Part I
In the first part of the essay Jung describes how the unconscious substructure of the human psyche effects the conscious part. The idea is, that beneath the surface of our everyday experiences and thoughts underlies a vast, fascinating and tremendous field of psychic forces, the unsconscious. Jung argues that the unconscious is an inseperable part of the psyche and if not taken into account properly, a host of problems arise. The inadequate approach to the unconscious is called repression, which in practice means turning yourself away from the often unpleasant phenomena that the unconscious is trying to inform you about.
Jung posits that the unconscious is a constant, active force, participating in our lives in a myriad of ways. The unconscious finds it way to express itself whether we want it or not. If the unconscious is not given its due, neurosis' and complexes may develop. The former are something akin to everyday action patterns that seem to lack a rational explenation, the latter are close to the idea of identifying yourself with something you are not.
An individuals relationship to the unconsciousness is demanding to develop. A good way to gain insight about the unconsicousness is through the analysis of dreams. Jung's idea is to approach dreams as objective, non-random phenomena, that are the manifestations of the unconsicous. The analysis of dreams – when done correctly – can help people further their understanding of their unconscious and therefore aid in becoming a more balanced and wellbeing individual.
While dreams, day dreams or even intense conscious visions can point to the individuals own, personal experiences, Jung spends a considerable time in exploring the even deeper realm of the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is the part of the human psyche that Jung regards as universal. The universal imagery often represented in religious and mythological art are the content of the collective unconscious. These images elementary forces and mystical beings are a key in understanding oneself. This self understanding is paramount, and Jung states accordingly: ”In the last resort it's the man's moral qualities which force him either by direct recognition of the necessity, or indirectly, by means of a painful neurosis, to assimilate his unconscious personality and to hold it in consciousness.” - It is not up to the individual to decide whether or not this process goes on, one can only decide to face it voluntarily or involuntarily.
When one explores the unconscious two of extreme attitudes may form. In a case of a person who is wholly overwhelmed by the onslaught of the unconsicous forces a pessimistic and depressed feeling of being defeated may ensue. The other option is the overtly optimistic and grandiose feeling being the master of the newly met forces. Both of these are pathways to an imbalanced, and ultimately miserable state of being. The important task is to find balance between these two attitudes, so a balanced picture of oneself in relation to the personal and collective unconscious can form.
Jung calls the aforementioned extreme attitudes a type of ”ego inflation” in which a certain part of the individuals psyche starts to protrude into other parts of the psyche. One could visualize it like this: the correct attitude is the beautifully balanced Yin and Yang, the defeatist attitude is a Yin and Yang with the black side (Yang) taking up most of the space and vice versa for the grandiose attitude.
A further explication of ego inflation is the idea that individuals do not hold the collective vices nor the virtues themselves. What this means is that when the powerful forces of the collective unconscious – negative or positive – make themselves known in the consciousness one should be careful not to identify with them. So, if upon facing the collective unconscious within one's psyche intimations of great heroism or atrocities emerge it should be understood that they are part of every human, not just you. While this realization might be very horrifying, it is less so than the alternative of being the singular plaything of those forces.
A central concept in the process of facing the unconscious contents of the psyche and avoiding ego inflation is the concept of persona. A persona is an everyday mask, so to speak, that is partly imposed onto the individual by the collective unconscious and the social collective at large. Being a student, a celebrity, a doctor, a homeless person or a President of the United States are all personae, that carry with themselves certain rules and expectations. Everyone has a number of different personae, but they are in a sense epiphenomena stacked between the real individual and the world – be it the outer world of the society or the inner world of the unconscious. If an individual identifies with a persona, difficulties arise. Say, a man who thinks of himself as a good Christian covets someone's wife – this man will have a hard time reconciling his persona of a good Christian with the contradictory desire. This may lead to the repression of the desire, which shall then retreat into the unconsciousness, from where it will start manifesting as a neurosis fo a different kind. If one is unable to differentiate between their persona and the real individuality, the outer and inner collective forces are bound to take precedence in the consciousness. An example of this might be the familiar phrase ”As a [fill in the blank]” - these are statements in which the individual takes on the collective mask and presumptuously anoints their individual experience with the power of the collective.
The cure on the individual and social level for this identification with the collective forces is proper differentiation of the individual. Jung notes: ”Imitation – not laws and statutes – is responsible for the ordering of society.” If the goal is to create a society of collective good, where everybody are forced into the mold of the imaginary ”member of the collective” then acting as a persona is the way to go. However, if a society of individuals is the goal, then the path of integrating the contents of the collective unconscious under the banner of the individual and his consciousness is the answer. This process is called individuation.
Making good use of the religious language Jung describes the process of individuation as the awakening of the image of God in the individual. This means something like the beginnings of the unification of the collective unconscious and the individual psyche in a fruitful relationship. When this process is undertaken the risk of ego inflation grows. In this case it is possible to regress back into a previously held persona – the ego essentially says ”to hell with it, I'm going home” and the process reverts. In the case of ego inflation this is helpful, but the regression can also happen for a non-inflated person. This is undesirable and hopefully it can be avoided with prudence and courage.
When first encountering the collective unconscious one might feel immense psychic powers being offered to them (this is not to be taken mystically: great fortitude and mental strength lie in the psyche). However this first encounter is a temptation to be taken seriously. This is just the offering a new persona, the persona of the collective unconscious. This temptation should be disregarded, for it is not a person with the mask of the collective that is the goal, but the heroic individual who is able to conquer the collective unconscious again and again. The pathway to realizing this hero is described in the following second part of Jung's essay.
Part II
First it must be noted, that the process of individuation should not be understood as some sort of simple individualism or self-centerdness. The succesful individuation process yields an individual that is able to succesfully further their own and collective endeavors. This is possible when the individual becomes free of the persona and unconscious collective forces by integrating these things as parts of his individuality, not as masters for whom to bend the knee.
A crucial part of the individuation process is the integration of the personal unconsciousness. This was the part of the psyche that is unconscious to the individual, but specific to their own life. When one integrates this part of their psyche their ego problems start to vanish and they become replaced with problems that are more collective in nature. These collective questions can appear in the form of dreams that seem to have extraordinary significance, for example recurring dreams might be like this – and not only dreams, nightmares too.
The symbolic content of a dream signify the tapping of the real collective unconscious. In contrast to this, banal dreams are a sign from the unconscious to focus more on the immediate life rather than in the scouring of the psychic depths. If the authentic symbolic content of the dreams are lacking in this way, it is a sign of either intellectual curiosity or escape from the reality, but not of an authentic attitude towards the collective unconscious.
When encountering the the unconscious the psychic forces within can manifest as spirits, ghosts, souls or similar semi-personified entities. These entities can be regarded as complexes. They are autonomous in the sense that one cannot control them. Identification with them is also a form of persona-creating and it is advisable to avoid the identification with them.
For the male psyche the most prominent figure of the collective unsconscious is the feminine spirit, called anima. Anima's most important manifestation is the parental spirit of the mother. In an individuals life the opposite spirit is often repressed. In a man's case this is often seen in the man's relationship with his wife: a repressed anima is projected onto the wife and therefore the wife as an individual is not seen, but this is just an example.
The anima is the a priori structure of femininity in the male psyche. It lacks individual content, meaning it has not been integrated properly and therefore it manifests as a complex. This anima complex can come in the form of the parents, especially the mother, as one's own feminine dispositions and as widely collective, inherited female abstraction. If the anima complex is not integrated properly it will cause troubles in the male psyche. It can lead to the repression of the feminine qualities of the individual, which can lead to neurosis or it can be projected onto one's spouse.
On a greater scale any imbalance in the individuation process will be compensated for and there is no way to override this rule. If you build up a very good and moral persona, beware that your spouse isn't the one paying the price for that – your saintly persona is just a mask and someone else will take the blow, even unconsciously (or most likely) if you are imbalanced.
In the male psyche anima is the opposite of the persona held by the man. Therefore whatever psychic elements are repressed will show themselves through the anima. So as mentioned above, if only virtue is attributed to the persona, all the vices will be then loaded on to the anima (a vice-like depiction of the repressed anima can be heard in the great Black Sabbath song Lady Evil).
However, even though identifying with a persona is in contradiction with individuation it must be noted that just doing completely away with the mask of the persona is not advisable. The persona protects against the complete control of the anima. Persona helps in mediating between the society, the individual and the unconscious. If the persona, which for men is most often a masculine persona, is done away with, the anima will take control. This is not advisable.
In order to avoid the spiltting of the psyche into a trench war of the consciousness and unconsciousness the individuation process must be undertaken. The responsibility of the individual is to take on the forces residing within their unconscious. By doing this they approach the end goal of the individuation, the integrated self, while not unloading all their unconscious mess on to others through projection.
The most important tool for achieving individuation is being able to have an honest dialogue with yourself. This means that when you feel something emerging from your unconscious, you pay attention to it without laying judgement on it beforehand. for example, if you notice something you regard as undesirable or evil wanting to pop into your mind, let it do that. Spend time with an objective, open hearted and minded attitude paying attention to the thought, the image or the dream that has emerged and take it for real. It is a great mistake to think of your psychic phenomena, rising from your unconscious, as something trivial, random or irrelevant. They are the ore out of which you need to extract the valuables for your halls and the iron for your weapons.
If this honest dialogue with oneself is continued, it is likely that the collective unconscious will start to show itself with greater clarity. A useful thing to keep in mind is the following quote by Jung: ”Our frightful gods have only changed their names – now they rhyme with '-ism'.” Maybe for the modern person then the collective unconscious will not manifest as spirits, but rather ”-isms” gripping the mind. – You are not a member of any single ”-ism”, you are an individual, that is only capable of hiding behind the ”-isms” mask.
While the animus appears often in a singular feminine form, the situation is different for women. Women have to integrate their masucline spirit, the animus. The animus appears regularly as a crowd, maybe as a courtroom or similar, signifying a sort of conservative, authoritarian tendency. The animus is intiuitive in its attitudes and therefore it is a useful tool for approaching the unconscious. The woman must then observe the intuitive opinions of the animus in order to map out a personal genealogy – and this might mean letting go of some or many of the animus's opinions.
One way Jung describes the anima and the animus is that they are ”Guradians of the Threshold”. By this he means that for their respective individual bearers they are the psychological door through which one must walk if the individuation process is to be completed. A succesful integration of these personified complexes leads to their gradual dissolving. Thus the complexes are turned into conscious functions of the individual rather than unsconscious ”spirits” having their way within (and without) the individual.
When engaged in integrating the unconsciousness it is important to withhold interpretation of the psychic contents if one is not adept at articulated interpretation. It is more important to let the experiences come as they will, because interpretation forces a frame on the experience, and the likelyhood of something as profound as the uncharted depths of one's psyche fitting into one's prejudiced frame of reference is close to zero.
A crucial step in integrating the unconscious is becoming a participant in the process. for example in the case of dreams it is important to try to visualize what your could do in the dream you saw. A passive I-only-am-there-to-see-my-dreams -disposition implies that the individual is passively letting the unconscious bring forth its information. The correct way of going about the process is to carefully figure out, what ways of participation, that is acting, would develop the situation futher. Being active in the fantasy imagery is the key. The subjective experience has to be taken seriously - a bitter, black pill to swallow for the proponents of materialistic, scientific objectivism. Or in different words: science, objectivity doesn't protect us from the Unreality of the Unconscious.
The goal of the individuation process is the oraginazation of the unconscious under the hierarchy of the conscious. If this achieved the individual is protected from dissolving into the collective. However, Jung quotes Nietzsche to underline the arduous nature of the process: ”Thou soughtest the heaviest burden, thou didst find thyself.” The idea of standing on your own feet, carrying your weight and your cross resonates here strongly. Individuation is not easy, it is not quick, it can only be achieved through humility, honesty and perseverance in the face of the deepest forces.
The result of a succesful individuation process is what Jung calls the ”Mana personality”. To reach the Mana personality fantasies and dreams have to be analyzed. First they communicate the personal, then the collective. This means facing the opposing complex (Note: complexes like the anima and the animus are often called ”archetypes” in Jungian psychology). If the complex is integrated succesfully, a huge amount of psychic energy is bestowed upon the individual. This energy, however, is not the individuals energy, but energy of another archetype, the divine man, the priest, the mana personality.
If one identifies with the archetype they individual is once more cast into a dehumanizing and deindividualizing albeit a new persona. This identification witht the mana, the psychic energy is just another role in the way of the individuation process. If the ego provokes the unconscious by puffing itself up with mask of the newly encountered complex, the unconscious will attack and force compensation, one way or another. This is antithetical to the goal of individuation.
After integrating the opposite of one's being this Mana personality emerges. The integration of the Mana personality is the next step in individuation. If this is a success, a sort of profound spiritual rebirth happens. But if the spiritual rebirth is taken too "seriously", a disdain for the previous state might develop, and so all that is deemed bad and evil might be projected onto the previous state. This is wrong, because the previous state is a very personal state for the individual, and identifying one's own personal state as the undesirable and immoral state of being is elevating the individual to too great of a degree in opposition to good. In other words, if your previous way of being is something as ”utterly reprehensible” or ”totally corrupt” it is likely that you are giving your negative side an unwarranted pat on the back – enter ego inflation again.
The individuation process lead onto the balanced Self. The Self is the whole of the individual, with his conscious and unconscious forces. The individuation creates order into the sructure and organizes it in a balanced manner. Jung writes: ”The self is also the goal of life, because it is the most complete expression of that fateful combination we call individuality. And not only is it the goal fot he single man, but also for a whole group, in which one is needed to complete the picture for the other."
The figure of Mandala with its many permutations is regularly used to symbolize the Self.
As a descriptive end point Jung writes: "When we have sensed or experienced [without or within] the self as something irrational, as an indefinable state of being to which the ego is neither opposed nor subjected, but in a relation of dependence, and around which it revolves, very much as the earth rotates about the sun - then the goal of individuation has been reached." This rather mystical sounding end goal is the state in which one has reached a harmonized state with the conscious and unconscious forces.
Yet for those who might be inspired to seek the path of individuation Jung has a stark reminder: "The way is narrow as a knife-edge."
