Essays and Archetypes

Two Essays on Analytical Psychology 

by C.G. Jung

“To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is.”   ― C.G. Jung




I was surprised to find much of the first part of this book, "On the Psychology of the Unconscious", to be a critique of Freud as much as an outline of Jung's position on the topic. Written and revised during World War I and subsequently revised, it is somewhat fragmented, yet still a good introduction to the topic. Part two is a further discussion of the relation of the ego to the unconscious including an introduction to individuation. The wealth of concepts is such that it is easy to lose track of the overall subject matter. My appreciation for the text was primarily concerned with the literary allusions and references to thinkers from Heraclitus to Nietzsche and beyond.

The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious 

by C.G. Jung

“there is good reason for supposing that the archetypes are the unconscious images of the instincts themselves, in other words, that they are patterns of instinctual behaviour.”   ― C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious



What kind of a book is this? I considered several categories from spiritual to supernatural, but decided that it was a sort of mythology of human archetypes and the psyche. My difficulties with the text came close to my experience reading the Tao of Lao-tse, while in its categorical nature it resembled The Varieties of Religious Experience. My own approach to reading it centered on the literary connections with which I found resonance in the text. These ranged widely from Shakespeare to Stevenson and Hesse with a special emphasis on the importance of Jung for Moby-Dick.

In this work Jung propounds many of his theories regarding the nature of human consciousness, both personal and collective. While portrayed as scientific they seemed to lack the evidence normally associated with the scientific method. Jung was great at making his assumptions sound like settled truth, when outside of his coterie there was little that was settled. For example, he compares his discoveries to the discovery of the atom, commenting that "we speak of "atoms" today because we have heard, directly or indirectly, of the atomic theory of Democritus. But where did Democritus, or whoever first spoke of minimal constitutive elements, hear of atoms? This notion had its origin in archetypal ideas, that is , in primordial images which were never reflections of physical events but are spontaneous products of the psychic factor." (p 57)  This gives you a flavor of the sort of arguments presented. There are also examples of many of the concepts based on observation of patients. For me, it was these stories that hearkened back to the approach of William James. 

The book is poetic at times and has a wealth of interpretations of psychic events. His examinations of the personal or collective unconscious is fascinating and provides a great introduction to the psychological world of Carl Jung.

Journey into the Underworld

Melville's Moby Dick: An American Nekyia 

by Edward F. Edinger

"I shall follow the endless, winding way---

the flowing river in the cave of man."

--Herman Melville, Pierre.

This is literary criticism from a Jungian perspective. Edinger, while a Jungian, does not limit his analysis merely to the Jungian outlook, but also includes classical, biblical, and other literary references.

The approach that he uses is through examining the book as a psychological document.  He considers it "as a record in symbolic imagery of an intense inner experience".  In doing so he tries to serve three ends: 
"first, to elucidate the pyschological significance of Moby-Dick; second, to demonstrate the methods of analytical psychoogy in dealing with wymbolic forms; and third, to present the fundamental orientation which underlies the therapeutic approch of analytical psychology."  

The subtitle of the book, "An American Nekyia", refers to the eleventh book of the Odyssey, called a Nekyia, which is used as a reference to a journey to the underworld.  This seems particularly apt when attempting to elucidate some of the deep meaning suggested by the text of Moby-Dick.  It also can be seen in biblical terms as demonstrated by the sermon based on the tale of Jonah and the Leviathan. Whether discussing Prometheus, Faust, the Sphinx or demonism, Edinger produces a fascinating commentary on the potential meaning of the ultimate story of the whale.

The breadth of his approach makes his book attractive and worthwhile. While I did not always agree with his conclusions, his arguments and analyses were always thought-provoking. I would recommend this as one of the best literary criticisms to include in any close reading of Moby-Dick.

Man and Art

Hermann Hesse


Today is the birthday of Herman Hesse who was born on this day in 1877 in the German Black Forest town of Calw. Beyond the evidence found in his novels, Hesse’s correspondence and biographical details reflect a chronic disquietude, punctuated by more acute troubles — for example, a suicide attempt while still a teenager.  As relief from writing and society, he took up painting; the following notes comment on two of his novels from the twenties when he was still developing his world view of man and art.

My two favorite of Hesse's novels remain Steppenwolf and Demian.  In some respects they are related, for example by the influence of Nietzsche and Jung.  It was in Demian that a "comparatively mild-mannered traditionalist at odds with the world became a thoroughly Nietzschean individualist, iconoclast, and moralist. . . This Nietzschean sentiment found its immediate expression in Demian: a novelesque depiction of Hesse's own emancipation from traditional belief and thought, and of the crystallization of his own ethos.  In his Sinclair, Hesse himself emerged the man of tomorrow. " (Mileck, Herman Hesse, p 92-3)  In his novel that followed, Steppenwolf, the story of Harry Haller is that of a man and art, and is told in the transcendent manner of symbol and concept.  What follows are some notes that I wrote about Steppenwolf four years ago.

What does it mean to be Human?
notes on Der Steppenwolf


Our task as human beings is this:
Within our own unique personal lives
To move one step further along the path
From animal to human being.
- Hermann Hesse, in “Thou Shalt Not Kill”


A work like Steppenwolf is iconic in its artistic significance. Being so makes it more difficult to discuss the book as I would other "good" reads. A novel of ideas, one that challenges my own conception of the world, it raises more questions than it answers. It draws upon the ideas of other thinkers, notable Goethe and Nietzsche and Jung, and presents those ideas in new ways - challenging even those with which the author may agree. This is what Hermann Hesse set out to do in writing Der Steppenwolf in 1927.

The novel presents a complex narrative that combines three different styles within its structure; a straightforward preface introducing the protagonist, Harry Haller, a "Treatise on the Steppenwolf" in the form of a pamphlet that Harry accepts and interprets as a study of his own life, and Harry's own narrative which moves into a dream sequence when Harry enters the "Magic Theater". We meet characters, both women and men, at least one of whom may be Harry's alter ego or "anima" in Jungian terms. We see a man who would separate himself from the Nietzschean herd and values individuality. Most of all we encounter a man facing not the "two souls" that dwell within his breast, as Goethe described Faust, but one who faces innumerable souls in a personality that seems to be breaking up into different persons. Through it all Harry looks up to artistic "Immortals" as representative of an ideal in the form of idealized visions of Goethe and Mozart. Especially Mozart who plays a critical role in Harry's dreams.

What can I take away from this work? As I said it raises questions and the thoughts and process of reviewing the way I approach the world is one thing that this novel provides. With all great - read transcendent - works of art I continue to find new layers of meaning as I read and reread their pages. One fundamental question, and I think this is central to all of Hesse's writings, is what does it mean to be human? The philosophers from Plato and Aristotle have tried to define this, but Hesse's Steppenwolf continues to present the question and explore original ways to find the answer.


Hermann Hesse: Life and Art by Joseph Mileck.  U of California Press, 1980 (1978).
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. Henry Holt & Company, New York. 1990 (1927).

Journey of a Seeker

Demian 
by Hermann Hesse


“I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I'm beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.”   ― Hermann Hesse, Demian


Herman Hesse writes in the Prologue to Demian, "Each man's life represents a road toward himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path."(p 2) Is there a reality apart from our "constructed self"? Rather is each man on the road? The story of Emil Sinclair and his relationship with Max Demian is Hesse's attempt to narrate one young man's journey on the road toward himself.

Demian presents a first person account of Sinclair's life recorded not long after World War I and centered on crucial episodes earlier in his life between the ages of ten and twenty. His memories of boyhood are dominated by his friendship with Max Demian, an older boy who rescues him from a bully and challenges him to exercise his own independent thought to liberate himself from his parents life of pietism. Upon going off to boarding school Emil adopts another mentor, a renegade theologian named Pistorius, and experiences platonic love for a young girl whom he glimpses in a park. At the university to which he matriculates he once again encounters Demian and continues his spiritual growth until Demian goes off to war. Emil's eventual spiritual independence occurs with his realization that he no longer needs external protectors like Demian.

Hesse draws upon Nietzsche, Jung and others for his ideas, but the story is almost an archetypal example of the search both for meaning and identity. The forming of an identity involves discovering values, forming beliefs, and learning how to deal with reality. It involves reconciling the two worlds of his life, the world of light represented by a home filled with order and Christian goodness, and the world of dark that exists in the streets of the town with the temptations of sex, violence and lust. It is only through his relationship with Demian that Emil is able to escape from the temptations of this life, at least for a time.
Emil is not satisfied with a life of quiet piety. Life for Emil thus includes his dream life. He tells a friend, "I live in my dreams--that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference." (p 118) 

The experiences of Emil are dramatic and result in a rejection of the convention life for one of a seeker. In his search Emil confronts his beliefs, dreams, and more. An epiphany occurs on one Spring day when he is attracted by a young woman in the park. He names her Beatrice and is soon transformed "into a worshiper in a temple." (p 81) He says,
"I had an ideal again, life was rich with intimations of mystery and a feeling of dawn that made me immune to all taunts. I had come home again to myself, even if only as the slave and servant of a cherished image."(p 81)
Thus the narrator describes what in Jungian terms is his "anima". This inspires him to create and to read as his journey takes him in a new direction. For Hesse and for the reader it is always a path on "a road toward himself".

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Fifth Business

Can I really write of my boyhood? Or will that disgusting self-love which so often attaches itself to a man's idea of his youth creep in and falsify the story? I can but try. (p. 19)

One always learns one's mystery at the price of one's innocence. (p. 263)


I first read Robertson Davies more than twenty years ago and was impressed with the characters and action in his novel, What's Bred in the Bone. It was a story of an artist born to a patrician family whose life becomes entangled in mystery.
The prime thing I remember from that reading was my enjoyment of Davies story-telling ability. It has taken a couple of decades, but I finally read another of his novels, perhaps his best, and find that same story-telling ability still impresses me. Fifth Business is the first installment of the Deptford Trilogy by Davies and it is the story of the life of the narrator, Dunstan Ramsay. The entire story is told in the form of a letter written by Ramsay on his retirement from teaching at Colborne College, addressed to the school Headmaster. The book's title was explained by the author as a theatrical term, a character essential to the action but not a principal actor. This is made explicit in the focus of much the action on others, including Percy Boyd 'Boy' Staunton and his wife Leola, and Mrs. Dempster and her son Paul; all of whom influence and are influenced by the life of the narrator.

Davies discusses several themes in the novel, including the difference between materialism and spirituality. He has also created a sort of bildungsroman in the narrative of Dunstable 'Dunstan' Ramsay, who lives a life dedicated to teaching (history in a boys' school) and studying the lives of saints, becoming a hagiographer of some note. Significantly, Davies, then being an avid student of Carl Jung's ideas, deploys them in Fifth Business. Characters are clear examples of Jungian archetypes and events demonstrate Jung's idea of synchronicity. The stone thrown at Ramsay when he was a child reappears decades later in a scandalous suicide or murder. This along with the impetus in Ramsay's life of three "miracles" become the mainstays of the plot line. Finally, it is all held together by Davies attention to detail, his characterization and above all his ability to tell a good story. I expect to return to finish the Deptford Trilogy sooner rather than later.


Fifth Business in The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies. Penguin Books. 1977 (1970)
What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies. Viking Press, New York. 1985.