Jung derived the psychological types from Eastern Tradition!

[Angel von Himmel]

I sware to God, if anyone tries replying to this thread saying Jung did not derive his theories from the eastern concepts of karma, samskara, and the implication of reincarnation after reading the below, I am going to slit my wrist.

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"Jung believed the human subconscious contains inherited memories from previous generations. These collective memories, as well as the personal experience of the individual, consistute his or her own soul. Jung regarded human beings in the twentieth century as being alienated from these useful collective memories."
(The Western Heritage Since 1300, p. 870)

http://www.meta-religion.com/Psychia..._archetype.htm

It is apparent that Jung drew heavily upon the Eastern religious concept of Atman in the formulation of his concept of the Self. If the Self is for Jung a sort of sun in a solar model around which other characters of the psyche revolve, such as the ego, anima, and shadow, then the archetypes would correspond to the primordial stuff of which the sun and all the other planets are composed.

Jung elaborated his pivotal theory of the archetype throughout his life's work. In the Eastern tradition of yoga, Jung found corroboration of his own theories. Coward argues that Jung uses the term yoga to mean a way of life involving both psychology and philosophy. Jung's interest "from the beginning was not with Patanjali's technical definitions but with the spiritual development of the personality as the goal of all yoga" (Coward, p. 3). In October of 1932 Jung gave a series of seminars on chakra symbolism of Tantra Yoga entitled A Psychological Commentary on Kundalini Yoga. In an attempt to define samskara, memory trace, to his Western audience, he likens it to "...our idea of heredity...also, our hypothesis of the collective unconscious" (Kundalini, p. 8). In later editions of On the Psychology of the Unconscious, he placed a footnote at the end of a description of the collective unconscious where he describes it as containing the "...legacy of ancestral life, the mythological images: these are the archetypes..." and calls it "a deliberate extension of the archetype by means of the karmic factor...(which is) essential to deeper understanding of the nature of an archetype" (CW, Vol. 7, p. 118n). Elsewhere Jung states that "we may cautiously accept the idea of karma only if we understand it a psychic heredity in the very widest sense of the word. Psychic heredity does exist--that is to say, there is inheritance of psychic characteristics such as predisposition to disease, traits of character, special gifts, and so forth" (CW Vol. 11, p. 845). Jung continured to refute the notion of a personal karma since "the main bulk of life is brought into existence out of sources that are hidden to us. Even complexes can start a century or more before a man is born. There is something like karma" ("Letters", p. 436). Only later in his life did he begin to accept the possibility of a personal karma, more specific in its implications to a person's destiny than the collective attributes he had always assigned to it in helping him see corroboration of his theory of the collective unconscious in other religions. Jung connects the collective unconscious, ancestral memories and as yet unfilled out archetypal images with a sort of collective karma.

Although Jung openly credits karma theory as influencing his theories of the archetype, Coward aptly points out that little recognition is given to this major Eastern influence by either Jacobi, Jung's sytematizer, or Jungian scholars ...this apparent attempt to hide or ignore the Eastern content in Jung's archetype may be...a fear among Jungians that such an admission would make their already suspect psychology even less acceptable to the mainstream of Western psychology (Coward, p. 98).

Jung offers a rebuttal to those who would criticize his theory by wondering "what sort of idea my critics would have used to characterize the empirical material in question" (CW Vol. 7, p. 18n). Later in life Jung's dreams gave him evidence pointing to his own reincarnation. It was the evidence of his own dreams, plus those of a close acquaintance, which led to a very positive assessment of Indian karma and rebirth theory in the last years before his death. In Memories, Deams, Reflections, in the chapter entitled, "On Life after Death," Jung states, "I could well imagine that I have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer; that I had to be born again because I had not fulfilled the task that was given to me. When I die, my deeds will follow along with me - that is how I imagine it" (Memories, p. 318). Jung believed that his purpose this lifetime was to bring the shadow to the Christian archetype. In striving throughout his life to portray the image of god as containing both evil and good, Jung sought to bring a union of the opposites to our Western consciousness so as to avoid the physical playing out upon our lives of the Judeo-Christian god's inherent imbalance.

http://www.deekaypages.com/samskara/default.htm

Samskara
'Samskara' is a Sanskrit word, which means to improve, to purify, to refine and to make perfect. In short, the process by which all impurities in man are removed and positive qualities are developed is known as Samskara. It may be called a sacrament rather than a religious rite or ceremony. The number and methods of Samskaras are discussed in the 'Gruhya Suthras'. Samskaras are popularly known to be 16 in number as in the word 'Shodasha Samskara.'

Garbhadana, Pumsavana, Seemanthonnayana, Jathakarma, Namakarana, Nishkramana, Annaprashana, Karna Vedhana, Choodakarma (Chowla), Upanayana, Mahanamni, Mahavratha, Upanishadvratha, Godana, Samavarthana and Vivaha - are the 16 Samskaras. Out of these, first eight sacraments are to remove impurities in man caused by the womb and the semen. The next seven rites are to acquire knowledge, these uplift the soul to the spiritual level also. The last one, Vivaha (wedding) or the marriage ceremony makes a man perfect by filling the lacking-portion.

[Scrummy]

BTW, I replied to you here.

I don't doubt that Eastern philosophy may have had a partial influence on Jung's theories of personality. These philosophies were actually popularized in the West about half a century before Jung by way of the Brits and later the American Transencdentalists, and translations of Hindu and Buddhist scripture appeared in those countries, and notably in Germany. However, I think it would be a little iffy to attribute all of Jung's personality theory to this philosophy. Anyone who grew up under the influence of the Vedic philosophy can attest to their symetry, but also that this philosophy takes esoteric depths and overtones that are nowhere to be seen in Jung.

There is actually a theory of personality in Vedanta philosophy, again proposed by Adhi Shankara (his influence really can't be underestimated). It consists of three entities ("functions" if you will, but I hesitate to equate them completely) called Gunas - they are Tamas, Rajas, and Sattva. I am going to quote from Eknath Easwaran:

"We can also think of the gunas as different levels of consciousness. Tamas, the lowest level, is the vast unconscious, a chaotic dumping ground for the residue of past mental states. "Unconscious" in this sense has somethng in common with Jung's collective unconsciousin that it is the repository not only of past experiences but also of our evolitionary heritage, the basic drives of the human being's animal past. This record is shared, of course, by all human beings, and at its deepest levels the unconscious is universal. There is no choice in tamas, no awareness, this is complete ignorance of the unity of life, ignorance of any other need than one's basic urges.

"Rajas is what we ordinarily mean by mind, the incessant stream of thought that races along desiring, worrying, resenting, scheming, competing, frustrating, and getting frustrated. Rajas is power released but uncontrolled and ego-centric.

"Sattva, finally, is the so-called higher mind - detached, unruffled, self-controlled. This is not a state of repressive regulation, but the natural harmony that comes with unity of purpose, character, and desire. Negative states of mind do still come up, prompted by rajas and tamas, but you do not have to act on them.

"... The rajasic person is full of energy; the tamasic is sluggish, indifferent, insensitive; the sattvic person is calm, resourceful, compassionate, and selfless."
-- Eknath Easwaran, Bhagavad Gita

Now, you will obviously see the lines of congruence the people noted in McNew's post link Jung's theory to, here. Rajas - living in the sensory world, under influence of samskara and the collective unconscious. Tamas - thinking, with attachment to ego (colloquial, not Freudian). Sattva - knowing everything at once. Of course, I am sitting here applying Western psychology theory in the context of Vedic philosophy. I have no idea if Jung was even as aware of this philosophy as he would have needed to be in order to lift his theory of personality from them.

I will say one thing: the partof the collective unconscious that we can be at least aware of - the zeitgeist of the times, our milieu, our culture, our intellectual environment - transcendentalism was indeed a part of Jung's zeitgeist, and whether he was explicitly aware of them or not, it's very likely that these concepts got to him in some roundabout way, with some secondary collateral influence.

However, nothing short of a quote of Jung stating "I ripped off the Hindus" will convince anyone that there is an explicit link, and not some coincidence served to us over the internet by people who have a little too much time on their hands and tenure to achieve.

[Rocky]

What I love is that you pointed out "psychological types" in title of the thread, but mentioned nothing relating to psychological types afterward.

I haven't heard of anything else that is comparbale to Jung's book Psychological Types; even in what Baby wrote (BTW, I also disagree with his connections between the two theories, but it doesn't really matter at this point anyway).

And as I said before, reincarnation and the collective unconscious don't deal with the same idea.

...and...

It was the evidence of his own dreams, plus those of a close acquaintance, which led to a very positive assessment of Indian karma and rebirth theory in the last years before his death.

OK, an assement of karma in the last years of his life. So? All of his works were established way before that. People can start to believe in in various things as they are approaching death...

[Angel von Himmel]

And as I said before, reincarnation and the collective unconscious don't deal with the same idea.

I am just going to have to totally disagree with you and leave it there, even though the definition of samskara [implying reincarnation] is the exact same thing as Jungs description of the collective unconscious.

[Angel von Himmel]

It was the evidence of his own dreams, plus those of a close acquaintance, which led to a very positive assessment of Indian karma and rebirth theory in the last years before his death.

OK, an assement of karma in the last years of his life. So? All of his works were established way before that. People can start to believe in in various things as they are approaching death...

As I wrote in the other thread:

"Jung believed the human subconscious contains inherited memories from previous generations. These collective memories, as well as the personal experience of the individual, consistute his or her own soul. Jung regarded human beings in the twentieth century as being alienated from these useful collective memories." (The Western Heritage Since 1300, p. 870)

Samskara reference number 1 as a summary of his life work

In Memories, Deams, Reflections, in the chapter entitled, "On Life after Death," Jung states, "I could well imagine that I have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer; that I had to be born again because I had not fulfilled the task that was given to me. When I die, my deeds will follow along with me - that is how I imagine it" (Memories, p. 318).

Samskara reference number 2 as a summary of his belief about death

So, Jung did write in his book Memories, Deams, Reflections in the chapter entitled On Life after Death on page 318 that he believed in the possibility that he would be reincarnated or had a past life, and that the effects of samskara in this life would travel on to his next life?

The answer is Yes ...

Did he believe it before earlier in life?

The answer is Yes ...

[Rocky]

Explain the collective unconscious in your own words this time. Then describe reincarnation in your own words.

[Angel von Himmel]

Explain the collective unconscious in your own words this time. Then describe reincarnation in your own words.

Change in heart already? I though you origionally requested me to quote from perceived credible sources other than myself.

[Rocky]

No, I want to see if you understand what you're quoting.

[Angel von Himmel]

No, I want to see if you understand what you're quoting.

Or maybe you feel sore about what I am saying and want to see if you can exploit a vulnerability. Very well then.

Collective Unconscious - instinctual impulses common universally, hidden from man and mostly inherited unknowingly from the past; meanwhile surfacing time and again through dreams, intuition, and other factors and ways that allow a person to learn from his or her mistakes and to reach a state of self-actualization.

Reincarnation - transmigration of a person's abstract existence through specific incremental human to human embodiments in circular purification cycles, through each embodiment remnants of the effects caused by a person's action [called samskara] shape a person's self [often called the atman] and therefore his or her behavioral tendencies in that life, which may or may not promote good or bad karma in this life depending upon the atmospheric conditions promoted in this life and the law of karma [the west calls this 'fleshly temptation'], and depending upon social class [certain Hindu sects specifically]. When enlightenment is found [often called 'moska,' the truth nothing is longer hidden from him], a person then frees himself from the law of karma and is no longer held captive to the sway of transmigration at death to another embodiment. However, while it has been argued that the reincarnation endured in result of the law of karma is not a fair promotion of freedom, it is counter-argued that mankind is a "collective element" and that the whole world suffers under the weight of the sins of the weakest individuals, meaning that each individuals samskara [the effects of a person's actions or behaviors as it shapes the atman, or self] builds to a greater global sense of awareness often referred to as "Cosmic or Universal consciousness." This is the global karma level of the earth and its inhabitants, and its awareness of the things that were initially hidden from them by the Gods. Other sects in the east, such as Buddhism and other non-dualist such as Radharkrishnan, tend to reject the main play of a God or God's outside of the bounds of the law of karma and believe in a form of 'self-determination' that impels people to learn from their mistakes and to make improvements in their character, hence effectively improving his or hers ability to follow the law of karma, improving character, and reaching enlightenment.

[Rocky]

And you still think they're the same idea?

... and I'm Jesus because I'm a carpenter...

[Angel von Himmel]

And you still think they're the same idea?

... and I'm Jesus because I'm a carpenter...

You asked me to describe them, and I did ... what were you expecting?

And the answer is yes, I still think they are the same thing.

[Creepy-pokeball]

And you still think they're the same idea?

... and I'm Jesus because I'm a carpenter...

Sweet!

[Rocky]

I didn't know what to expect... though I wouldn't disagree with your descriptions... they are still distinctly different. You even said some of the same thing I did- the CU is more about universal instincts, and reincarnation is about the preservation of the soul through several physical forms.

How is that the same thing??

[Angel von Himmel]

I didn't know what to expect... though I wouldn't disagree with your descriptions... they are still distinctly different. You even said some of the same thing I did- the CU is more about universal instincts, and reincarnation is about the preservation of the soul through several physical forms.

How is that the same thing??

They are much more similar than what you would think ... the only real diffrence I can even see is that the Collective Consciousness in Jungian psychology has been slightly 'tweeked' [probably a political change by others interpreting Jungian theory in order to make the eastern concepts appeal to western audiences] in interpretation to make the concept of global karma seem more linear and more applicable to the implication of other ideas such as inherited genetics, darwinism, culture, mores, etc. and the eastern tradition has an emphasis on gods, salvation, a moral law, etc. Regardless, it is still the same filtered crap no matter what face you give it. The question is now, how can you make a philosophy coherent to an audience it wasn't made for without first changing aspects of it to suit the audience?

And, how is it not the same thing?

[Olga]

I think rmcnew's topic is very intresting indeed and containts interesting posts which prove that similarity in the religous teaching is nothing else but collective uncounscious as coming to light. I wrote before that I did not read or know everything - I don't need to! But when i work out the model it is suprisingly similar to the already existing knowledge. As Yung is already dead - you better ask me -where do I get my thoughts?

The process of learning is a collection of info on many differnt levels: conscious and subcounscious and may well be also on uncounscious. Uncounscious is hidden so we can not one hundred percent be sure how it collects, store or/and dumps info. One day the knowldege works automatically on its own like mozaik in your head. You ask the queston and you get the answer or you do not get it. When I get the answer - I don't know where it comes from - most probably from collective uncounscous. But what I know that my reflective conscious is registering the answer as true or not true. Unless I "know" it is true - I will not post it - I do not want to look silly or insane.
But if I feel as true - then I post it and do not care what people may think about the post or about me.

The Yung's ideas are very much in line with mine - so it must be CU - or call it connection to supernatural block A.
As regards to reincarnaton and CU - it is one and the same thing and I do not mean definitions - I mean two shoes make a pair! Afterlife is about karma, reincarnation and collective uncounscious - how it exactly works -lets wait until we are there than we shall see.

As rmcnew or Yung said collective unconscious is channel through which we get symbolized messages from the spiritual world. The messages are coded: there is not much words in them but rather images and pictures. Why the dead are not talking and do not express emotions - I don't know - it is the way their world is or may be they are not allowed to say much. I had experiences in my dreams - I look at the mirror and smiled but my face was looking frosen at me with no emotional expression.
Their world is introverted, they don't have material body in the way we understand the bodies and they do not have abilities to show emotion or smile. Actually how many reincarnations are we allowed - 16 as well?

I would assume in life we share this world with all nice and not nice things, when we die we most probably share that world with all nice or not nice things too. While here we share collective conscious and while there - collective uncounscious. It must be a relaxing. peaceful state of with no stress or worries. May be we shall define first what collective conscious means for a start?

[Thod]

I agree that these two ideas do seem to parallel extensively (though too am somewhat unwilling to qualitatively link them completely). Jung also referenced collective knowledge (représentations collectives) from Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (an Anthropologist whose ideas weren't taken seriously in anthropology), so may have gained much of his ideas from that source as well.

Very few basic concepts are originally noticed - though they do tend to be phrased differently by different originators (or by non-originators who are merging them with other ideas). The difference in this case seems to be that Karma and reincarnation are generalized thru linear time (static to an individual "soul"), while Jung's collective unconscious is generalized thru time as well, but primarily thru type (static to the certain types). This is an individual vs a group idea - where the group can be types, societies (and thus we get people saying that certain cultures "have" a certain psychological type), etc.... So, he took certain elements from these Eastern ideas, then transformed them to fit into his personality types (and whatever other ideas he had as to psychology).

Granularity
An improvement to typing cultures and groups this way would be to use a form of Guttman's Facet Theory, or some other particalized theory that breaks down specific facets (as opposed to clusters of facets). This would allow much finer typological distinctions among cultures/societies, and even individuals - and show more gradual (or revolutionary, if applicable) change from type to type over time of these entities. This would be similar to astrology (in terms of different interlinked aspects) and "Jungian Self" (as quoted above), but would link to the aspects themselves, instead of planets and houses or archetypes. Currently this is described as "developing the secondary functions", and other sundry missense in the current literature.

Parts of the collective unconscious most pertainable to type would be the parts that very rarely, or never, change in people of that certain type. Others would be things that vary among people of that type (subtypes), and others would be things such as learned knowledge that completely crosses type - and is not innate to type, or not innate to the types of most or all of the people who possess it (but may originally be innate to a certain type and just learned or taught to the other types - thus you get certain forms of propaganda and political correctness), but may be innate to humans or omnivores (or environment).


Stylistically, this seems very analogous to the concept of "original sin" in christianity. It also is analogous to the studies of fractals (as structural frameworks) and other recurrent trends in nature.



Reuben: Not everyone can easily see implications such as the ones you are describing. Due to your (and coincidentally, my) specific subtype, this is what you innately orient to looking for and seeing. Other subtypes see other things - and are probably equally frustrated or astonished at our inability to see what it is that they see.

Jung also derived his type theory from some other sources as well, and originally didn't seem to have the 16 types (though I may not have read enough yet), but had the 8 types and ancillary factors/functions creating more types from those.

rmcnew
there is a tradition of 16 types in samskara ceremonies

-- These co-incidences are noticeable in many things, even many places within personality theory. I am not certain of what it is that you are trying to state with it (beyond pointing out to others the potential origins of much of Jung's thought - and of the 16 types in the fleshed out theories predicated on his thought), but feel the need to point out that coincidences such as these cannot be considered real validation of any particular type theory, as other validations occur for technically numerically incompatible type theories (the enneagram 9/18 types, oldham - 14 types, ansir - 14 types) as well. As to "16", 4 axial deliniations (as Jung created them, though tripolar and unipolar and other axial configurations are possible as well - the tripolar Hornevian trends in Enneagram theory, for example), necessitate 16 types (I think it was originally just the S/N, E/I and T/F axises though, thus only 8 types).


At any rate, thanks for the new information, I was unaware of it.

Scrummy
I will say one thing: the partof the collective unconscious that we can be at least aware of - the zeitgeist of the times, our milieu, our culture, our intellectual environment - transcendentalism was indeed a part of Jung's zeitgeist, and whether he was explicitly aware of them or not, it's very likely that these concepts got to him in some roundabout way, with some secondary collateral influence.

This is one of the things missing from most contemporary personality typologies/theories, though it exists somewhat in Astrology as precesion of ages and generational aspects, in non-typological takes of anthropological and psychological studies (ie. memetics), the Flynn Effect in IQ measurement, possibly even elsewhere that I am as yet unaware of. Ideally, this will be considered at some point (need to get off my ass and start doing it).

____
int•

[tcaudilllg]

Perhaps this is so. Certainly there are strong parallels between Jung's work and Eastern thought.

My personal approach to theorizing is to first formulate the system based on what I think is going on through intuitively inferrng the existence of heretofore unknown facts, then look for evidence of its operation in the environment. Certainly Jung did attempt to unite his work with Eastern thought. Perhaps he made the link that the four functions of his typology were the physical correspondence of the irrational observations in eastern spirituality and myth, as he did elsewhere in his work from what I've seen of it. Wind, water, earth, fire in Aristotelian philosophy can be viewed similarly.