Belief is captured in the realm of religion and Christianity makes a big deal of it. Credo. And the Christian God, you know, starts with the credo, I believe in Jesus Christ, and so on and so forth. That's part of the testament of faith. And I often wondered what would happen to the Gods of Christianity in no one believed in them. They require belief. If the God says you have to believe in me, then belief is what supports the God. The Greeks did not ask people to believe in their Gods. The Gods asked for certain rituals, or not to be forgotten, that was the most important thing. Not to be forgotten.

"Sonu Shamdasani: Belief automatically valorizes disbelief. To say 'believe in something' is a statement: the addressee is starting from a position of disbelief, or nonbelief, and is asked to move from that state to one of belief. This is the whole shift that Jung completely tries to discount. It's not a question of belief, nor was it a question of disbelief." [Pg.128, Lament of The Dead]

The Soul and Imagination

I had a guy tell me the other day that he didn't believe that we have souls. I don't know if we do or not. But I found this quote referring to Carl Jung and "The Red Book" interesting:

"...actually what he [Carl Jung with his Red Book] reestablished was that the psyche is a living world of imagination and that any person can descend into that world. That's your truth, that's what you are, that's what your soul is. You're in search of soul, and your soul is imagination. As Blake said, Jesus, the imagination, meaning the very creative power, the redemptive power, the strength that you are, is given to you by this remarkable thing that Coledridge called the esemplastic imagination, this force that presents itself figured. They are your teachers, they are your motivators, and they are your landscapes. That's what the habitations of your depths are. This seems to me the prophecy. I think this is the teaching that DOES come out [of the Red Book]."--James Hillman, Pg. 114, Lament of the Dead

15 Years Or So After...

The other day I ran across this line out of "Lament of the Dead:"

"There's something very different about feeling that I'm being lived by a story."--pg.92

Yes, there is, Mr. Hillman. And that is one of the big reasons, I think, Ishmael had such an impact on me. I had no idea at the time that you could be lived by a story. Or maybe at some level I did, but it helped me to have it brought to light by a good teacher.

Next I ask myself why I'm thinking about this book 15 years after its reading. Am I being like Alan Lomax, the main character in Ishmael, and just hanging around my guru and not got out into the world to live my life with these teachings. No, I'm not. The soul, as Plotinus and others have taught us, moves in circles. It's not linear and therefore not progressive. I'll probably circle around and periodically return to these teachings for the rest of my life.

Ishmael helped me remember that the soul is immanent.

Half-gods and Devils

Sitting with a couple of books before I head out to plant some more posts in the ground for our pole shed. I've called it a barn in the past but it's actually only half the size of your average barn. We're hoping to have the framework up and the roofs on before the snow flies.

One of the books I'm sitting with this morning is The Conduct of Life, by Lewis Mumford. I like this quote out of it: "When the god in him is repressed, the half-gods and devils take possession of man." Another one of the books that I'm sitting with is, of course, Lament of the Dead. And in it the authors explain how the half-gods and devils appeared to Carl Jung in the form of figures in his active imagination. He named, had conversations with, and sketched them. From what I understand so far this is essentially what Jung's Red Book is about.

Martyrs and Victims

No post yesterday. I got called into carry mail at the last minute.

It's Sunday morning. I've found myself going through a few of the conversations in Lament of the Dead. I was hoping I would run across their conversation about Jesus banishing the demons to hell. I'm not familiar with the Bible at all. Someday I would like to find out where it's talked about in the Good Book. Anyway, I ran across a different quote that has stuck with me since I finished LoD last week.

"We're all Christians. We're all suffering the two-thousand-year curse that has been laid on us by what you all like so much, the early Church. As Jung explains to the 'Red One,' his devil, in the Red Book, 'Do you believe that Christianity left no mark on the souls of men?' Don't forget what the early Church did, a lot of murder, a lot of victimization too. But you don't have murderers unless you have martyrs. So the enjoyment of martyrdom is all part of the same sadism."--James Hillman, pg. 218, Lament of the Dead

I think this is why Derrick Jensen refers to Christianity as a victim religion in Endgame. To some degree most of us are martyrs in this death seeking culture of ours. Why else would we allow 200 nonhuman species to go extinct everyday. You'd think we'd take a stand. We're talking about the murder of life on the planet here. It's sadistic. And I think there is a level of enjoyment in it. I also think Ishmael and most of his other work is Daniel Quinn's way of working through the wounding of Christianity.

Death and The Other World

"I think it's more a matter of realizing that there is a porous permeability between the living and the dead. Between life and death. And the way we have set it up is that death and life are opposed and you must hold off death and it's the ultimate other, and you die alone, this sort of existential whatever. And it seems to me that this offers a completely different way of realizing that the day world is permeated with the other world--in all kinds of small ways, that they're always inner voices, that the dead are cautionary figures. That you are living with the dead. And what you think of as the way of life may be the way of more death. And the way of death may be the way of more livingness. That these are not necessarily alternatives or that first you do one and then you do the other."--James Hillman, pg.25, Lament of the Dead

Derrick Jensen made it clear to me with his work that our "way of life may be the way of more death."

Not to be Forgotten

"I often wondered what would happen to the Gods of Christianity if no one believed in them. They require belief. If the God says you have to believe in me, then belief is what supports the God. The Greeks did not ask people to believe in their Gods. The Gods asked for certain rituals, or not to be forgotten, the was the most important thing. Not to be forgotten."--James Hillman, Pg.128, Lament of the Dead

I learned something interesting today while reading "Lament of the Dead." Back in the 1950's John Freeman asked Carl Jung in an interview if he believed in God. Jung hesitated for a bit then replied by saying something to the effect of: I don't believe, I know. This would mean absolutely nothing to me if I never would've read "The Holy" and the rest of Daniel Quinn's work, but especially "The Holy." The beings that drove David Kennesey over the edge and eventually to his death, I think, are good examples of beings that don't necessarily expect belief of any kind, but only ask not to be forgotten. Because, like Jung has said, called upon or not they will be present. I would guess it's better just to be aware of them instead of being asleep at the wheel. Too bad it's taken me close to a decade to come to this understanding.

An Ancestral Question Answered?

I haven't had much time in front of the computer lately. Still busy trying to get two pole buildings built before November 1st, and generally getting ready for winter. Posting will be light for awhile.

James Hillman writes in Lament of the Dead:

"...the way I understand archetypal psychology, that you must always understand who is asking the question. The task is not to get the answer, the answer is who is dominating my mind, so that that's my basic question, who is determining my point of view. It's like a deconstructive 'I'.' You don't just want to get an answer. The real answer is 'Why is that my question?'"--James Hillman, Pg. 56, The Lament of the Dead

Another reason why I think I cried with a sense of relief after reading Ishmael back in the late nineties was that an ancestral question was answered for me. A question that my grandfathers were asking generations before me. Plus, I had just come off from living and working with my grandfather for close to seven years. To a certain degree I had an understanding of his point of view and inner struggles. And if you follow Jungian psychology those inner struggles are also mine to some degree. This is probably why I tried my damdest to get him to take a look at some of Quinn's ideas.

No Mommy, Daddy, Me

Ever since hearing James Hillman mention in one of his talks that when he did therapy he always tried to make sure his patients talked about their grandparents instead of their parents, I have been fascinated. He said one thing that this did is help move the patient's mind away from so-called concrete events and into fantasy and imagination which is basically all it is anyway. In other words, what I'm hearing him say is our behaviors, habits, and emotions are fantasy based. Here is what he has to say in the Lament of the Dead. If I understand it right this was the final project he was working on before he died.

J.H:"When I was doing therapy, back in another period of history, I always tried to escape the parents, which was the story that the person always wanted to tell me--what their mother did and what their father did. You notice Jung hasn't a lot to say about them anywhere in the Red Book."

Sonu Shamdasani: "There's no 'Mommy, Daddy, me,' as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari would put it."

J.H: "But to go and ask people about their grandparents and their great-grandparents and imagining all their great-grandparents sitting down at a table. That would be eight people. Could they eat the same food? Could they talk the same language? Could they even sit with each other? But the ancestors in the book--see the reason being that it shows the enormous complexities in human nature and the incompatibilities in human nature. And the fact that your actual parents whom you think cause everything are actually the result of those tremendous incompatibilities themselves. It frees them up too." --Pg. 3, Lament of the Dead