Carl Jung
1875 - 1961
“Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental
psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart through out the world. There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and
gambling-halls, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul”. -- Carl Jung
Throughout the history of humankind there have been those who endeavor to answer the questions we all seek. The great minds of our time have influenced each and every one of us into thinking about various subjects in a whole new way. One subject in particular that has many questions and that has been debated about over and over again is the world of human development. Some of the great minds that have set out to explore this vast subject have giving us many answers, many questions and have created various schools of thought. Among these intense and knowledgeable minds are great and everlasting names like: Nietzsche, Freud, Darwin and Jung. One name that has sparked my imagination and who I believe possesses one of the most enthusiastic minds of our time is great Carl Jung. Carl Jung is one who steps outside the boundaries to find the answers that he sought. I believe that the greatest minds are those who incorporate a open mind into their philosophical endeavors. I believe that to find the answers to various types of questions, one has to look beyond the black and white areas and take a gander into the grey area. I believe that many of the questions that go unanswered can be answered with a cognitive approach that integrates this open mind like Carl Jung’s into their research.
Carl Jung made it his destiny to explore the human soul or “inner space”. He did this with acquiring much knowledge of various world mythologies, religions, and philosophies. His background also included Freudian theory, who Jung was a colleague of. Jung also was very versed in language and literature, he could read ancient Sanskrit and “the language of the original Hindu holy books”.
Jung possessed a mind that was equipped with a vivid imagination and paranormal visions. Within his mind he also had many dreams and fantasies that lead him to believe and theorize about things that would normally be overlooked by his colleagues. One of his greatest theories
that Jung explored dealt with the unconscious thoughts of a person. He called this theory the “collective unconscious”, which was similar to Freud’s “personal unconscious” theory but with definitive variations. He believed that the Collective Unconscious thoughts of a person were common among all human beings.
Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious is divided into three parts; the ego, the personal
unconscious, and the collective unconscious. The ego is the part of the human psyche that represents the conscious thoughts of a person. These are the thoughts that everyone shows on the surface of them selves. These thoughts ultimately define the person and their outlook on the world.
The human psyche according to Jung is the personal unconscious. These are unconscious thoughts that are repressed by the individual but can be easily brought out to the conscious mind. These thoughts are usually in the form of memories and past experiences. The individual has these thoughts in the back of their mind and are thought about from a unconscious point of view. The last part of Jung’s theory of the human psyche is the part that gives his theory recognition and which is quite different from his colleagues theories .
The collective unconscious is an individual’s “psychic inheritance” .These are the unconscious thoughts that are passed down to each and every human being through “our experiences as a species”. These thoughts are the ones that we consciously never think about or incorporate into our cognitive experiences. The collective unconscious comes in the form of random experiences like “love at first sight, déjà vu, and the immediate recognition of certain symbols and the meanings of certain myths". These are experiences that happen on a spur of the moment basis, that are most likely sparked by a correlation from the conscious reality and a unconscious reality. I myself believe that some of these experiences like déjà vu are sparked from our past lives experiences or could be the result of parallel universes colliding. Still they are unconsciously in our minds and are never brought to the conscious mind. Although these unconscious thoughts might surface in the form of various random psychic connections like love at first sight, they are still not incorporated into the normal everyday thoughts of the conscious or personal unconscious mind.
I believe the way to really learn about humans is through personal contact and life experiences. Being right in the “thick and thin” of society is where the true answers lye. Knowing the workings of the human psyche and the human chi is easier said then done. One can’t learn the ways of a individual and what influences their development from a universal textbook. Every single person on this planet is different from each other and develops in different ways. There can’t be one universal language when it comes to the development of human beings. Although we might be the same in biological terms our cognitive abilities and the environmental stimuli that influences our development are very much different from each other.
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