[Continuing Robert Clarke’s reaction to my 2003 writeup of my trip to Iona. ]
Dennis seems to be something of a positive shadow figure; mischievous, friendly, though you have to be a little wary of him. The congressman you are working for is probably a representative of the Self. A figure of authority, teacher, doctor, politician (unless you’re dead against him), even an older brother, usually fill this role. Kelly is the feminine anima, and the water meditation you do together is the harmonious work you are doing on the unconscious together.
“Compounded of primary influences that hate each other’s values” are parts of the unconscious that are in conflict (whether including past lives or not, quite possibly so. The material we experience in the unconscious processes covers a vast area.) This is why the mandala is the main abstract symbol of the Self. Although the disagreeing parts cannot relate to each other, each one can relate to the centre, which is the Self. So all find harmony encircling the Self, and there is a Gnostic text where the twelve disciples do a “round dance” encircling Christ at the centre with the same meaning. It is the task of consciousness in the individuation process to achieve this situation on behalf of the Self.
[This part refers to dreams recorded in “Iona (6)”]
Bill Hughes as congressman again seems a representative of the Self, and speaking for him on TV is apparently speaking for the Self. A TV picks up signals transmitted through the air from the station and in a similar way we “pick up” messages sent by the “other reality” of the spirit, or the Self. Earlier David told you not to be afraid to speak your truth, and now you do just that on TV. But it is not primarily your truth, but that of the Self, and ultimately of God, although you share in it. The true priest, true prophet, true saint is the “mouthpiece” of God.
Does John Lennon refer to someone you know? Living by the ocean is very close to the collective unconscious, which can be highly dangerous. Living casually with fire is doing this with the spirit, but his house, his wider psyche, is in danger because the spirit is flammable. Gilgamesh is in a reed house when he is warned of the coming flood that brings destruction – flood and fire go together. Lennon, or whom he represents, should go back down to the swampy, murky depths of the unconscious where the treasures lie. The spiritual treasures can only be gained by going to the lower soul depths first.
Remember Jung’s patient we talked about, the clergyman who kept dreaming of a treasure on a hill? But he could only reach it by going through a valley first, where there was a lake. This frightened him, so he kept running away. The boy with the dog represents two early forms of the Self, the dog-spirit and divine child. The spigot stops up the gap or controls the flow. It therefore stops the floods from the unconscious that could overwhelm consciousness. Dangerous fire is usually followed by dangerous floods. Lennon may be yourself. Your psyche may have been in danger. You may have been filling your life with things but not getting down to the real work in the unconscious, where it must be done. Consequently the spirit was ungrounded and dangerous, and this means an inundation from the unconscious. But the spigot stops the flow and controls everything, and things are remedied in time. Don’t worry; this sort of thing, danger etc., happens constantly during the processes, and we always seem to make the adjustment just in time. The sand, as said above, was a binding agent in alchemy, and lying on the beach, is in between land and sea, and so unites both, therefore the conscious with the unconscious.
The mantle of Columba is that of the prophet/saint – like that of Elijah, which he passes on to Elisha. It is a very heavy burden that few can wear and carry, and few would wish to if they knew what it entails. If you continue with the work you may indeed become a true prophet and saint, and I think you have it in you to be so, but be very aware of the heavy burden.
The unconscious often uses number symbolism, and much of the time we can’t figure it out. Columba having access to the numbers probably means that he was a very successful adept in the processes. Sunglasses are protection from the sun and therefore from the glare of higher spirit – God is symbolically the Sun, as is his divine Son.
Autistic boy, unable to communicate with others? Anything to do with speaking on TV earlier? A boy in dreams usually means the Self in the first stages. Fish stick, the Fish symbol? Tomato sauce, blood, a symbol of spirit therefore? “Columba had access to information unavailable to common consciousness” you say – except through processes of the unconscious, that is. We can share deeper meaning with these saints, one we understand the symbolism. Tip of the iceberg? The unconscious has provided these words. The tip above the sea is consciousness, the rest of the iceberg below is the total psyche, or even the Self, while the ocean is the collective unconscious itself.
You ask, where is the right path? How is society to be regenerated? … not by a spirituality so personal as to omit community. Not by reliance on someone else’s interpretation as the final word etc. All very right and true, proving you are on the right path, asking the right questions. But we can only find the answer where it has always been found, through the Underworld/unconscious quest. Gilgamesh asks similar questions, plus why is there death, and why is there life, and what is the ultimate meaning, and so on. So he descends to the lower Underworld, the unconscious, facing and fighting its dangers to eventually ascend a mountain (or seven mountains), where he finds the god Utnapishtim, the Higher Self. This is his individuation process and it always unites matter and spirit, which eventually has its effects on conscious culture.
All over the world, the hero’s development and bringing forth of the Higher Self has meant a respiritualisation of society, if the phenomenon is accepted by the culture. Marduk, Christ, Oannes, Quetzalcoatl, Kwan Shai Yin, Krishna, the Buddha, all undergo the individuation process to highest level, and then institute an epoch of spiritual blossoming. From the human side it is development of the Self, but from the side of the spirit it means the divine incarnation of God. It is always the same problem basically, of society falling into chaos at the loss of communication with God or the spirit, and the answer is always the same, eventually laying down the common path for all to follow. But the phenomenon must be recognised by the culture.
The dream of the hill and the long, long way down to the water – the mountain and the lake of the abyss in the Underworld again perhaps. And maybe you are way too high up without going down first. The two ladies, representations of the feminine unconscious, fall to those depths, “as though they were angels”. Often in mythology the angels fall to the lower Underworld, though these are usually male – in the Bible, the Nephalim are the falling angels.
Doing construction work in the church, where the woman of authority (of the unconscious) says you have great force. You must do it, or it can’t be done. Now we are coming to it. This says it all. Building the church is building the Higher Self. Solomon building God’s temple means exactly the same. This may mean a divine incarnation, though it all takes place in the unconscious. Remember me saying that David begins the temple but Solomon completes it? Moses begins the Promised Land task and Joshua completes it. John the Baptist begins, Christ completes. Earlier, Osiris begins and Horus completes. The man in your dream begins and you have the chance to complete.
St Francis was told by God to build the church, which he first took to mean the ruin he was in at the time. Then he took it to mean the Church itself. But it really meant building the structure of the Higher Self and this, as said, can indeed lead to a respiritualisation in the outer world. I have little doubt that you could build the structure of the Self yourself, maybe even go all the way. You have the right temperament, the thirst for spirituality, the basic goodness of heart, and the intelligence. I constructed the Self myself for some time, but couldn’t sustain it. It takes superhuman powers, not to rise above and inflate, as Nietzsche mistakenly took it, but rather to deflate in humility and self-sacrifice, to empty oneself of the world. It depends how far one wants to go. But, as said above, it is a very heavy burden that few would take on if they knew the suffering it entails.
Daydreams are the first stage of Jung’s active imagination, where consciousness is lowered and the unconscious rises to a degree. This can provide much rich and meaningful information.
The author of The Cloud of Unknowing says that its techniques should only be used by a committed Christian. This is very wise, for as Jung says, the processes should be done within the protective walls of an established religion that has been founded on the same processes in the first place. The spirit is like electricity and must be channelled by a religious way of thinking that the spirit/unconscious recognises. As the alchemists said, “Not a few have perished in our work.” The Western collective unconscious is Christianised on the higher spirit side, having alchemical symbolism constellated on the lower spirit side, though the former must always dominate over the latter. Love is absolutely essential, of course.
“How can we of another age reconcile the author’s experience with ours?” The collective unconscious, the “other reality” is behind all physical reality. It is timeless and produces the same symbolism across thousands of years, giving the same answers. We can therefore share this same symbolism with the figures of the past because it means the same phenomena to us as it did to them. If you dreamt of a hare, for example, it would have the same meaning as it had for an ancient Egyptian, and for a medieval alchemist or mystic. The hare is a symbol of the lower Self; of both Osiris and Mercurius.
Final word about God’s wrath and anger. In my very first experience of God he appeared in the clouds angry; angry with modern man, who has come largely to deny him to worship all the forms of matter. God certainly becomes angrier as things get worse. Jung says we can love God, but we must also fear him. God is the supreme complexity of opposites, being like man but in a super-super way. If God cannot feel anger but man can, then man in that sense is greater than God. But it is man, who constantly opposes God to go his own way in matter that brings forth God’s anger. In the ancient and medieval worlds, God was likened to an angry rhinoceros that had to be won over by love. This is why Christ brings forth God’s loving side with his own love. Goethe’s Faust, based on an individuation process lasting many years, brought forth God’s dark side, as Mephistopheles.
I haven’t edited this so I hope it makes sense.