Jung on errors of transmission during ILC

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

[On Monday, talking about the famous incident of the scarab and the patient, I had Dr. Jung say the scarab appeared at the door. I was thinking French door, and had a pretty clear idea of the French door opening to the lake beyond. But Dr. Bernie Beitman corrected the story, showed that in life Jung had written that the scarab came to the window (not the door) and wondered how it was that Jung didn’t correct me when I wrote door. I said I would ask.]

F: 3 p.m. Dr. Jung, Bernie wants to know why you didn’t correct me when I said – or had you say – door instead of window. I think I know, but I’m willing to be enlightened, or corrected.

CGJ: Or reinforced? This simple question could be used to elucidate the nature of communication difficulties between those in body and those not in body, and I think we will do that. The short answer to your friend’s question is, ‘because it didn’t matter,” but as usual, the short answer is likely to be misleading without context.

It didn’t matter, so much is true. It really is a detail, the kind of detail one gets wrong when concentrating on the important aspects of a story. So, if you were saying that and I did not correct it, it would be obvious enough that I did not do so mostly because it was an unimportant detail. I think Dr. Beitman would agree that this would be a plausible and almost predictable reaction to such a mistake.

However, the fact that I let you – writing in my voice – insert a mistake in fact, seems to him strange. He is not aspersing your ability nor my presence – at least, I do not hear such nuances in his question – but still, he wonders, why would I let it pass.

Again, the short answer: it did not matter.

A longer answer, needing to be organized.

First. You will have noticed over our time together now, extending at great intervals over a span of ten years, that when I judge it important, I do correct you.

F: Usually when I’m summarizing or responding with my understanding of something, though.

CGJ: True. But my point is that I correct when it matters. Our conversations are not an attempt to demonstrate my reality or your ability to connect; they are aimed at substantive matters, taking communication for granted. To correct every little nuance is actually more important to what we are doing than correcting every fact you may accidentally put in my mouth. I know you are doing your best. Why distract you without a need to do so?

Second and perhaps more difficult to appreciate. Your preferred mode of communication –

Well, perhaps less “preferred” than “ordained,” because this is how your gift manifests. You do not function as a trance channel; you do not, typically, hear specific words either as aural or as understood phenomena. Mostly you receive the sense of things as you go, and only rarely do you transcribe specific words you hear.

I do not mean that you paraphrase. I mean, you move from a knowing to a phrasing of the knowing. This allows for great slippage in specifics but has the compensating advantage of rendering ideas fluently and in the vernacular.

This allows mixture between what is being given and what you contribute automatically from what you think you know. You do not have a great deal of awareness about this mixing process, so it is as well that you stress to people that they weight what they hear.

And, third, we on our end of the process face certain difficulties that you may regard as exaggerations of your plight in 3D. Chiefly there is the fact that everything connects to everything, hence the potential for discursive rambling is great. As a result, we get into the very necessary habit of ruthlessly pruning our digressions. Correcting harmless errors – or even potentially harmful errors that would nonetheless take too much time to address midstream – often goes by the boards.

I trust this answers Dr. Beitman’s curiosity but of course if he has further questions, I will be happy to follow up.

F: Thank you. I think this will be useful in general.

5 thoughts on “Jung on errors of transmission during ILC

  1. “And, third, we on our end of the process face certain difficulties that you may regard as exaggerations of your plight in 3D. Chiefly there is the fact that everything connects to everything, hence the potential for discursive rambling is great. As a result, we get into the very necessary habit of ruthlessly pruning our digressions.”

    This is interesting and seems to be the case when I do what Frank is so gracious to do in this public forum.

    The digressions, equivocations, “yeah buts,” and qualifications feel as if they could go on endlessly. Perhaps from an outside perspective the “source(s)” might appear wishy-washy but it does not feel that way at all. Personally, I get a thorough-going, empirical sense of a fractal object (or process) from it–infinity in a way.

    The outcome, for me at least, has amounted to a course in epistemic humility. Just about any claim to knowledge is provisional…

  2. Openness on the difficulties with the process is always helpful.

    I see ILC as a mixture of thought emerging out of a joint mind, and none of the sources are infallible. That’s been emphasized on numerous occasions. The mixing process can’t help but add some distortion and certainly confusion as to attribution. However, it is a method of connecting to intelligence with a broader perspective than we have and the process seems to be a lot more accessible and more efficient than traditional channeling.

    We used to say in my old business world that people’s belief in the value of input increased with the distance from the source.

    With ILC attribution seems to carry weight, even though we’ve been told what matters is that it resonates, and I’ve come to believe that some wisdom cannot be attributed to any specific source. In the end, what comes through is one perspective, no more no less.

    Sometimes I just feel like starting with: “Some possible wisdom came into my head from somewhere, and I’d like to share with you what I think it was. If it fits, wear it!”
    John

  3. It’s definitely an art more than a science, in the sense that it can’t be easily measured. It can however be assessed by its fruits. If the shade of Jung has something useful to say isn’t that the most important aspect of the communication?

    I woke up this morning from a dream where I was trying to climb in a window (it was quite difficult, my arms weren’t strong enough). So was I the scarab beetle?

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