Interlude in the Darker Valley -C.G Jung, Rupert Sheldrake, and Things That Go Bump in the Night

I have previously told you that I do not care for the researches of C.G. Jung and Rupert Sheldrake. And I have also mentioned Hollywood’s recent fetish for Gnosticism. Well, here is where I will address those items.

I would really like not to even mention these items, but there is that very consequential homework assignment I’m going to be giving you soon, and you will need this information in order to evaluate what you will encounter during that assignment.

To start off with, there is my problem with C.G. Jung. I’ve mentioned him earlier, because he is one the few modern scientific thinkers who thought that there is such a thing as a "collective soul," or "collective unconscious." I’m of the opinion that his doctrine of the collective unconscious is an unconscious inheritance from his father, who was a Swiss Reformed minister, and therefore well acquainted with the apostle Paul’s writings about "the flesh," or "the carnal nature," or "old man," or "sinful nature" [ Chicagoland Version 1.1!]. That is the only reason I have mentioned C.G. Jung.

My problem with him is that he once had what some have called a psychotic break in which a being named "Philemon" appeared to him in his imagination.

Jung explained that this creature was an autonomous manifestation of his deep unconscious, because he had no conscious control over the creature when it appeared in his imagination. Jung wrote of this creature that

"He said I treated thoughts as if I generated them myself, but in his view thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air, and added ‘If you see people in a room, you would not think that you had made those people, or that you were responsible for them.’" [Footnote 6]

And how did Jung describe this creature that appeared to him?

"Suddenly there appeared from the right a winged being sailing across the sky. I saw that it was an old man with the horns of a bull..." [Footnote 6-1]

Ahem. As I said, things that go bump in the night. For you see, Chicagoland, like its earthly namesake of some decades ago, is sometimes visited by gangsters.

Its time for me to take you back to the metaphor of the Chain of Being.

Recall, if you will, that the Chain of Being starts with a Supreme Being at the top, creating from the bottom up, creatures of increasing complexity and intelligence. And as we have seen, parallel with the physical world we know around us, there is also the inner world of the spirit, the place where human beings have their thoughts, emotions, and dreams, and where the deepest part of their spiritual existence is connected together in some mysterious fashion.

In the Chain of Being, Man (Humans) stand at the top of the physical Chain of Being, and there stands alone of all physical creatures in having a special and unique access to the spiritual world as well.

Man is kind of like a duckbilled platypus. The platypus has the body of a ground creature, but has a bill like a duck’s. It is a ground creature, with the mouth of an air creature. Man is a physical being with a spirit that subsists in the spiritual world.

And now recall that I distinguished two kinds of created beings, those based on Fecundity (temporal Humans), and those based on Fullness (the everlasting messengers). The Records speaks of these two kinds of existence as being two different "estates," I.e., two different dwelling places and spheres of activity. They are generally kept separate. And it is time for me now to write at length about this other order of beings, the ones based on Fullness, who stand in the Chain of Being between eternal God, and temporal humans.

These beings are intelligences greater than human, who have never had physical bodies. They have their own Chain of Being, based on their varying degrees of intelligence and power. The Record seems to say that they came into existence with the creation of the Universe or just before it:

"Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

One of their functions is to bring messages from the eternal God to temporal man. [Footnote 7] Hence the derivation of their designation from the Greek word for "messenger," "angelos." We are speaking here of angels.

And before we go on, it would greatly help matters if you removed from your mind the many too-pretty pictures of babies with wings, young women with wings, and decidedly un-masculine young men with wings. The Record repeatedly states that when an angel appears to human beings, they tend to fall to the ground, shaking with fear and needing some reassurance that no harm will come to them from the visit. Angels, in reality, are very fearsome creatures to behold.

And now, if you will recall what I wrote about the first people failing a test that the eternal Wise Hunter subjected them to, and also recall that the test was necessary because free will is necessary if there is to be any true worship of the Supreme Being, it should not then surprise you that the Record says some of these everlasting messengers failed their test also.

Of course the most famous of these failed non-physical worshippers is a being who was once known as "The Light Bearer" (Latin: Lucifer).

In a metaphorical sense (because we cannot physically understand this) this being stood the closest to God’s presence of all the beings of his order, and his role was to shine his (metaphorical) light on the Almighty. The Record says that evil was eventually found in him, and he was ejected from the presence of God, taking with him a host of other disgruntlets of varying degrees of intelligence and power.

His name then became "The Adversary" (Hebrew: Satan). Those who followed him are commonly called "demons." [Footname 8] He has the name "the Devil" from the Greek word "diabolos" (literally "a slanderer") passing through Middle English. His lessers are given as the plural "devils."

Now, before we go any further, I want you to purge from your minds all the Hollywood images of heads spinning around, young females shouting obscenities in a deep masculine voice, and buckets of vomit flying. I have just alluded to the intelligence of these creatures, and that means subtlety as well as stealth. [Footnote 9]

What are they applying their subtlety and stealth to?

First, to the reversal of Lucifer’s original function, i.e., casting eternal God in a bad light. (That is what is implied by the Greek word "diabolos," "a slanderer").

Secondly, to eternally damaging God’s second creation, Man, in anyway they can, out of sheer spite, while enjoying themselves in the process.

The best way that I can describe what’s going on between eternal God, Man, and the diabolic realm, is to give you a new metaphor.
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(6) C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 183

(6-1) Ibid.,pp 182,83

(7) See Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28:11-13. I think their other function is to bring messages back and fought between God and the material world. I think they somehow underlie the material universe without being part of it.

(8) According to Webster’s, from the Greek, daimon - a deity, spirit, one’s genius, or an evil spirit. Daimon originally had a neutral connotation, and acquired its negative connotation with the advent of Christianity.

(9) If you really need a Hollywood image of what these creatures are like you can do no better than to rent a video of William Dieterle’s 1941 classic The Devil and Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold, Walter Huston), and watch how Mr. Scratch operates.