“The human psyche rose out of the world that she is a part of. Psyche is “in” the world the same way the world is “in” the psyche. What we conventionally call an objective world is to a lesser or greater degree part of the psyche. The objective and the subjective are only auxiliary terms while dealing with object-subject continuum. Psyche is basically immersed, in that world and is adapted to perceive it and to interact with it. We cannot know how would this “objective” world look like without the “subject.” Would there be a sound of branch falling from the tree if there was nobody in the forest? What (and how) we are able to touch, see and to hear is determined by the innate faculties of our senses. There are temperatures that we consider cold and hot, based on the functional principles of our bodies. For example humans cannot see electromagnetic wavelength outside of the spectrum of 390 – 700 nm., we cannot detect vibrations in our ears which are lower than 20 Hz and greater than 20 KHz and the like. We know they “exist” because of technological devices that extend our senses. The same is true about a priori categories of pure reason determining how we are able to think and what we are able to think. Categories of feeling and imagination (archetypes) allow us to experience the world very determined way as what we can feel and know about the “objective” world, therefore cannot go beyond the frame of those inner structures. Emotions and feelings being functions of experience “in” the objective world would have no bearing without the objective world and are thus part “of” it, as they are part of our subjective experience. Another phenomenon complicating our experience of the world is projection, or unconscious attribution of unconscious states to the object. Everything psychic is originally projected and therefore seen on the object, only gradual conscious realization of the source makes this two worlds relatively distinct. According to the theory of Lévy-Bruhl later adapted by Jung, ancient humans, or children, naturally live in the state of participation mystique, or unconscious unity. In that state object and subject overlap and are experienced as one. Hence magical thinking or believe that external beings are directly responsible for one’s mental states. According to Jung, realizations of the unconscious contents, i.e., withdrawals of projections and transforming unconscious to consciousness creates more accurate (real) picture of the world. He termed this individuation."
“In Joshua 10, we find the story of Joshua praying to the Lord to stop the moon and sun to give him extra time to finish fighting the Amorites: At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel. So Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal (Joshua 10:12, English Standard Version). If the Earth really stopped rotating, the Earth would have to slow from 1,100 miles per hour to a complete stop in less than 24 hours. We know that everything that is not tied down, including people and waters, would continue fly in the direction of the Earth’s rotation at the speed of 1,100 miles per hour at the equator. To take this story literally and concretely, we would have to accede with a miracle of enormous complexity. We would have to accept a God who can operate outside of natural laws. Further, this God would act very arbitrarily in his choice with respect to the person for whom he will do such a favor. This would also have enormous implications for the power and efficaciousness of prayer. Religious scriptures are full of similar miraculous stories. We can take them at their face value and consider them “realities” or accept them as symbolic expressions of something equally important in the realm of psycho-spiritual reality. It can easily be argued that with respect to one’s moral obligations, the symbolic understanding has a firmer bearing because it calls upon one’s responsibility based on insight and understanding of the implications of conduct, while literalism only prescribes maxims for behavior through the reliance on blind faith in the external judger and punisher. Great philosophical questions concerning life after death, freedom of will, and the existence of God are irresolvable mysteries within one frame of reference, but they can be absolute certainties in other frames of reference. The task of consciousness is to preserve the best possible relationship between the rational and irrational, the concrete and abstract, the literal and symbolic. The price for this loss of balance is extremely high; because is real.”
“Just like a child’s secure attachment (which is characterized by ability to safely leave caregiver and come back to him or her for protection) allows for the development of a balanced relationship between dependence and autonomy, so the secure spiritual development is predicated upon the ability of relating objective religious ideas to inner religious persuasions inferred from inner individual experiences and thus a balance between reasonable dependence on Imago Dei and trust to autonomy of one’s own spirituality.“
“Sooner or later something seems to call us onto a particular path. You may remember this "something" as a signal moment in childhood when an urge out of nowhere, a fascination, a peculiar turn of events struck like an annunciation: This is what I must do, this is what I've got to have. This is who I am."
"It was therefore something of a discovery to find that during the unconscious state of sleep intervals occur, called ‘dreams’, which occasionally contain scenes having a not inconsiderable resemblance to the motifs of mythology. For myths are miracle tales and treat of all those things which, very often, are also objects of belief. In the everyday world of consciousness such things hardly exist; that is to say, until 1933 only lunatics would have been found in possession of living fragments of mythology. After this date the world of heroes and monsters spread like a devastating fire over whole nations, proving that the strange world of myth had suffered no loss of vitality during the centuries of reason and enlightenment. If metaphysical ideas no longer have such a fascinating effect as before, this is certainly not due to any lack of primitivity in the European psyche, but simply and solely to the fact that the erstwhile symbols no longer express what is now welling up from the unconscious as the end-result of the development of Christian consciousness through the centuries. This end-result is a true antimimon pneuma, a false spirit of arrogance, hysteria, wooly-mindedness, criminal amorality, and doctrinaire fanaticism, a purveyor of shoddy spiritual goods, spurious art, philosophical stutterings, and Utopian humbug, fit only to be fed wholesale to the mass man of today. That is what the post-Christian spirit looks like."
Vlado Šolc
