Inferno

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.