Empty Furniture

I seem to be on a Jungian roll! After writing the last blog Philippa and I went for a walk with our dog and talked about what I had written - written after being inspired by her. We got onto the notion of ‘individuation’ which I, as a lapsed Jungian, am not entirely comfortable with unlike the idea of the shadow which for me still works.

So quick catch up: Individuation is a life long process moving towards wholeness. It involves making the archetypal themes that run through everyones lives - being a parent and a child, the experiences of searching, of longing, of love, of wisdom and of death - and making each one uniquely our own. To do this we must dive deep into ourselves and embark on a journey of disidentification from our social masks and unconscious collective values, meeting aspects of ourselves that typically include our shadow self, the soul and spirit that act as conduits between the personal and the divine and divinity itself. As such it is not surprising that paid up Jungians feel this is an authentic spiritual journey.

Now this is where it becomes interesting. What exactly constitutes a ‘spiritual journey’? Having received a very long and thorough Jungian analysis, my own experience was that it was extremely valuable in enabling me to grow up and step with confidence into my adult life. While it did include periods during which my dreams exhibited all the classical Jungian themes - the appearance of animal familiars, guiding soul figures, mandala like configurations that in the Jungian world are symbols of the archetype of the Self etc. - finally it was entirely about my very ordinary personality and filling in the bits that had been distorted by the traumas of my childhood. Probably, in retrospect, the most important part was the love I felt from two of the analysts I worked with. A love I had not experienced before. However, as healing as this all was, it remained entirely at a personality level. At no time did it move out into an exploration of the awareness in which the experiences we call ‘my personality’ arise and dissolve. And it did not recognise that the reification of the personality - at least from a Buddhist perspective - is finally the deeper cause of suffering.

So am I doing a disservice to Jungian analysis? Are there people who feel through their analysis they have been spiritually transformed? Certainly Jung himself felt this, but reading Dreams, Memories and Reflections - his quasi autobiography - I am now left with the sense that for Jung what was important was not a penetrating insight into the the real nature of personality in itself but its enrichment through an engagement with the archetypal themes he found deep within. Jung said as much:

The Indian's goal is … to free himself from nature … he seeks in meditation … emptiness. I, on the other hand, wish to persist in the state of lively contemplation of nature and of the psychic images. I want to be freed neither from human beings, nor from myself, nor from nature; for all these appear to me the greatest of miracles. Nature, the psyche, and life appear to me like divinity unfolded—and what more could I wish for?

Memories, Dreams and Reflections 1963:258/7

Plainly Jung does have a very real sense of his own understanding of spirituality but this is one that is not interested in the emptiness or illusionary nature of the separate sense of self but rather its ongoing exploration. You could say, if being mean, that he was fascinated by himself!

Now lets make a jump to another psychologist - Jack Engler - who anticipated a great deal of what was to come in the dialogue between psychotherapy and Buddhism when he wrote in 1970, ‘You have to be a somebody before you can be a nobody’. Here Engler is saying that practices such as mindfulness require the foundation of a functioning and secure sense of self because by their very nature they are designed to dismantle the solidity and separateness of the self and reveal its essential transitory and interconnected nature. He also claims that western psychology has identified the elements necessary for being a healthy ‘somebody’ but it has yet to recognise a further step in the development of the person which is to become a ‘nobody’. Which in our small understanding of the teachings begins with the ability to step back and observe all the mad stuff that pops up in our mind and not take it so seriously. Feels real, not necessarily true.

So I think we have two very different types of ‘spiritual journey’ here, if indeed both of them are. I’m inclined to avoid making hard statements about what is what but I do remember distinctly sitting on our sofa in London right at the end of my Jungian adventure and finding myself in tears because of the utter simplicity of breathing in and out. It was such a relief to be free of what had become the burden of finding meaning - the principle Jungian concern. Personality will go on forever. Individuation has no end. The furniture can be repositioned within the room countless times. But the space in which the room itself is situated is breathtaking in its uncluttered freedom and radiant calm.

NW. 26 August 2025

And apologies to our Jungian friends - this is just my view of things in this moment - it will probably change.

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