Imago Mundi

Inferno

2007-01-12T22:43:00.000-05:00

Marsilio Ficino writes in his Opera Omnia:

The ardor of the mind is never extinguished, whether it looks at human or at divine things. If it desires human things, what mass of wealth, what fullness of empire ends that ardor? If it desires divine things, it is not satisfied with any knowledge of finite or created things.

Like the fervor of an inferno, the mind, for Ficino, is never at rest. It is never content with its discoveries or its accomplishments. There is a fiery grief that underlies human existence that can grip the mind like a vise. One is sometimes thrown into a pit of despair where the beasts of the underworld gnaw fiercely at the Soul until all strength is depleted. It doesn’t matter if one possesses the material riches of this world, the Soul is not satisfied; it doesn’t matter if one discovers the truths which philosophers seek, the Soul is still filled with an unrest that defies reason.

This conflagration is no transitory state. It lies hidden beneath the usual placidity of the mind, ready to blaze out of control at any given moment. Ficino makes the astute observation that many times a fire can be unleashed when we are at leisure, when our minds are unburdened by the mundane cares of everyday living: “whenever we are at leisure, we fall into grief like exiles” (ibid. 208). He says we try to expel our grief by socializing and pleasures, but when the party’s over, we are more sorrowful than we were before.

I can’t count the number of times this has happened in my own life. I suppose I have always sensed the underlying grief of my peculiar existence. I can’t remember when it wasn’t there, lurking in the shadows. Since I began studying philosophy about twenty years ago, it has nearly overwhelmed me at times. Sometimes it happens when boredom sets in. Boredom appears to be a great enemy of Soul. Schopenhauer once said, "The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom." But pain and boredom are just ingredients in the alchemical recipe. Soul descends, then ascends, then down again, then back up, ad infinitum. It is as Heraclitus taught, a constant, circular flux. Boredom, pain, and grief are just as important to the health of Soul as are joy and happiness. The attempt of modern clinical psychology to totally rid the mind of depression is misguided. Soul must move in its own natural way.

Referring to Soul Ficino says, “after a short and false bitterness, a true and lasting sweetness overflows it” (ibid. 209). Many spiritual paths teach that the road to God, enlightenment, etc. is an ascent. We hear about “spiritual development,” “spiritual growth,” or a much older version, the Scala Paradisi. Ficino recognizes, not an exclusive ascent, but a continual rising and falling of the moods of Soul, indicating an ongoing process of change. The unrest seems to be a cathartic process, where old things are continually discarded and new things are continually acquired. Soul strips itself at times of dead things, and gives birth to new things. If this didn’t occur, Soul would be lost.

The fire of Soul is not extinguished, no matter how hard we try. Its ways are its own. Its course is set and it must not deviate. The path of Soul is our destiny.

We Drink Dreams

2007-01-12T22:33:00.000-05:00

We are all like Tantalus. We are all thirsty for the true goods, but we all drink dreams. While we absorb the deadly waves of the river of Lethe through our open throats, we scarcely lick with our lips a shadowlike bit of nectar and ambrosia. Therefore, a troublesome thirst continually burns us, oh we poor Tantali (qtd. in Kristeller, 210).

This wonderful quote, which I found in Paul Kristeller’s work on Marsilio Ficino, is in the context of Ficino’s musings on melancholia, especially the melancholy of scholars.

Ficino uses the Greek myth of Tantalus to illustrate how we come so very close to truth at times, only to have it snatched away from us. Banished to Hades by the gods for serving up his son at a banquet, he was caused to stand chin-deep in the water with fruit dangling above him. When he would try to eat or drink, the water would recede or the fruit would be lifted away, just out of his reach. A horrible punishment, indeed!

I have experienced this many times in my own search for truth. Just when I think I have retained a nugget of insight into the workings of my own psyche, I am dashed against the rocks by doubts and fears. I reach for that delicious piece of fruit, only to have it snatched away from me by some element of uncertainty. I stoop to drink from the waters of life and they, in turn, recede from me. It is a terrible plight, especially for the thoughtful person.

This phrase strikes a deep chord within me: “we all drink dreams.” We thirst for truth, but instead we drink dreams. One way I look at this is to think about my own experiences with dreams. Most of the time, I cannot remember my dreams. It is utterly frustrating. I know that what I just dreamed is important, possibly some clue to help me understand myself better, but the image just slips away. Sometimes I can close my eyes and think about it a little and a bit of it will return. If I wait until I am fully awake, it is useless. I have to be in a hypnagogic state to even come close to remembering. Usually, no effort on my part will retrieve it. This may be part of what Ficino is talking about. We desire to drink freely and fully from the waters of life, but instead we drink only bits and pieces of elusive images.

Ficino says we “absorb the deadly waves of the river of Lethe.” In some Greek myths, if a newly dead soul drank from the Lethe, he/she would forget what had happened to them in their previous life. To Ficino, forgetfulness seems to be a deadly state. Possibly, he is thinking of Socrates’ doctrine of recollection. Perhaps he feels that forgetfulness leads us away from truth because we do not remember truth discovered in previous existences. When we forget truth, we grab at shadows of the true. We mistake the shadows for the real. In this state, we are deceived. It is similar to the Hindu concept of maya, I think.

Even though we drink our fill from the waves of the Lethe, we are still parched, hence our state of melancholia. This happens to me on a regular basis. I may feel that I have learned many new things from my studies, and thus I feel elated. The next day, I may awaken with a gnawing feeling of despondency. I can’t explain it; it is simply there. I may have no apparent reason to feel depressed, but yet I do. It is a great mystery to me. I feel, however, that my encounters with melancholia actually lift me, in a paradoxical way, toward that which I seek.

Z

Works Cited

Kristeller, Paul Oskar. The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino. New York: Columbia UP,
1943.

Daimon

2007-01-09T21:38:00.000-05:00

Man’s character is his fate.
--Heraclitus

These few words contain much truth. The Greek is quite illuminating: ethos anthropoi daimon. I think the crucial word here is daimon. Many translations render it as “fate,” but there is much more to it. In a History of Philosophy course some years ago, we studied about Socrates’ daimon. When I recently ran across the original words of Heraclitus, I had some inkling of what he might be referring to.

Daimon, for the Greeks, could mean a couple of different things. First, it could mean “one’s destiny, or one’s prosperity or misfortune” (Kahn 261). It can also be associated with theos (god). Kahn says the root meaning is “one who distributes or assigns a portion” (ibid.).

Of course, in Plato, Socrates’ daimon was an interior guiding voice. He mentions it many times in the dialogues. There was a belief in the ancient world that daimones were mediators between gods and men, thus they belonged to a middle region which they called metaxu. In the Republic, the Myth of Er tells how each soul who is about to enter the life it has chosen, is assigned a “demon” by Lachesis, one of the Fates, as a “guardian of the life and a fulfiller of what was chosen” (Plato 303). This guardian remains with the person throughout their earthly life.

What can we say Heraclitus means when he says, “Man’s character is his daimon?” It seems to me a good idea that each of us are destined to fulfill a certain role in life. Without trying to prove the existence of the daimon, I could give numerous examples of people who have followed their innate abilities and realized their destinies. Take, for example, Michelangelo. At the age of thirteen, he so amazed his future patron, Lorenzo de Medici with his first attempt at sculpture that Lorenzo invited him to study at the Medici Gardens, and later brought him into his own household. Initially, Michelangelo’s father didn’t like the idea of his son becoming an artist. He believed Michelangelo would live in poverty if he didn’t become a merchant or businessman. He didn’t mind, however, when his son began making large sums of money. Michelangelo listened to his inner yearnings and chose the path of his destiny.

We could discuss others, but space does not permit. It seems that in all accomplishments, there is a sort of “guiding hand,” not necessarily an external entity, just some inner force that nudges us in a certain direction. We don’t have to take it literally and say there is a separate being that accompanies us through life. We are in the realm of the mythical. Let’s not get caught in the web of literalism. Nevertheless, there is a power within us that is worth listening to.

Heraclitus is telling us that the character of our lives, our ethos, how we will be remembered when we have passed from this life, is connected to how we treat our innate destinies, abilities, daimones. Will we “follow our hearts” and attempt to grasp why we are here, or will we tread the path of egocentrism, forgetting that our idea of ego is but an illusion? This last statement, enters the realm of moralizing and that is not the intended purpose. I don’t think ethics play a role in the daimonic. Much to our dismay, Even Hitler followed his inner promptings.

I am unsure whether the voice within me is separate from my deep inner Self. I don’t think it really matters. What is important is that the voice be recognized and honored as being valuable to my life. Socrates said of the daimon in the Apology:

. . . something divine and spiritual comes to me, the very thing which Meletus ridiculed in his indictment. I have had this from my childhood; it is a sort of voice that comes to me, and when it comes it always holds me back from what I am thinking of doing, but never urges me forward” (31d).

Perhaps more than in any other time in history, we need to begin listening to the daimon. There are many things we don’t understand about ourselves and this world. We can use all the guidance we can get.

Whoever . . . scrutinizes his mind . . . will find his own natural work, and will find likewise his own star and daemon, and following their beginnings he will thrive and live happily. Otherwise, he will find fortune to be adverse, and he will feel that heaven hates him (Ficino 169).

Marsilio Ficino, obviously influenced by Greek tales of the daimonic, makes some very precise statements concerning the consequences of following or ignoring one’s daimon. The search for one’s place in the world is often overshadowed by many things, such as the quest for affluence, worrying about what others think, or being pushed into a certain vocation by one’s family. Ficino gives a seemingly simple plan for ensuring a fulfilling life. But if it is so simple, why do we see so many miserable people in the world? Surely it isn’t because most people have never heard of Marsilio Ficino. The truth he brings seems self-evident. Some find their niche naturally by simply following their heart, even if they have never read Plato or Ficino or any of the other thinkers who have advised us of this truth. For these, it is instinctual.

In my personal situation, I got off to a good start, but became very confused as life progressed. In elementary school, I was considered very bright, possibly even gifted. I received straight A’s until I was in the seventh grade. By the time I was sixteen, I had lost most of my interest in school. My personal reading was much more fascinating. It fueled my inquisitive nature while school bored me to tears. My teachers seemed imbecilic, and my parents had no idea people could actually choose a vocation which coincided with their natural inclinations. Needless to say, I had no external guidance. By the time I married at twenty, I was thoroughly misplaced. I had a factory job which was akin to slavery, at least in my mind. I was enslaved to the grind of the routine machine.

I worked second-shift, three to eleven. When I would get home at night, I would sit up into the wee hours reading. This was the only free time I had and I cherished it. I began reading about things that interested me. It was just light stuff, something to get my mind off my miserable job. After a few years, I found myself going to the library and checking out books of a more philosophical bent. After awhile, I got involved with computers and online discussions. This is really where I discovered how much I love philosophy. At that time, I made up my mind, with the help of the daimon, to study philosophy.

I suppose my main point in all of this is to say that my reading caused me to enter into an inner process of scrutinizing. If something fueled my imagination, I read everything I could find on the subject. By doing this, I found out something about my daimon, my character, my natural inclinations. I have been in situations where I did not follow my inner voice and it is not pleasant. Just as Ficino says, it felt like heaven was against me.

Even though I believe I am now following my heart, sometimes I feel guilty. Here I am, forty-something years old, green-skinned and bald, and still have no idea what I will do with the rest of my life. I suppose I feel that my life’s work should already be established. God knows a philosophy degree is not worth much in the world of business. But because I have already experienced life without Soul, I refuse to return to such a miserable existence. Even though I would like to make a good living, I will not return to a life of drudgery, where my natural inclinations don’t matter.

Works Cited

Ficino, Marsilio. The Book of Life. Irving: Spring, 1980.

Kahn, Charles H. The Art and Thought of Heraclitus. New York: Cambridge, 1979

Plato. The Republic. Trans. Alan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1968.

Mnemosyne

2007-01-09T21:30:00.000-05:00

Mnemosyne was the daughter of Gaia and Uranus in Hesiod's Theogony, one of the Twelve Titans. In Greek myth, she is the personification of memory. Zeus lay with Mnemosyne nine nights and bore the Nine Muses. She is also said to be the inventor of words.

Mnemosyne is also the name of one of the five rivers flowing through Hades. After their deaths, initiates of the Greek mystery religions were encouraged to drink from the Mnemosyne instead of the Lethe (forgetfulness), probably so that, after they were reincarnated, they would remember their past lives.

Plato taught that the world of Ideas is the true reality, and that appearances and particulars are relatively unreal. The purpose of human life, in his estimation, is for souls to participate in this realm of Ideas. Basically, the soul becomes more intelligible by focusing on imperceptibles (the Forms) instead of constantly concentrating on the world of perceptibles (this world, matter, literal reality).

I would add that the realm of Ideas includes metaphor, images, dreams, myths, etc. In my thinking, these have more durable substance than perceptibles. So, I suppose I am saying that Soul is fashioned as one learns to pay attention to Imperceptibles.

Memory is the means by which Soul can free itself from the prison of matter and become more intelligible, thus having the ability to walk unfettered in the world of Ideas. Remember, this is all metaphorical. Soul is not a literal substance that sits in the pineal gland, as Descartes claimed.

Plato believed that memory is

that power by which the soul is enabled to profer in some future period, some former energy: and the energy of this power is reminiscence. Now the very essence of intellect is energy, and all its perceptions are nothing more than visions of itself: but all the energies of soul are derived from intellectual illumination. Hence we may compare intellect to light, the soul to an eye, and Memory to that power by which the soul is converted to the light, and actually perceives. But the visions of the soul participate of greater or less reality, in proportion as she is more or less intimately converted to the divine light of intellect. In the multitude of mankind, indeed, the eye of the soul perceives with but a glimmering light, being accustomed to look constantly abroad into the dark and fluctuating regions of sense, and to contemplate solely the shadowy forms of imagination; in consequence of which, their memory is solely employed on objects obscure, external, and low. But in the few who have purified that organ of the soul, by which truth can alone be perceived, and which, as Plato says, is better worth saving than ten thousand eyes of sense; who have disengaged this eye from that barbaric clay with which it was buried, and have by this means turned it as from some benighted day, to bright and real vision: in these, Souls, Memory and Reminiscense, are entirely conversant with those divine ideal forms, so familiar to the soul before her immersion in body (From a footnote to The Hymns of Orpheus, translated by Thomas Taylor, 1792)

I leave you with this poem to Mnemosyne:

Help me Mnemosyne, thou Titaness
Thou ancient one, daughter of Heaven and Earth,
Mother of the Muses, who inhabit not
In flowery mount or crystal spring, but in
The dark and confin'd cavern of the skull -
O Memory, who holds the thread that links
My modern mind to those of ancient days.

- A.S. Byatt, Possession

Water

2007-01-08T21:32:00.000-05:00

For souls, it is death to become water, and for water death to become earth. Water comes into existence out of earth, and soul out of water. --Heraclitus

The first thought that comes to mind upon reading this passage is that Soul, for Heraclitus, is capable of becoming. It can change from a state of being dry to that of being wet. There would seem to be a dichotomy of Soul here, but there really isn’t. Heraclitus believes that Soul can pass back and forth between the two states, yet remain one. This signifies its opposition, and thus its harmony. It is in line with his ideas of constant flux and the unity of opposites. So far, Soul follows the same cosmological principles as all other things in existence.

Why is it death for Soul to become water? In another fragment, Heraclitus says, “a dry soul is wisest and best.” I am assuming he is thinking about his idea of fire as cosmic principle. Soul is a mixture of both fire and water, it seems. The more fire, the drier it is; the more water, the wetter it is. More fire means a wiser and superior Soul. The wet Soul becomes by yielding to the passions through surfeit, the more inferior it is.

The way we are to keep Soul dry is to “follow the common.” The common is the logos, the principle of the ordering of the universe. The common says, “It is not good for men to get all they wish to get.” Overindulging in anything moistens the Soul. Here, Heraclitus is simply using good common sense. Excess is a sure road to failure.

Perhaps Heraclitus derived his view from observing Nature in action. The rain falls and mixes with earth and is washed into the sea, thus bringing about the seeming destruction of earth. Assuming Soul is being compared with dry earth, then it would be, in a sense, death to become water. The dry earth, being washed away by the sea, dissolves into the sea and cannot be recognized as earth. Paradoxically, however, water comes from the earth; there is a continual exchange. Harmony is the result of this strife. Dryness and wetness are both attributable to Soul. They are two, but yet they are one, just as Nature is one. The logos of Soul includes dryness and wetness. The two, striving against each other, help bring about our very existence.

I don’t think Heraclitus is saying the Soul literally dies. I believe he thinks Soul is immortal; he just doesn’t say so. His cyclical, regenerative worldview implies that Soul also be cyclical and regenerative. For a time, Soul is wet and ignoble. Then, there is a shift to dryness. A desirable state of balance between the two extremes is reached, which brings about a state of symmetry.

When I think of dry as a metaphor, I think of dull and boring. For me, wet seems more alive and exciting. It reminds me of vacationing on an island or beach. It is peculiar how images are viewed differently around the world and in different historical milieus. Perhaps it is because we have lost touch with Soul, due to our extreme emphasis on the materialistic. We think of pleasure and material things as fiery, superior, exciting, while things of the Soul, such as art, poetry, philosophy, and literature are dull and boring. At least that seems to be the opinion of most people. Of course, metaphors also lose their power over time and must be reinvented.

Heraclitus gives us the idea that Soul comes into existence out of water. Again, I don’t take this literally. I don’t think his worldview includes a finite moment of creation for Soul, or anything else in Nature. This view may have been influenced by Thales’ assertion that all things originate with water. But Heraclitus gives us something else to think about: “water comes into existence out of earth.” This would make absolutely no sense if we take it in a linear fashion. What if we say, “Water comes into existence out of Soul” and “Soul comes into existence out of water?” We interpreted dry earth as a metaphor for soul earlier, so this seems to be a valid statement. Here again is a cyclical mode of thought. It is in line with Heraclitus’ cosmology. Soul is in constant, cyclical motion, exchanging dry for wet, wet for dry, hot for cold, cold for hot, etc. Soul is at the foundation of human existence; our lives are energized by the endless unrest.

Trees

2007-01-08T20:54:00.000-05:00

Albert Einstein said,

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

I am of the opinion that we can learn all we need to know from Nature. The Hermetic maxim,

As above, so below.

implies this in the sense that Nature as Macrocosm mirrors man as Microcosm. We can learn more about the Microcosm, ourselves, by observing and pondering the images we see in Nature.

With that in mind, I would like to focus on the tree, a very common image that most of us see everyday. The tree has long been used in religious and mystical teachings to represent life, its proliferation, abundance, growth, and regeneracy. It is a very important symbol in the teachings of most religions. For example, In Norse mythology, the Yggdrasil is a huge ash tree that connects the nine worlds of the Norse cosmos. In Mayan religion, the Wacah Chan similarly encompasses the three realms of Mayan cosmology. The Tree of Life in Christianity and Judaism is well-known. In alchemy, the arbor philosophica symbolizes evolutionary growth. In Qabala, the Sephirotic Tree of Life is the central symbol for the entire teaching.

I've become interested recently in the image of the inverted tree, with the roots growing into the heavens and the branches growing into the earth. Humans are such trees, but there is something else. Humans are also trees having their branches growing into the heavens, while their roots grow deep into the earth. Paradoxical? Yes, but we are such beings. This symbol is akin to the Yin-Yang of Taoism.

I could get into what I think are the implications of this image, but I am interested in what you think. I leave you to ponder the beautiful symbol of the Celtic Tree of Life, which I have posted.

Images, Dreams, And Literalism

2007-01-07T00:51:00.000-05:00

Taking images literally, with the same kind of realism as the ego uses in the daylight world--this is the heroic error, a mistake of Herculean proportion, given further Judeo-Christian blessing through warnings against demons, dreams, ikons, and all forms of the soul's imaginings (Dream And The Underword, by James Hillman, page 116).

The literal mindset has wreaked incredible havoc in Western civilization. The tendency to literalize images has been a problem in human history ever since the advent of ego in the dark, misty past. When ratiocination became firmly entrenched in the human psyche, literalism was intensified.

No religion has done more to damage the way we view images as Christianity. Warnings have been issued by Church leaders since the beginning of Christianity concerning dreams, visions, icons, demons, etc. Why the fear of images? Are they afraid we may learn something about reality they don't want us to know? Was this another method to keep the masses in their place? It has been a disaster for Soul. Literalistic religion is poisonous.

We have been taught that real is the same as corporeal. This is yet another lie to provoke attack upon images. It's a well-known fact that people can imagine themselves to be ill until they actually become physically ill. That's a real phenomenon.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy (From Shakespeare's Hamlet).

Logic breaks down when it tries to examine the imaginal. It simply can't deal with it. Logic is the work of the ego, the hero who would bravely slay the dragon of irrationality.

Ego cannot deal with images, such as dreams. Because it can't find clear meaning, it guesses, assigning all sorts of interpretations to the image.

Each morning we repeat our Western history, slaying our brother, the dream, by killing its images with interpretative concepts that explain the dream to the ego" (Hillman, 116).

A dream-image is what it is, nothing more, nothing less.

What is the Soul's purpose in dreaming, then, if not to send us messages from the unconscious?

Enantiodromia

2007-01-05T21:33:00.000-05:00

The ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, tells us that "the way up and the way down are one and the same" (qtd. in Wheelwright 78). The idea that opposites complement each other and are actually the same is still alive today in the psychology of Carl Jung. As we will see, Jung relied heavily on the interrelatedness of opposites to explain his entire psychological theory. This article will attempt to show the Heraclitan influence in Jungian thought.

The philosophy of Heraclitus is one of the most fascinating examples of thinking in the ancient world. He may have been influenced by Eastern philosophies seeping into the Mediterranean region. He was certainly inspired by the Pythagorean and Milesian thinkers. He was rumored to be a pupil of Xenophanes.

Heraclitus understood the world to be a place where nothing remains fixed; everything is in flux and is constantly being transformed.

One of the main aspects of his teaching is that "opposition brings concord," and "out of discord comes the fairest harmony" (qtd. in Wheelwright 77). What he means by this apparent contradiction is that both positive and negative realities are required in order for harmony to exist. Justice is exhibited by the striving of one thing against another, for in this striving there is agreement or harmonia. He points to the bow and the lyre to illustrate his point. The strings of a bow and lyre require tension in order to operate harmoniously. If the bowstring were not tightened, an arrow could not be shot. Similarly, if the lyre strings were not tightened there would be no beautiful music. There is harmony in the shooting of an arrow with a bow, and in the music of a lyre, just as there is a certain harmony in the world. The discord which we experience is merely the process whereby unanimity arises. Heraclitus teaches that the consensus is not obvious, but concealed, for "hidden harmony is better than the obvious" (qtd. in Wheelwright 79).

Heraclitus believed that fire, which he seems to identify with God, or the world process, is the source of all becoming. "It throws apart and then brings together again; it advances and retires. Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed" (qtd. in Wheelwright 70-71). To him, fire was the perfect symbol to describe reality.

Regarding the human soul, Heraclitus believed it is impossible to ascertain its limits, in the sense of our understanding the depths of the soul. He said, "You could not discover the limits of the soul, even if you traveled by every path in order to do so; such is the depth of its meaning" (qtd. in Wheelwright 72). Here, we have an indication of a similarity arising with what we in the modern world call depth psychology, of which Jung's Analytical Psychology is an example. Depth psychology is based on the theory of the unconscious mind, i.e., that there are things in the mind which we are not consciously aware of. Sometimes our conscious minds will thrust something which is too painful to bear into the unconscious. These things can then fester in the unconscious, affecting our conscious attitude. For example, certain emotions can be repressed and can influence behavior, many times causing mental distress. The main point here is that Heraclitus recognized the boundless depth of the human psyche some twenty-five hundred years before Freud and Jung.

As in the Heraclitan doctrine, Jungian psychology stresses the existence of a conflict of opposites, or enantiodromia. This is a term which Heraclitus used to describe the endless to and fro process of the eternal flux. The opposites are at war with each other, but in this conflict there is harmony, for both positive and negative need one another. Jung based his theory of compensation on this principle, claiming that the conscious attitude, at times, must be balanced by gaining awareness of certain unconscious processes. According to Jung,

Just as all energy proceeds from opposition, so the psyche too possesses its inner polarity, this being the indispensable prerequisite for its aliveness, as Heraclitus realized long ago" (Jung 346).

A good example of what Jung means lies in an explanation of his doctrine of the anima and animus.

For Jung, all human beings have both male and female characteristics. For instance, all men have a female element abiding in their unconscious minds. Similarly, all women have an unconscious male element. One's conscious attitude is usually dominated by those characteristics belonging to whatever sex one happens to be. The opposing characteristics, if not recognized by the conscious mind, can bring about many problems in the conscious attitude. For instance, a man who is not aware of his anima may experience irrational moods, peevishness, and bad temper. (Bennet 122). A woman who represses her animus may, for example, not respect the feelings of others because she is overly rational (Bennet 130). For men, Jung called the female image anima. For women, the male image is the animus. These are Latin words which both mean "soul." Anima is feminine; animus is masculine. If one set of characteristics is dominant, the opposite will manifest itself in dreams, possibly hinting at how the conscious attitude should be adjusted so that balance can be restored to the psyche.

Another area where Jung was influenced by Heraclitus is in his personality typology. Again, he utilizes the Heraclitan principle of enantiodromia to explain why people have different personalities. He begins with the distinction between what he terms introverts and extroverts. Basically, the introvert is characterized by a flow of energy inward; the concentration is on the subject. The extrovert's energy flows outward, into the world; the concentration is on objects and other people. Every person has both characteristics within them, just as in the anima/animus doctrine. One of the two, however, will dominate the conscious attitude.

Each of these basic attitude types consists of four functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. As in the introvert/extrovert distinction, one of the opposites will be dominant. For instance, someone may be an extrovert who is thinking-oriented instead of feeling-oriented. This person might also be guided more by his intuition than his senses. Another may be an introvert who is feeling oriented, and who relates more to sensation. Using this procedure, Jung was able to study human beings in a more precise manner. The Myers-Briggs Personality Test, used by psychologists today, is based on Jung's typology.

Bibliography

Bennet, E.A. What Jung Really Said. New York: Schocken, 1966.

Jung, C.G. Memories, Dreams, and Reflections. New York: Vintage, 1965.

Wheelwright, Philip. The Presocratics. Indianapolis: ITT, 1966.

Ficino's Idea Of Soul

2007-01-01T23:24:00.000-05:00

The theme of Soul is the thread that weaves together the tapestry of Ficino's thinking. I would like to focus on a passage from Ficino's commentary on Plato's Phaedrus:

You must understand that in approaching the task of depicting the idea of the soul. . . (Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedrian Charioteer, Michael J.B. Allen, page 96).

He goes on to describe six conceptions of the soul, which I may deal with in later essays. For now, however, my aim is to dissect what Ficino means by an idea of the soul.

Years ago, when I was taught about the soul as a Christian, the language used suggested an objective entity living inside my body that is the real me, the me which will ascend to Heaven when this body is no longer functional. I was under the impression that my soul and spirit were one in the same and that I somehow possessed them in the same way I possessed clothing or a pair of shoes. Why did they speak of my soul as if I owned it? All of this was frustrating and perplexing to me.

When I began trying to break free from the influence of Christianity, (which is a very difficult thing to do, by the way) I tried to understand myself in various ways, most of which brought me no closer to understanding my human nature. I could not accept the viewpoint of materialism, so I delved into depth psychology. I have always been convinced that my epiphanous experiences of music, literature, philosophy, and art have a deeper explanation than simply brain chemistry. Actually, there is probably no explanation at all, for "You could never arrive at the limits of soul, no matter how many roads you traveled, so deep is its mystery" (Heraclitus). I am now of the opinion that Ficino's idea of soul, which is of course heavily influenced by people like Heraclitus, Plato, and Plotinus could be of great value to me in my understanding.

What I like most about Ficino's idea of soul is that it is just that, an idea. He doesn't claim that his idea of soul is the definitive explanation, as we are accustomed to hearing in dogmatic theology. I think he is letting us know that soul is something very deep and mysterious, which we will never fully understand. The best we can do is use metaphorical language (ideas) to help us scratch the surface. Furthermore, I don't think he is coming to us from the point of view of religion, even though he was an ordained priest. From what I have read so far, he is telling us that Soul is the foundation for all aspects of our lives. It is the very bedrock of our existence here in this world. Perhaps Soul is akin to Heidegger's Dasein?

Ficino doesn't seem to compartmentalize our experience of the world, as we see today. For example, a university has different colleges, which are totally set apart, to study liberal arts, engineering, mathematics, etc. The spirit of the Renaissance, which Ficino was so attuned to, examined human experience as a holistic endeavor. Engineering was as much an aspect of Soul as the liberal arts. I think it is sad we have lost touch with this viewpoint. I recall Heidegger's discussion of tools and how they interact with Dasein. I would venture to say that a similar discussion could be made using the idea of Soul.

The main point in this essay, then, is that Soul, in Ficino's writings, is an idea, a perspective, a way of seeing something that is unfathomable and mysterious.

The Collective Unconscious

2006-12-31T11:30:00.000-05:00

Carl Gustav Jung did very original work in his field. One thing that seems to be largely ignored is that he was also an ingenious philosopher. Some of his theories deal with important philosophical questions rather than strictly psychological issues. One such theory has to do with what he called the collective unconscious.

When Jung entered the field of psychology around the turn of the twentieth century, there were notions of an unconscious region prevalent among those who studied the human mind, even before Sigmund Freud began writing about the subconscious as a repository of repressions. Investigators of spiritualism, such as F.W.H. Myers, author of Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, wrote about mental activity which exists below the threshold of consciousness (Bennet 60). At least two philosophers had been speculating on this subject prior to the twentieth century. According to the Dictionary of Philosophy,

the doctrine of the subconscious was foreshadowed in Leibniz's doctrine of petite perceptions (Monadology, sections 21, 23) and received philosophical expression by A. Schopenhauer (Runes 303).

Jung immediately picked up on the idea as a possible explanation for results obtained in experiments with so-called "association tests," that is, where the doctor gives the patient a word and instructs him/her to respond with the first word which arises in the mind. Jung claimed that this method

demonstrates very accurately the presence of conflicts in the form of "complexes" of feeling-toned ideas, as they are called, which betray themselves through characteristic disturbances in the course of the experiment (Jung, Two Essays 30).

Apparently, Jung was able to arrive at the notion that complexes exist in a region of the mind which was not known to the conscious subject. Complexes are repressed, emotionally-charged ideas which conflict with other ideas in the mind. He was also very influenced in this area by the work being done by Freud.

By observing the dreams and hallucinations of his patients at the Burghozli Hospital in Switzerland, Jung theorized that the unconscious consists of what he termed the personal unconscious, and a deeper, more primal and impersonal area, which he called the collective unconscious. This latter notion, among others, was a new idea that caused a rift between Jung and Freud. Jung was discovering that many of the images related to him by his patients were recurring mythological motifs which Jung claimed were universal. This led him to believe that the human race is connected somehow at the unconscious level. Freud vehemently denied that such a theory was needed. Jung, however, was convinced that his hypothesis was true. The two never reconciled their differences, but Freud later admitted that certain "archaic remnants" exist in the mind which he could not adequately explain.

In contrast to the personal unconscious, which Jung said contains "lost memories, painful ideas that are repressed, subliminal perceptions, . . . and contents that are not yet ripe for consciousness" (Jung, Two Essays 76), the collective unconscious harbors primordial images which are universal to mankind. These images, or archetypes, as Jung called them, are inherited motifs,

. . . mental forms whose presence cannot be explained by anything in the individual's own life and which seem to be aboriginal, innate, and inherited shapes of the human mind (Jung, Man and His Symbols 57).

Certain mythological themes occur in dreams and in the fantasies of mental patients which are common among human beings the world over. The claim that these motifs exist among all cultures has been much heralded by Joseph Campbell, author of many books on comparative mythology. Campbell, who is obviously an adherent of Jungian psychology, presents strong evidence for the existence of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, even though his evidence is really empirically untestable. As one example, the figure of a mother goddess exists in the mythology of many diverse cultures, even those separated by vast oceans.

A problem with this theory, however, is that it is not falsifiable. We cannot test these assertions, since they supposedly exist at a level of the mind which is not open to our scrutiny. Saying that humans are connected in some mysterious way at the subconscious level is like saying that we have lived past lives; neither theory is testable at the empirical level. But, of course, logic breaks down in such areas of inquiry.

Jung does not agree with John Locke that the mind of a new-born infant is a tabula rasa. More akin to Kant, he believes there are certain inherited a priori structures of the mind, which are "patterns of instinctual behavior" (Bennet 66). These patterns shape our lives--who we are, how we act, and where our destinies lie.

According to Jung, the archetypes are analogous to human instincts in that they are images of the instincts. They are inborn and unlearned, just like instincts. And just as instincts evolve from repeated experiences of a species, so have the archetypes evolved in the human species from repeated inner experiences. For example, the archetype of the hero, which Joseph Campbell spent considerable time writing about, is a process that is seen in all cultures, and which seems to have evolved as a means of overcoming what we call schizophrenia. According to Campbell (who is quoting a Dr. John Perry), the way a schizophrenic loses touch with reality and turns inward corresponds to the mythical journey of the hero, who

ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder; fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won; the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow men (Campbell 209).

A good example of this is in Wolfram von Eschenbach's story of the Holy Grail, Parzifal being the hero.

Campbell (and Dr. Jung) believed that the inward journey of a schizophrenic could be a process of healing if it were left to run its course. So here we have an inner instinctual process which may have evolved as a way for the species to deal with mental illness. This is what Jung seems to have meant when he said the archetypes are images of the instincts.

Jung saw the pre-rational forms of the mind as being analogous to the inherited bodily form which we all possess. Just as most of us have two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head, so the basal layer of the mind also has its inherited structure, namely the archetypes. These are common in all humans just as our bodily form is common to all.

In one way, Jung's theory of the archetypes is similar to Plato's theory of Forms. Plato would say that for everything there is a Form, which is the original blueprint of a particular thing. Just so, the archetypes of the collective unconscious are patterns of inner workings which supply a certain "inborn manner of comprehension" (Bennet 69). But, instead of placing the Forms in a world totally separate from ours, as Plato did, Jung places his archetypes in the primal layer of the human mind. Jung seems closer to Immanuel Kant, even though Kant did not posit a pre-rational and unconscious archetypal storehouse (perhaps this could be tied in with noumenon?).

As much as I like this theory of Jung's, I have certain reservations. For example, I am not fond of dichotomizing, i.e., I do not see a need to separate personal unconscious from collective unconscious. Perhaps they need to be distinguished when discussing them, but, in reality, a reciprocal flow between the personal and collective would have to occur. Actually, from reading Jung himself, I think he also had this notion, for he mentions that, sometimes, contents of the collective unconscious irrupt into the conscious mind, as when a schizophrenic hallucinates, or when we dream. He probably did not intend for personal and collective to be thought of as separate. After all, these are just metaphors for our experiences, and cannot be expected to be precisely literal accounts of what really occurs in the mind.

Another problem I have is that it seems it would be very difficult to gain knowledge of the collective unconscious, and thereby become an integrated personality (no imbalance between conscious and unconscious), without either being extremely familiar with ancient mythological motifs oneself, or having the assistance of someone who is both trained in mythology and psychology. In Jung's schema, it seems nearly impossible to develop one's personality (or individuate, as Jung calls it) without such specialized knowledge or aid. Personally, I have followed my dreams for months at a time and have been baffled as to what inner workings they represent. I no longer think that the goal of human striving if a unified whole. I am of the opinion fragmentation is natural for us. The unified view smacks of monotheism, in my opinion, and is not in line with the way we are, as we are phenomenologically.

So, is Jung's hypotheses of the collective unconscious and the archetypes worth anything to us? In my opinion, they are extremely valuable, just as Plato's theory of the Forms is valuable, even though they may not be totally accurate. Such theories provide for us a point of departure for future thinking. They are images and metaphors to propel us on to greater lucidity.

We are barely scratching the surface in our knowledge of the human mind. The future holds great discoveries which may reconcile the views of science and the ideas of someone like Carl Jung. There are still great mysteries to be solved, as in the areas of hypnosis and dream research, and, perhaps, how this all ties in with the enigma of quantum physics. Jung, along with Freud, provided a framework for such studies. Even though Jung's ideas sound strange to the rational mind, we should hear him out, and consider very carefully what he said before labeling him a psychotic, as one psychology professor described Jung to me a few years ago. I was not surprised, seeing the professor's main thrust was Behaviorism.

Bibliography

Bennet, E.A. What Jung Really Said. New York: Schocken, 1966.

Campbell, Joseph. Myths to Live By. New York: Bantam, 1972.

Jung, Carl Gustav. Man and His Symbols. New York: Dell, 1964.

---. Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. New York: Meridian, 1956.

Runes, Dagobert D. Dictionary of Philosophy. Totowa: Littlefield & Adams, 1966.

On the Wings Of A Dream

2006-12-31T00:56:00.000-05:00

The myth of Daedalus and Icarus has been on my mind recently. You can read a brief account of it here.

Daedalus was a skilled artificer. One of his creations was the Labyrinth to house the Minotaur. He was said to be the originator of images.

After the Minotaur was slain by Theseus, King Minos imprisoned Daedalus and Icarus in the Labyrinth. Daedalus, of course, knew his way out, so that was not a problem. Getting off the island of Crete was, however. So, he fashioned wings from feathers and wax for him and his son. They would fly to freedom. Daedalus told Icarus to fly a middle way, not too high lest the heat of the sun melt the wax, and not too low lest the sea foam moisten the wings and make them unusable. We all know the outcome. Icarus flew too close to the sun and plunged into the sea and drowned.

I'd like to return to the subject of metaxy, the Greek word meaning "in-between." In Plato's Symposium, Socrates argues that Eros is a daimon who is in-between (metaxy) god and mortal. Indeed, according to Socrates,

the whole of the daimonic is between [metaxy] god and mortal" (202d11-e1).

This state of "in-between-ness" is important in the history of religion and philosophy. I would like to focus on psyche as metaxy.

Daedalus tells Icarus to fly a middle course, not too high, not too low. I see this as a wonderful image of the state of metaxy. It is a place between time and timelessness. It is living in the moment. It transcends opposition.

The metaxy is the realm of

alam al-mithal, the world of the Image, mundus imaginalis: a world as ontologically real as the world of the senses and the world of the intellect, a world that requires a faculty of perception belonging to it, a faculty that is a cognitive function, a noetic value, as fully real as the faculties of sensory perception, or intellectual intuition. This faculty is the imaginative power, the one we must avoid confusing with the imagination that modern man identifies with "fantasy" and that, according to him, produces only the "imaginary" (Henry Corbin, Swedenborg and Esoteric Islam).

The metaxy is this imaginal realm, where image is the meeting place between conscious and unconscious, between human and divine, between all polarities. We visit this world every night in our dreams.

An Image Of Pathology

2006-12-30T15:34:00.000-05:00

A pathology of the psyche is an integral, necessary part of psychology because suffering the archetype through our complexes is an integral, necessary part of psychic life. The imaginal is also emotional, else what human reality would it have? How could it affect us? The great images are great passions; the palaces and caverns of memoria are also arenas of the inferno. The self that stands behind or within the great archetypal images is after all a human self, an expression of our humanity--not only a God-image or an abstraction of completion through conjunction. Does not the goal of self mean just being human, a human-being, a man; the Anthropos not Man? Archetypal images portray our human emotions, our all-too-human complexes, which produce the affliction of just being human, each human being living the experiments of human Being (James Hillman, The Myth Of Analysis, page 191).

Humans are hard-wired to suffer. To be truly human, suffering is necessary. I think we miss the point, however, when we think there is some Omega Point to it all, some teleological reason to explain it. Life is as it is. We are thrown into the world, to borrow from Heidegger, and it is how we deal with this thrownness that is important.

At this point in my life, I suppose my purpose, or reason to get up every morning, is to remember who I really am. I feel like a man who has awakened to find he has little memory of the past, an amnesiac. Here and there, I get fleeting glimpses of the real me, but they fade quickly and I am overshadowed by black melancholia.

The few moments of remembrance are incredible, though! If one could only somehow sustain such experiences. If I could only hold the moment in eternity!

I sense these voices and images within all of us are natural ways for us to remember. We try to repress them with so-called education and cultural inculcation, but they are always there. If ignored and repressed, they reveal themselves as devils; if embraced, they are gods, willing to share with us the universe.

Three Images Of The Unbound

2006-12-28T21:03:00.000-05:00

In the days of Heraclitus, Greek philosophy was still in its infancy. But even at this early juncture, Greece had already experienced the profound intellects of such luminaries as Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. Of course, there were others, but these are the ones I wish to discuss, leading up to Heraclitus and his idea of Soul as boundless depth.

This period in history is within the era Karl Jaspers called the Axial Period. Jaspers, and other scholars of spiritual and philosophical history, believed that a great awakening of consciousness began around 800-1000 BC (Hick 113). During this time, the archetypes of Western religious and philosophical thought were established. The various theories of the arche, which the aforementioned Greek thinkers conceived in the sixth century BC, are crucial to the understanding of Heraclitus’ idea of Soul.

Thales proposed the arche to be water. He believed water to be the cause of all things. I have read many speculative treatises as to what Thales meant. Most of them seem to literalize his statement, as if he were a modern scientist. We should examine statements from this period in a mythopoeic manner, seeing that the Greeks at this time were still very much in a mythical mode of consciousness, a kind of hypnogogic state.

The early Greeks stood at the dawn of rational consciousness. They had just stepped out of participation mystique with nature (Edinger 8).

They were attempting to understand their world by asking rudimentary scientific questions, but it would still be a long, long time before humans began to think scientifically, as we understand it today. I see Thales as being deeply introspective, as most philosophers are. Legend has it that, while gazing at the heavens one day, Thales fell into a well, hence the beginning of the stereotypical absent-minded professor. He must have been a very contemplative thinker. Thales looked into his inner recesses and perhaps thought about the sea, which he was so familiar with, being a resident of Miletus. To a coastal city and its residents, the sea is the lifeblood of the community. What better image to represent the arche? Thales intuitively recognized that man’s Being, and everything else, originates with the sea, both psychologically and biologically; the former because the sea is an archetypal image of unconsciousness, from which consciousness arises; the latter because we now know that all biological life originated in the sea. In my own view, I think the sea could be the most ancient metaphor of Soul. On an intuitive level, Thales may have been thinking of a connection between water and psyche. One thing is certain, a nexus was established at this point in the history of Western culture between water and the primordial source of all things.

Anaximander took another step toward identifying the arche with Soul. He said the arche is the Apeiron, or the Boundless. Being a student of Thales, Anaximander was no doubt familiar with the contemplative, introspective habit of his teacher. Even though we hear much of his external accomplishments, such as being the first to construct a map (an imago mundi), little is said about his inwardness. I believe his idea of the Apeiron is a product of deep self-examination. He disagreed with Thales and claimed that the arche could not be one of the material elements. Here, I see Anaximander withdrawing the projection, at least for the source of all things, from external substances. He realizes that this incomprehensible “something” is not material, even though it is the material cause. The Apeiron is boundless, infinite, eternal, ageless, indestructible, and “encompasses all the worlds.” As Thales before him, I believe Anaximander is getting a glimpse of the nature of psyche. By his recognition of the infinity of the Apeiron, Anaximander, perhaps unwittingly, pushes Western consciousness toward a quantum leap in its development, and toward Heraclitus’ idea of Soul as boundless. The idea of psyche was also prevalent with the early Greek thinkers, but mostly as a result of the poets and sages. At that time, Soul was viewed by the Greeks as "the life-breath or animating 'spirit' which departs as a ghost" at the point of death (Kahn, 126).

Next, Anaximander makes a remarkable conclusion:

And into that from which things take their rise they pass away once more, as is meet; for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to the ordering of time, as he says in these somewhat poetical terms. – Theophrastus, Phys. Op. fr. 2 (R. P. 16).

He now tells us that when things originate from the Apeiron, a crime is committed against it. And to make reparation for the thing’s wrongdoing, it returns back to the Apeiron, thus satisfying some idea of cosmic justice. There is an idea of shame associated here with the coming into being, or, as I see it, the arising of consciousness from a sea of unconsciousness. Just as the author of Genesis declares Adam and Eve guilty for partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Anaximander associates guilt with the differentiation of consciousness. It also reminds me of the sin of the fire-thief, Prometheus, who kindled the anger of Zeus. For some reason, when ancient man began to think of himself as an individual, a painful sense of wrongdoing accompanied his self-consciousness.

Another Milesian thinker, Anaximenes, who was a student of Anaximander, put forth his own idea that air is the arche. Here is yet another powerful image of the source of all things that can be associated with Soul. For thousands of years, air, wind, breath, etc. have been archetypal symbols of both Soul (psyche) and Mind (nous), as well as Spirit (pneuma). In fact, Anaximenes made the association himself. According to Theophrastus, he said,

Just as . . . our soul, being air, holds us together, so do breath and air encompass the whole world." -- Aet. i. 3, 4 (R. P. 24).

According to classicist John Burnet, this is a point in Western thinking where the microcosm/macrocosm idea makes an appearance, which was also the Pythagorean view. Usually with this idea, Soul is microcosm while the universe is the macrocosm. Clearly, therefore, a connection is established in Anaximenes’ theory between the arche (air) and Soul.

So, we have three unique philosophers with three wonderfully different ideas of the arche, which I believe are actually symbols of Soul. These men gazed into their own inner processes and derived three creative ideas which undoubtedly speak to their own individual personalities. They describe, however, a phenomenon which is common to all mankind.

It is my contention that Heraclitus’ idea of the unfathomable depth of Soul was directly influenced by these three previous ideas, for there is an idea of infinite depth in all three. Concerning Thales’ theory, the primordial images of sea, abyss, and ocean certainly contain an element of immense depth. The archetypal sea is unfathomable. Anaximander states clearly that the arche is the Apeiron, the Boundless. An element of Anaximenes’ theory of air speaks to the airy heavens of the macrocosm and the pneumatic realms of the microcosm, which encompasses the infinity of the universe. Besides this, Cicero mentions that “Anaximenes said that air is a god, that it is infinite and always in motion” (De Natura Deorum I. 26).

By the time Heraclitus arrives on the scene, he has much prima materia to work with. Heraclitus brings the strikingly new and unusual thought of the logos of Soul as being so immeasurably deep we will never find its bounds, no matter how far we travel. We do not understand our own cavernous inner recesses. Our rationality can no more understand Soul than we can understand God. Language breaks down when one attempts to think and write about such things.

It is amazing to think there is “something” within me that has such depth, I will never discover its limits. I know the thing I am thinking of is not an objective thing at all. Heraclitus is utilizing the Greek idea of psyche to shed light on his experience of unbounded connectedness to the world. He feels it within himself. In some way, Soul has a sense of numinosity which is so perplexing and paradoxical to our rational minds, we will never fully understand it. But I don't think Heraclitus is concerned with rational understanding. That will come later in Greek philosophy. What he is talking about is an experience within himself of the very foundation principle (arche) upon which reality is structured.

The logos of Soul and the logos of the cosmos are discussed separately, but I don't think they are actually to be understood separately. What I think may have happened with Heraclitus is that, as he said in another fragment, "I have searched myself." Obviously, again we are dealing with someone who was deeply introspective. What seems to occur after one gazes inward for some time is that the deep logos of Soul is recognized as being identical with the cosmic logos, which, according to Heraclitus, orders everything in our universe. And herein is the error of the people "who live as though their thinking were a private possession" (Fragment 3 in Kahn). Actually, the account, the logos, is shared among all humanity. Just as the deep logos of Soul is common among us all, so is the cosmic logos.

In a previous article, I said Heraclitus may have been the first depth psychologist in Western culture. I have now modified my view to include the Milesians alongside Heraclitus. All these men were acutely aware of the boundless nature of the source of all things, i.e. Soul.

Works Cited

Edinger, Edward F. The Psyche In Antiquity. Toronto: Inner City, 1999.

Kahn, Charles H. The Art and Thought of Heraclitus. New York: Cambridge, 1979.

Hick, John. Philosophy of Religion. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1990.

The Apeiron

2006-12-28T20:35:00.000-05:00

The pre-Socratic philosopher, Anaximander of Miletos, was born around 610 B.C. Of his life, we know very little. He was an associate, or possibly a student, of Thales of Miletos, one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Only one fragment of Anaximander's work survives.

The Unlimited [Apeiron] is the first-principle of things that are. It is that from which the coming-to-be [of things and qualities] takes place, and it is that into which they return when they perish, by moral necessity, giving satisfaction to one another and making reparation for their injustice, according to the order of time (The Presocratics, by Philip Wheelwright).

Aristotle wrote,

The Unlimited encompasses and governs all things (Physica, 203b 6).

Wheelwright refers to the Apeiron as "an ontological storehouse," It the source of all polarized phenomena, the arche. This sounds much like Heraclitus' idea of Soul.

Regarding the human soul, Heraclitus believed it is impossible to ascertain its limits, in the sense of our understanding the depths of the soul. He said,

You could not discover the limits of the soul, even if you traveled by every path in order to do so; such is the depth of its meaning (qtd. in Wheelwright 72).

The conception of the Apeiron could have been an ancient attempt to metaphorize the reality of Soul.

Soul Is Imagination

2006-12-25T20:21:00.000-05:00

There seem to be two types of imagination. One is called daydreaming, where one intentionally forms a mental image of something. The other, however, brings forth images spontaneously. This type of imagining seems to be similar to what Jung called active imagination. This is what occurs in dreams and when we enter dreams, allowing them to take whatever shape they want. Soul is imagination.

Soul is vulnerable and suffers; it is passive and remembers. It is water to the spirit’s fire, like a mermaid who beckons the heroic spirit into the depths of passions to extinguish its certainty. Soul is imagination, a cavernous treasury—to use an image from St. Augustine—a confusion and richness, both. (James Hillman, Re-visioning Psychology, 1975).

The images the Soul presents to us should not be interpreted to serve Ego. There is much of this going on today after people learn a little about Jungian dream theory and go crazy and start coming up with all sorts of off-the-wall interpretations. They even go out and buy so-called dream dictionaries to supposedly help them. This is the wrong approach. Sure, meditate on dreams, allow the images to flow, but stick to the images. They are to be examined phenomenologically.

The Soul is an immense cavern of images, as Augustine alludes to in his Confessions:

What is my nature? It is various and manifold and immeasurable: behold the numberless fields and caves and caverns of memory, each innumerably full of an in-numerable variety of things. Some of these things are there through images, as in the case of all physical objects; some through their own immediate presence, as with the intellectual arts; some by indefinable notions or impressions, as with the affections of the mind which, even when the mind is not experiencing them, the mind yet retains (although whatever is in the memory is also in the mind). Through all of these do I run to and from, flying hither and thither. I penetrate them as far as I am able, on this side and that, and nowhere is there an end. So great is the power of memory, so great the power of life in man, whose life is mortal.

He refers to memory, but Soul is memory as well as imagination. As Jung said, . . . at "bottom" the psyche is simply "world." . . . the symbol of the world itself is speaking (The Archetypes And The Collective Unconscious, section 291). Basically, Soul is all.

All Is Image

2006-12-22T20:29:00.000-05:00

. . . psychic existence is the only category of existence of which we have immediate knowledge, since nothing can be known unless it first appears as a psychic image. . . To the extent that the world does not assume the form of a psychic image, it is virtually non-existent (C.G. Jung, qtd. in Imagination Is Reality, by Robert Avens, page 34).

This certainly is an amazing epistemological statement! I think Jung is right, though. Let's say we desire to know about a certain piece of fabric, let's say silk. We see (psychic image) a silk scarf lying on the dresser; we conceive the idea (image) that we want to know how the silk feels, so we pick it up and handle it. The original image led us to another image and we gained knowledge of the silk scarf. Aristotle wrote,

To the thinking soul images serve as if they were contents of perception (and when it asserts or denies them to be good or bad it avoids or pursues them). That is why the soul never thinks without an image (De Anima, Book III, Part 7).

The fact is, everything we gain knowledge of begins with an idea (image). Human existence is made possible by human imagination. If there were no psychic image-making, we could not be sentient beings.

I Imagine, Therefore I Am

2006-12-21T21:45:00.000-05:00

Ficino writes, “Man is the soul itself. . .” (Ficino 74). In his Commentary On Plato’s Symposium, Marsilio Ficino makes a statement that is totally antithetical to the teachings of modern psychology. For the most part, psychology today refuses to accept any idea of Soul. The predominant view of our day is Behaviorism, which is totally materialistic and naturalistic. Man is a material entity. There is no metaphysical element, such as Soul, mind, or consciousness. Man has only a brain, which responds to external stimuli. What a far cry from Ficino! How can there even be such a field as psychology (the study of Soul or psyche) without admitting the Soul’s existence? To me, it is absurd.

To Ficino, and also to me, the world is alive because of Soul, for Soul is all things. Even though he seems to be attempting a definition of Soul, he’s really not. He is fully aware of Heraclitus’ statement concerning the unfathomable depths of Soul. In a roundabout sort of way, I think Ficino is proposing that neither man nor the Soul can be precisely defined.

In the context of Ficino’s statement, I do not possess Soul as I would a coat or tie, I am Soul. I cannot experience the world apart from Soul. Behaviorism cannot tell me why my breath is taken away by Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique; or when I read Poe, Keats, or Goethe; or when I walk in the forest and relish the green earth. They might try and tell me these are merely chemical reactions in my brain, but anyone who has experienced these things will know of a certainty how ridiculous this is. The depth of the experience tells the story. All that I do and feel is because I am Soul.

If I am Soul, what about my body? What role does it play, besides enabling me to operate in the material world? I see material things (including the human body) as images and metaphors. To me, this world is filled with images of the True. Through these images, I am able to learn more about the True. Through living in this body, I am better able learn about Soul. Knowing the Platonic and Neoplatonic foundations of Ficino’s thought, I think he would agree. For untold generations, the material universe has been viewed as an image of the inner workings of the human being. Such a view makes the world incredibly fascinating and alive, for there is always something nearby to pique one’s interest and to shed light on the True.

Ficino’s idea of Soul is that it is Man himself. The body/Soul dichotomy we talk about is just another story of Soul, just an image that can help us understand ourselves a little better. In reality, we can’t put into words what Man/Soul is. The mystery of Soul is what makes it so intriguing. As author Phil Cousineau said, “. . . frustration, uncertainty, confusion, and fear of drowning in the depths is at least a sign that we have our hands on it” (Cousineau xxiii).

Works Cited

Ficino, Marsilio. Commentary On Plato’s Symposium On Love. Dallas, Spring: 1985.

Cousineau, Phil. Soul: An Archaeology. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994.

First Things

2006-12-20T05:54:00.000-05:00

In beginning to discuss my own image of the world, the following are a few first principles:

Image is everything, everything is image.

I assume the primacy of imagination (along with (Blake, Vico, Taylor Coleridge, et al) over all other forms of knowing.

As above, so below.

Nature consists of a vast array of images which lead us to greater self-knowledge.

Nature is in a state of interpenetration.

Man does not have a psyche; Psyche has Man. Psyche extends beyond the individual.

The world of myth is conterminous with Psyche.

Psyche is the metaxy, the state of in-between-ness. It is the middle course Icarus was instructed to fly by his father, but disobeyed and perished.

Botticelli's Image Of The World

2006-12-17T21:20:00.000-05:00

The teachings of Marsilio Ficino played a prominent role in Sandro Botticelli's La Primavera.

To Ficino the visual arts were of especial importance. Their function was to remind the soul of its origin in the divine world by creating, through art, resemblances to that world. It was largely through Ficino's insistence on the importance of this art that the painter's position in Florentine society was raised nearer to that of the poet than that of the car-penter, where it had previously been. The image of painting is Ficino's most frequent metaphor. He was himself on close terms with the Pollaiuolo brothers and closely directed the painting of Botticelli's Primavera. In the Platonic Theology he describes the first impulse in the creation of a painting. He writes: 'The whole field appeared in a single moment to Apelles and aroused in him the desire to paint (From the Introduction to The Letters of Marsilio Ficino, Volume 1, © 1975 Fellowship of the School of Economic Science, London.

Anima Mundi

2006-12-17T09:04:00.000-05:00

The ancient teaching,

As above, so below,

dictates that, just as humans are Souls, so is the world Soul. It is living, dynamic being. It is what Jung referred to as "objective psyche." We think of soul as referring only to individuals, but there is collective soul, as well.

Just as our souls sometimes fragment and become imbalanced, so does the soul of the world. We are living in such a time now, with the utter chaos taking place in the Middle East. Just as we sometimes are plunged into darkness and are overtaken by unconscious contents flooding our conscious minds, so has the world been plunged into the depths of despair. The world soul is currently experiencing a Dark Night. Perhaps the world is not currently in a so-called Dark Age externally, but it is internally. Or is there a difference? I suppose it depends on the criteria used to define a Dark Age, which is simply something historians invented anyway. But, these periods of distress come and go in a cyclical fashion, just as they do with humans.

Of The World Soul, Paracelsus wrote,

The same is of a mysterious nature, wondrous strength, boundless power. The Saints, from the beginning of the world, have desired to behold its face. By Avicenna this Spirit is named the "Soul of the World." For as the Soul moves all the limbs of the Body, so also does this Spirit move all bodies. And as the Soul is in all the limbs of the Body, so also is this Spirit in all elementary created things. It is sought by many and found by few. It is beheld from afar and found near; for it exists in every thing, in every place, and at all times. It has the powers of all creatures; its action is found in all elements, and the qualities of all things are therein, even in the highest perfection. (Concerning the Supreme Secret of the World. by Paracelsus).

Just as mankind has ignored, rejected, and abused the notion and reality of soul, to our own destruction, so also have we done the same to the soul of the world.

Man As Imago Mundi

2006-12-14T05:55:00.000-05:00

[Man] can be understood only as an image of the macrocosm, of the Great Creature. Only then does it become manifest what is in him. For what is outside is also inside; and what is not outside man is not inside. The outer and the inner are one thing, one constellation, one influence, one concordance, one duration, one fruit. (From Paracelsus, Selected Writings, ed. Jolande Jacobi, trans. Norbert Guterman.New York: pantheon, 1951, p. 21.)

Know that you are another world in miniature and have in you Sol and Luna and even the stars [Origen, Homiliae in Leviticum, 5, 2.].

With those who accept the doctrine of Microcosm/Macrocosm, there is the tendency to think that the macrocosm is superior. This is not the case at all. In our Western mindset, large is better than small, but this entirely misses the point. These realities are intermingled such that they are nearly indistinguishable.

This seeming dichotomy between Microcosm/Macrocosm is illusory. Speaking this way, of two realities, is a kind of heuristic device to aid in understanding. The teaching is directly related to the esoteric doctrine, As above, so below. I would say there are myriad possible meanings to the phrase. I take it to mean that the depth of Soul is comparable to the infinity of the physical universe. Just as there are innumerable worlds out in deep space, there are innumerable worlds within us. The complexity of the physical universe corresponds to the complexity of Soul as well.

If you travel the way of spirit and climb the scala paradisi, you will ultimately fall from your lofty heights and end up deep in the mire. If you traverse the depths, you will, in my opinion, find the place you have long sought after. The way of Soul is a descent, not always pleasant, but the roots emanate deep and draw up the water of life. This is why the sages have always admonished us to "know thyself." Because of the ouroboric effect, the deep passageways will lead to the height of Man's glory.

Imaginatio

2006-12-13T19:46:00.000-05:00

Imaginatio is the Star in Man, the Celestial or Supercelestial Body (A Lexicon of Alchemy, by Martin Rulandus).

We don't realize what is available to us. We go through our daily lives, often extremely depressing, usually focused on material things. We forget that all we need do is close our eyes and enter another world. The Imaginal is a vast landscape, an immense cosmos where nothing is impossible. It is not limited by physical laws, the constraints of logic, or space-time constructs we are accustomed to.

One of the most significant characteristics of this realm is that within it the things that one encounters—and they are very specific things indeed, ranging from rocks and trees to buildings and entire cities have about them a distinctly personal character. As Corbin says, the pronoun best used when describing the specifics of this dimension is not "what" but "who." The imaginal dimension, he wrote, is "a universe for which it is difficult in our language to find a satisfactory term." It is "an ‘external world,’ and yet it is not the physical world. It is a world that teaches us that it is possible to emerge from measurable space without emerging from extent, and that we must abandon homogeneous chronological time in order to enter that qualitative time which is the history of the soul" (Recovering a Visionary Geography, by Ptolemy Tompkins).

Below is an example of something I jotted down late one night, while attempting to enter this world:

The river snaked its way down the cobra's back, shining in the noonday night, as if diamonds were being swept along its bed. At any moment, lightning might break the dullness of the day and bring with it wreaths of hoary rain to pound, to tantalize, the living creatures within.

I witnessed this, from my perch, high above the fray. The dynamic fixated my gaze. My ears stood on edge, awaiting the next articulation. There was a strange aroma in the air, almost garlic, not quite cinnamon. It lingered for a moment and then rushed away with ferocity. Suddenly, an energy spoke with a voice so soft I could almost see it. It reminded all that autumn was now quite near and that the green shoots we were witnessing would last forever.

At this, the river began to spiral and coil. The movement was at once exciting and interesting. I longed to reach out and touch it, but I feared its shiny fangs. They were arrows and bows, ready to spring at the throat. Even with my armor about me, I dared not move, for I would regret any passivity on my part.

Much sunlight passed before I looked again into the rocky valley above. A white mist had ascended from the vernal seascape and enveloped the cobra, now ready to pounce if anything dared breach its boundaries.

Giddy with delight, I lost sight of the dynamic and fell into a terrible maelstrom that had formed just above me. I whirled round and round for several years before alighting upon the cobra's back. Finding myself in this position, I was amazed at how uncomfortable it was. It was as if I had been born to ride the serpent all along.

One cannot rationally explain such things. When the experience comes, however, there is a deep sense of meaning and emotion. This is the nature of Truth, Aletheia, if you will. With such truth comes, not necessarily enlightenment, but a sublime sense of satisfaction.

The Bridge

2006-12-12T17:35:00.000-05:00

Between the universe that can be apprehended by pure intellectual perception and the universe perceptible to the senses, there is an intermediate world, the world of Idea-Images, of archetypal figures, of subtle substances, of "immaterial matter". This world is as real and objective, as consistent and subsistent as the intelligible and sensible worlds; it is an intermediate universe 'where the spiritual takes body and the body becomes spiritual,' a world consisting of real matter and real extension, though by comparison to sensible, corruptible matter these are subtle and immaterial. The organ of this universe is the active Imagination; it is the place of theophanic visions, the scene on which visionary events and symbolic histories appear in their true reality (Henry Corbin).

This is the world we journey through every night in our dreams. The multitude of images and stories we experience have their own unique reality. We are said to "fall asleep." We do, indeed, fall; rather we plunge into a world of depth and mystery. Most people just dismiss this as something we ate the previous day, or some other reductionist retort.

We in the West are trapped in materialism and, therefore, cannot accept the Imaginal. We can't seemed to bridge the yawning chasm Descartes placed between mind and body. We've been conditioned by several hundred years of rationalistic and materialistic thinking, to the neglect of the awesome forces within us.

Henry Corbin, among others, has already told us how to cross the abyss and move into this amazing world: Imagination.

Corbin is saying that if you know how to use your imaginative faculty, you can reliably reach the Imaginal Realm. He called this faculty "active imagination," the same term Jung used to describe his method of accessing the psychoid realm of the archetypes. Unfortunately, our culture is largely clueless about how an imaginative faculty works. Like other unused things, our active imaginations have atrophied. When it comes to imaginative muscle, we're couch potatoes (The Door To The Imaginal, by Mary Pat Mann).

The Microcosmic Level

2006-12-10T21:35:00.000-05:00

I am a microcosm. On this level of reality, there is body and there is intellect. The mediating factor between the two is Psyche. I take Soul as equivalent to Psyche. I adhere to the Heraclitan idea of Soul, as possessing limitless depth. It is the state of metaxy, between the imaginary and the imaginal worlds.

I like Hillman's idea of soul:

By soul I mean, first of all, a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself. This perspective is reflective; it mediates events and makes differences between ourselves and everything that happens. Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment -- and soul-making means differentiating this middle ground (Revisioning Psychology).

Soul is born in the middle. The metaxy is a kind of uterine fluid which brings forth a new creation. It is Psyche that synthesizes body and intellect, imaginary and imaginal, gods and mortals.

The Imaginal

2006-12-10T17:08:00.000-05:00

French orientalist, mystic, and phenomenologist, Henry Corbin, made a very important distinction between the terms imaginary and imaginal. Corbin writes,

...alam al-mithal, the world of the Image, mundus imaginalis: a world as ontologically real as the world of the senses and the world of the intellect, a world that requires a faculty of perception belonging to it, a faculty that is a cognitive function, a noetic value, as fully real as the faculties of sensory perception, or intellectual intuition. This faculty is the imaginative power, the one we must avoid confusing with the imagination that modern man identifies with "fantasy" and that, according to him, produces only the "imaginary."

I have proposed the Latin term mundus imaginalis for it, because we are obliged to avoid any confusion between what is here the object of imaginative or imaginal perception and what we ordinarily call the imaginary. This is so because the current attitude is to oppose the real to the imaginary as though to the unreal, the utopian, as it is to confused symbol with allegory, to confuse the exegesis of the spiritual sense with an allegorical interpretation.

...the appearance of an Image having the quality of a symbol is a primary phenomena (Urphanomen), unconditional and irreducible, the appearance of something that cannot manifest itself otherwise to the world where we are.

If we do not have available a cosmology whose schema can include, as does the one that belongs to our traditional philosophers, the plurality of universes in ascensional order, our Imagination will remain unbalanced, its recurrent conjunctions with the will to power will be an endless source of horrors. We will be continually searching for a new discipline of the Imagination, and we will have great difficulty in finding it as long as we persist in seeing in it only a certain way of keeping our distance with regard to what we call the real, and in order to exert an influence on that real.

For instead of the image being elevated to the level of a world that would be proper to it, instead of it appearing invested with a symbolic function, leading to an internal sense, there is above all a reduction of the image to the level of sensory perception pure and simple, and thus a definitive degradation of the image. Should it not be said, therefore, that the more successful this reduction is, the more the sense of the imaginal is lost, and the more we are condemned to producing only the imaginary? (From Swedenborg and Esoteric Islam by Henri Corbin, Translated by Leonard Fox).

I think we are all quite familiar with the realm of the imaginary. It is, of course, what we think of something when it is fanciful or unreal. The imaginal realm, however, is more real than the world of sense perception. The empirical world has its limited, illusory sense of reality due to the true reality the realm of the imaginal. As above, so below.

Now, the organ we use to perceive the imaginal world is that of imagination, or what Corbin called the "imaginative consciousness, the cognitive Imagination" (Mundus Imaginalis, by Henry Corbin).