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INDIVIDUATION and MYSTICAL UNION Jung and Eckhart

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INDIVIDUATION and MYSTICAL UNION Jung and Eckhart MARK JAMES INDIVIDUATION AND MYSTICAL UNION Jung and Eckhart Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) regularly quoted Meister Eckhart (ca.1260-1328) approvingly in his writings on Christianity.1 Jung thought that Christianity was suffering from arrested development and saw in Eckhart an ally. For Jung Chris- tianity and Christian symbols were in danger of being eclipsed because they no longer spoke to the human condition in the twentieth century. Churches that were supposed to care for the salvation of the soul were no longer able to help the individual achieve metanoia, the rebirth of the spirit. The Christian faith had lost its ability to connect people with an experience of the inner presence of God in their lives. Christianity, he believed, proclaimed an externalised God, a God aloof from people’s experience. While this externalisation of religion united individuals into a community of believers and even empowered them to provide a valuable social service to society, it lacked the capacity to transform the person’s inner life.2 It reinforces the idea that everything originates from without the person. A new process of self-nourishment was required which feeds a person’s interior life from internal not external resources. This means that Christianity could no longer remain a creed or a dogma of beliefs to which people adhered. In Eckhart, Jung saw a man after his own heart who sought to proclaim an immanent God and move away from the conception of God as ‘wholly other’.3 This comparative study seeks to contribute towards the ongoing discussion regarding the relationship between psychology and mysticism in spirituality stud- ies by engaging Jung and Eckhart in a dialogue with each other. In exploring Jung’s theory of individuation and Eckhart’s understanding of union with God as detachment, birth of the Son in the soul and breakthrough into God’s ground, 1 See Carl G. Jung, ‘Introduction to the religious and psychological problems of alchemy’, in: Psychology and alchemy (Collected works (CW) 12; ed. H. Read et al., trans. R.F.C. Hull, Lon- don 1981, 3-37 (orig. publ. 1944). 2 Carl G. Jung, The undiscovered self (trans. R.F.C. Hull), London 1958 (orig. publ. 1957). 3 Carl C. Jung, ‘Introduction to the religious and psychological problems of alchemy’, par.11, note 6. 92 MARK JAMES it will be necessary to compare and contrast some of their themes like Self and ground, libido and desire, images of God, evil, the feminine and wholeness. JUNG’S UNDERSTANDING OF INDIVIDUATION The process of individuation can be characterised as a life-long process of mat- uration and growth where an individual consciously connects with the Self. For Jung, the unconscious has a personal level, which is material repressed from childhood, but also a deeper level of collective unconscious which reflects the knowledge and experience of humankind’s universal nature. The Self is the total- ity of the psyche and operates at this deeper level of the unconscious. The Self is the regulating principle of the psyche that motivates the psyche to move towards wholeness. Experience of the Self is characterised by its numi- nous quality. If an individual is committed to becoming more conscious of the content emerging from the unconscious then that person will be drawn towards greater wholeness. Thus the Self is ultimately life-giving and enables an individ- ual to discover ‘meaning and purpose in life’.4 The first half of a person’s life is given to the challenge of building and establishing their persona and thus enabling them to become competent in the world. It is through the persona that one consciously interacts within the world. The persona is vital for an individual’s healthy functioning within their social and public life. However, it is a one-dimensional personality, because there are aspects of the personality and the person which in the process of developing a persona have been suppressed or ignored at the personal level of the uncon- scious. This is termed the shadow. Each persona casts a shadow and this gives us problems as usually we are not aware of this part of ourselves and tend to see it in others and judge it in them. In the second half of life, usually after the age of 35, this personal shadow begins to assert itself. The shadow includes all those neglected, hidden or repressed dimensions of one’s personality that either one does not like, rejects or would prefer to keep hidden from the view of others. The elements of the persona and the shadow are aspects of the personal level of the unconscious for Jung. There is also a deeper level of the unconscious and it is manifested in the contra- sexual element of the psyche. Jung gave the term anima to the feminine element in a man’s psyche and the word animus, to the masculine element in a woman’s psyche. This concept has evolved and many researchers today recognise that both men and women have anima and animus figures in their psyche. Jung believed 4 Andrew Samuels, Jung and the post-Jungians, London-New York 1985, 89. INDIVIDUATION AND MYSTICAL UNION 93 that these contra-sexual elements were gateways to deeper levels of the uncon- scious. When these elements are not conscious they can be projected onto other people just as the shadow is often projected onto some person or people we don’t like or reject. The anima or animus could be projected on to those who we fall in love with. The challenge is to recognise our projections and in work- ing with them begin to withdraw them. Through our projection experiences, through dreams and the use of active imagination we become more familiar with our inner symbols and the archetypal images behind them. They can help and direct us to realise the destiny towards which our Self seems to be guiding us. Jung distinguished the Self from the conscious self or what is sometimes called the ego. In this sense Jung uses the word Self differently from other depth psychol- ogists. He is speaking of the transcendent dimension within the human person, a centre which draws a person beyond themselves. The Self has what Murray Stein calls ‘an ego-free quality’ that is not invested in narcissistic goals and objec- tives.5 Jung chose the word Self from the Upanishads which refers to the higher personality – the Atman. Most of Jung’s writings on the Self are scattered among his Collected Works but it is in Aion that his most focused works are to be found. Aion is the name of a god in Mithraism who rules over the astrological calendar and therefore over time. By referring to the Self by this title, Jung seems to indicate that the Self transcends time and space, factors that govern ego-consciousness.6 Gradually there is a yielding of an ego-directed lifestyle to one in which the ego supports the Self in taking a more central place in the psyche. This is a painful process in which the ego ‘dies’ to the prominent position in the psyche to a more sup- portive role, though nevertheless vital role. The ego is never made extinct by the Self but continues to play an important role in the process of individuation. It is the manager of the personality but now it no longer identifies exclusively with the persona but allows the inner symbols and images to emerge. It processes and integrates these images and symbols into conscious living and thus facilitates integration as urged by the Self. UNION WITH GOD AS BREAKING THROUGH TO GOD’S GROUND McGinn says that Eckhart’s mysticism can be distinguished from other mystical traditions like love mysticism (minnemystik) as mysticism of the ground or being. 5 Murray Stein, Jung’s map of the soul: An introduction, Chicago-La Salle 1998, 152. 6 Carl G. Jung, Aion: Researches into the phenomenology of the self (CW 9, pt. 2), London 1981 (orig. publ. 1951). 94 MARK JAMES He calls the ground (grunt) Eckhart’s master or explosive metaphor. This metaphor cuts across traditional ways of mystical thought and creates a new way of talk- ing of the direct encounter with God.7 Eckhart says, ‘Here God’s ground is my ground and my ground is God’s ground’ (W13b).8 He avoids using the bridal metaphors of the Song of Songs and through his ground metaphor he institutes a new way of speaking about the union between God and the soul. According to McGinn in Middle High German the term grunt is used in four different ways. The first refers literally to the ground or earth. The second usage is for the bottom or base of an object, body or structure. The third is more abstract and is used to indicate the origin, cause, beginning, reason or proof of something. The fourth refers to what is inmost, hidden, something that is proper to a being, namely, its essence.9 Eckhart uses the term in various ways. He uses it to refer to the innermost or highest point of the soul. This is where the person is open to the presence of God within. It is also used to indicate the hidden depths of God or the mysterious- ness of God. The ground is used to refer to the fused identity between God and the human soul where they are one. The metaphor describes this ‘dynamic iden- tity […] not as a state or condition, but as the activity of grounding – the event or action of being in a fused relation’.10 Counsels on Discernment,11 Eckhart’s earliest vernacular work, which was proba- bly written for Dominican novices and students, has ten references to the ground.
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