Originally Posted by
Darkmatters
from deep (Jungians say deep in the psyche, theists would say from God or a diety). They emExactly! I agree with Jung, that both literal fundamentalism and materialist/rationalist atheism are missing the point. There are obviously powerful concepts coming to userge as myths dreams and visions and have a profound shaping influence on us, as individuals and as a society.
To simply wave it off as "figments of the imagination" is to miss the numinous quality and power of the archetypal forms. The unconscious is far more than the "imagination" - it's the mysterious darkness from which we emerged and gradually became conscious - from whence come nightmares and visions. Of course early humans with their propensity for anthropomorphism would see those visions as coming from "out there" - in a sense the unconscious is "out there" when seen from the limited viewpoint of consciousness, which is after all merely a small portion of it - having grown from it.
I envision the unconscious as a vast sea of petroleum (refined for obvious reasons to follow) and consciousness as a small wick floating on it, with a little flame flickering away. It feeds off the deep stuff of the unconscious, depends entirely on it in order to remain active, and drifts almost lost on it's dark surface while monstrous and magnificent things break the surface briefly, some close to the light some far away. As we've increased the scope and power of the human consciousness and learned to use science to avoid basic mistakes that were once considered "common sense" (like the earth being flat etc) (and yes, I know, we still have lots more to dispel!) - the light has grown stronger and illuminates more of the darkness.