Individuation
The process of individuation moves in 2 major parts:
Understanding, removing, and putting on & off at will: the Persona
Understanding, coming to terms with, and resolution with: the Archetypes
“Before
the persona has been differentiated from the
ego, the
persona is experienced as
individuality.
In fact, as a social
identity on the one hand and an ideal image on the other,
there is little
individual about it.”
Firstly, one has to become aware of the Persona.
Secondly, one must dissolve the Persona.
Early personal development is augmented by development of the Persona, allowing us for collective purposes to adapt, get along with others and explore the world, but regarding the Persona:
“Human beings have one faculty which, though it is of the greatest utility for collective purposes, is most pernicious for individuation, and that is the faculty of imitation”
Dissolution of the
Persona is a
key transition in our development, and thus
requires us to ‘separate’ from those qualities of the
Persona that we worked so
hard to develop and ‘mistook’ to be the qualities of our ‘self’.
"I've got to see Tina.
But what do I Do?
Do I go as
my self?
Or do I go as – The Mask!
Like
transforming an oil painting to a mirror.
Differentiating one’s own
consciousness from the previous
personal identities (Persona) creates a
conscious wherein new objects of
consciousness are no longer subject to subconscious
projections and
therefore
this
new found objectivity saves the subject from being at the mercy of the
reactive
mechanism.
Upon dissolution of the
Persona, one now becomes an entirely different ‘being’.
A being free to express one’s self without the shackles of the
unconscious automation of the
Persona.
This period is marked by an unfamiliar silence.
The volume of the voices becomes silent, but what
one loses in identity, one gains in personal insight.
This silence in the mind is ‘deafening’ so to speak, and one feels awake.
The occurrence is somewhat similar to the initial experience of having
your ears pop after they’ve been plugged for some time and you had no idea.
But, unfortunately,
the
veil
is lifted only to be under another and then you are
slowly and incrementally welcomed into a new world by:
“the
gods,” and your ear is at the mercy of their whispers – psychology calls
them – the Archetypes.
The persona corresponds to a man’s habitual outward attitude, while the Anima/Animus reflects the habitual inner attitude.
(As) the
archetypes, like all
numinous contents, are relatively autonomous, they cannot be integrated simply
by
rational means, but require a dialectical procedure…
… In the final analysis the
decisive factor is always consciousness, which can understand the manifestations
of the unconscious and take up a position toward them.
The peace of dissolving the persona's grasp does not last long however and without our noticing – the archetypes (which are the reason the Greeks, Romans, Hindus, etc. came up with “The gods” – to ‘label’/explain the universal whisperings that speak to, inspire, and play tricks on us) become our next psychological challenge.
“The
most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm
which is not easily disturbed, or else a brokenness that can hardly be healed.
Conversely, it is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration
which are needed in order to produce valuable and lasting results”[4].
The secret to progress: humility. As you progress your ego inflates (and the properties of that development [i.e. Archetypes] will convince that you have 'arrived’ which naturally feels good. But the doorway to the ‘next level’ is always smaller, prohibiting your ego from "fitting through the door".
“We can
never legitimately cut loose from our
archetypal foundations unless we are
prepared to pay the price of a
neurosis, any more than we can rid ourselves of
our body and its organs without committing suicide.
If we cannot deny the
archetypes or otherwise neutralize them, we are
confronted, at
every
new stage in the differentiation of
consciousness to which civilization attains,
with the
task of
finding a new interpretation
appropriate to this stage, in order to connect the life of the past that still
exists in us with the life of the present, which threatens to slip away from
it.”
“The
achievement of a
synthesis of
conscious and
unconscious contents, and the
conscious realization of the
archetype’s effects upon the conscious contents,
represents the climax of a concentrated spiritual and psychic effort, in so far
as this is undertaken consciously and of set purpose.”
“By means of “active imagination” we are put in a position of advantage, for we can then make the discovery of the archetype without sinking back into the instinctual sphere, which would only lead to blank unconsciousness or, worse still, to some kind of intellectual substitute for instinct.”
“Moreover, they are the unfailing causes of neurotic and even psychotic disorders, behaving exactly like neglected or maltreated physical organs or organic functional systems’ Jacobi
It is a process that requires the patient to face his problems and that taxes his powers of conscious judgment and decision. It is nothing less than a direct challenge to his ethical sense, a call to arms that must be answered by the whole personality. Jacobi
These “archaic vestiges,” or archetypal
forms grounded on the
instincts and giving expression to them,
have a
numinous quality that sometimes arouses fear. They
are ineradicable, for they represent the ultimate foundations of the
psyche
itself. They cannot be grasped
intellectually, and when one has destroyed one manifestation of them, they
reappear in altered form. It is this
fear of the unconscious psyche which not only impedes
self-knowledge but is the
gravest obstacle to a wider understanding and knowledge of psychology.
Often the fear is so great that one dares not admit it even to oneself. Here is a question that every religious person should consider very seriously; he might get an illuminating answer.
“Confrontation with an archetype or instinct is an ethical problem of the
first magnitude, the urgency of which is felt only by people who find themselves
faced
with the need to assimilate the
unconscious and integrate their
personalities. This only falls to
the lot of the man who realizes that he has a
neurosis or that all is not well
with his psychic constitution.”
“Absorption into the instinctual sphere, therefore, does not and cannot lead to conscious realization and assimilation of instinct, because consciousness struggles in a regular panic against being swallowed up in the primitivity and unconsciousness of sheer instinctuality. This fear is the eternal burden of the hero-myth and the theme of countless taboos. The closer one comes to the instinct world, the more violent is the urge to shy away from it and to rescue the light of consciousness from the murks of the sultry abyss. Psychologically, however, the archetype as an image of instinct is a spiritual goal toward which the whole nature of man strives; it is the sea to which all rivers wend their way, the prize which the hero wrests from the fight with the dragon.”
Taken purely psychologically, it means that mankind has common
instincts of
imagination and of action. All
conscious
imagination and action have been developed with these
unconscious archetypal
images as their basis, and always remain bound up with them. Especially is
this the case when
consciousness has not attained any high degree of
clarity,
that is, when, in all its
functions, it is more dependent on the
instincts than
on the conscious will, more governed by affect than by
rational judgment.
This condition ensures a primitive health of the
psyche, which, however,
immediately becomes lack of adaptation as soon as circumstances arise calling
for a higher moral effort.
Instincts suffice only for the individual emb
“The
archetypal representations (images and ideas) mediated to us by the
unconscious
should not be confused with the
archetype as such.
They are very varied structures which all point back to one essentially
“irrepresentable” basic form.”
… The latter is characterized by certain formal elements and by certain
fundamental meanings, although these can be grasped only approximately.” … The
archetype as such is a psychoid factor that belongs, as it were, to the
invisible,
ultraviolet
end of the psychic spectrum. It
does not appear, in itself, to be capable of reaching
consciousness.
Strictly
speaking, however, the process of individuation is real only if the individual
is aware of it and consciously makes a living connection with it.
M&HS 164
(Dorn)
sees the healing experience, though it is given by God, not in some outer
religious experience or outer teaching, but in a genuine personal inner
experience. Everybody can extract the healing experience from
himself. He even says (and this is interesting, after having
repeated the scorn of the body to be found in every meditation text of the time)
that the healing medicine is in the (body). In just that
part of the personality which most strongly resists any conscious effort, and
which we would call the shadow,
is the healing medicine. It is incorruptible and has to be
detected and extracted from there. AAI 66