The book The Earth Has a Soul: C.G. Jung on Nature, Technology, and Modern Living is a collection of quotes and excerpts from Jung on this topic. I read it last Summer when I had a lot of time to mull things over and absorb its contents. It turned out to be a very impactful book, and here are some thoughts (rant) that arose later on.

Superiority Complex

We look down on the primitive inner humans that we are because we’ve adopted a superiority complex over the “lower” life forms. There is a feeling underneath the surface of Mother Culture that evolution marches forward towards ever greater improvement, and that the more civilized and sophisticated we become, the more intrinsic authority we deserve to hold over the animals and land. This superiority complex can clearly be observed if we disengage from it, at least momentarily, and observe the operations of an industrial farm.

After having worked on a farm for two months, an observation began to slowly creep into awareness for me: the treatment of humans by the higher powers in which we are embedded and bow down to (such as our technological overlords, the weather, …, all the way up to God) is a pure reflection of our treatment of what we consider “lower” life forms—animals and plants. Any illusion that we might have of our playing one side of the master–servant dynamic is broken when we come into awareness of how our unconscious manifests the other side of that dualistic relationship, as a form of compensation. I have no proof for this, other than to say find out for yourself.

Our Shared Imaginal Reality

As in Jung’s multiple-story dream (scroll to the bottom to read), the psyche is constructed layer by layer, similar to the way in which the brain has been constructed layer by layer, slowly over a period of many generations. The more ancient, the more fundamental. Our primitive aspects deal with the most fundamental questions, and our modern aspects deal with the most recent questions.

When we are conscious of reality from a large-scale, industrial/governmental/economic lens, we are participating in a shared imaginal reality. The sacrifices and rewards associated with that shared imaginal reality are the unconsciously agreed-upon contracts we’ve signed. Part of this means that we, as humans, place less emphasis on the primitive aspects of the psyche, and more on the later-developed, modern aspects of the psyche. This imaginal reality only exists while it is supported by its participants. We must understand what we’ve sacrificed and how quickly we’ve made the sacrifice of our primitive selves for the comforts of modernity (which our souls rebel against), and run a cost–benefit analysis (which we can’t do while in the grips of the contract because then part of the “cost” associated with whichever “side” we’re on, is leaving).

Over-Reliance on Verbal Communication

We are extremely dependent on symbolic form, specifically language, to communicate values and ethics—a prerequisite for participating in modernity. Our view and interpretation of reality are reflective of the values and progress of the English-speaking world during the existence of the English-speaking world and its recent predecessors, roughly speaking. The split between the imaginal and the embodied life is substantial, and for me, was nearly fully unconscious. It took several years of returning consciousness to its roots—the body—to realize how disconnected and uprooted consciousness had become. Perhaps the price I paid for this is a reduction in modern measures of intelligence, a direct consequence of restructuring the mind and remembering a more fundamental mode of operation, something I’ve swallowed with some difficulty.

Our Fake, Plastic World

We’re walking through an invisible, toxic sludge. An analogy to our present situation is the years just before microbes were discovered, when people were already living in close proximity to one another, actively trading and exchanging microbes, pissing and shitting in their own drinking water, unaware of the risks. We look back at them as stupid, primitive people, but I highly doubt that their noses and taste buds are any worse than ours; I’m sure their primitive selves revolted against the medieval conditions just as we would, except on top of that, was layered a blanket of ignorance of the situation, warmly placed there by Mother Culture who saw nothing wrong with the close and unhygienic living conditions. Our “violent and tribal” past was slowly being reigned in and civilized—it needed to be if humans from one part of the world were to trade and live peacefully alongside those from another part of the world. Mother Culture’s values are such that the prerequisite for incorporating hygienic practices depended on the verbal and intellectual understanding of such things; until then, there was nothing wrong with the medieval lifestyle. It was your problem if you happened to suffer the consequences.

The same thing is happening now, but instead of hygiene, it’s psychological; although when I say psychological I really mean it as a proxy for spiritual. We’ve advanced our materialistic understanding of the world so substantially over the past several hundred years, but it seems that the further we advance, the more we start to face outbursts of the psyche which seem to make absolutely no sense.

Impulsive, compensatory outbursts such as school shootings, reveal a slow inner torment festering deep in the unconscious, just out of view. In my eyes, the indescribably prevalent manifestation of unexplained and seemingly useless psychological suffering is just a natural exchange of energy. There’s nothing out of place about it, it just requires brave vision to see with clarity. It’s all part of it all; the forever chemicals in our food and water, the meaningless sell-your-soul corporate jobs, the total disregard for the Human Animal; and the constant validation and self-righteousness we require to inflate our egos to ever higher heights, which are inevitably be compensated for with the lowest of lows.

High on Meaning

Meaning is always either experienced or just out of view. We seem to know exactly where it is but won’t accept it because we’re too afraid of experiencing it. We don’t think we can handle it, but we can. The fear is justified—but we’re stronger than we think we are. We can actually face it. And we don’t have to face it all at once. We can allow ourselves to see just as much as we can handle in that instant. Certain situations, however, require our immediate and unwavering attention to The Horrors (the most reliable source of meaning). At some point in our lives, we may find ourselves having fallen through the thin ice we didn’t know we walked on, and suddenly in the water. It’s cold and dark, we don’t know how to swim, and we have absolutely no choice but to learn right then and there. The consequence of failure is death. The meaningful life is no joke, and our easily-confused, easily-seduced, naïve herd-animal selves are constantly being advertised everything but reality, towards an ever-more-schizophrenic, disintegrated imaginal amusement park.

I had a dream that I was in a gladiator arena and the spectators were demons, who were laughing at me and feeding off my fear. Instead of fighting what was in front of me, I looked up and faced the demons’ laughter. They shrieked in horror as they lost their power over me (I think they found it unpleasant). A few days later I drew it in charcoal. Dimensions unknown.

Jung’s House Dream:

I was in a house I did not know, which had two storeys. It was "my house". I found myself in the upper storey, where there was a kind of salon furnished with fine old pieces in Rococo style. On the walls hung a number of precious old paintings. I wondered that this should be my house and thought "not bad". But then it occurred to me that I did not know what the lower floor looked like. Descending the stairs, I reached the ground floor. There everything was much older. I realised that this part of the house must date from about the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The furnishings were mediaeval, the floors were of red brick. Everywhere it was rather dark. I went from one room to another thinking "now I really must explore the whole house." I came upon a heavy door and opened it. Beyond it, I discovered a stone stairway that led down into a cellar. Descending again, I found myself in a beautifully vaulted room which looked exceedingly ancient. Examining the walls, I discovered layers of brick among the ordinary stone blocks, and chips of brick in the mortar. As soon as I saw this, I knew that the walls dated from Roman times. My interest by now was intense. I looked more closely at the floor. It was of stone slabs and in one of these I discovered a ring. When I pulled it, the stone slab lifted and again I saw a stairway of narrow stone steps leading down to the depths. These, too, I descended and entered a low cave cut into rock. Thick dust lay on the floor and in the dust were scattered bones and broken pottery, like remains of a primitive culture. I discovered two human skulls, obviously very old, and half disintegrated. Then I awoke.