11/13/2022 0 Comments The monster within me carl jung![]() In the third quote opening this essay Jung speaks of “primordial images” and “primordial thoughts.” These were his early terms for what he later in his writings called “archetypes.” Jung came to recognize, from decades of immersion in the mythologies, legends and fairy tales of cultures all over the world, that humanity has innate patterns of perceiving and acting that are comparable, on the psychic plane, to what our instincts are on the physical plane. What’s meant by “archetype” and “ mortificatio”? As the concept of “archetype” and the specific archetype related to grief and mourning are central to our topic, we must discuss them in some depth. Īll of these inward feelings and outer forms of mourning are aspects of a key archetype we all experience repeatedly in life-what the medieval alchemists called the mortificatio. waves of forgetfulness, sadness, loneliness, regret, “magical thinking” (that we might turn back the clock or the calendar) and inconsolability, along with emotional lability, surprising responses to life situations, the upsurge of old memories we thought we had let go of long ago, even concern that we might be losing our minds. We mourn, manifesting a wide range of reactions in outer life, e.g. Some psychologists claim that grief is not the same as mourning: Grief is passive, while mourning is active. “Mourn” has its origins in the Old English murnan, “to mourn, to be anxious.” When we mourn we feel anxiety in the sense of angst, anguish, the foreclosure of possibilities, the loss of the future we assumed we had with friend or family member. “Grief” and its verb “grieve” come from the Latin gravis, “heavy, weighty” and its verbal form, gravare, “to burden or cause to grieve.” When we grieve we are burdened, weighed down with sorrow and a sense of loss. The essay concludes with a discussion of what may seem odd, perhaps even obscene: the benefits that can accrue through our experience of grief and mourning. We’ll begin with a discussion of the meanings and etymologies of the words in the title, then discuss the key archetype related to death and dying, the mortificatio, followed by experiences of this archetype, in my own life and in Jung’s life. What follows is an amalgam of my own thoughts, my personal experience of losing friends, family members and a fiancé, along with the ideas and experiences of Jung, his best American interpreter, Edward Edinger, and Joan Didion, an eloquent author and observer of grieving. This email also came with a request: that I share my thoughts on this topic. The origins of this essay go back to an email I received several months ago that came with an attachment: multiple people wrote of their experience of death-the loss of family, friends and acquaintances. They will be comforted when the lost projected value has been recovered within the psyche. Therefore, mourners are fortunate because they are involved in a growth process. In order to withdraw projections and assimilate their content into one’s own personality it is necessary to experience the loss of the projection as a prelude to rediscovering the content or value within. Mourning is caused by the loss of an object or person who was carrying an important projected value. It is usually imposed by life, either from within or from without…. Needless to say, one rarely chooses such an experience. Mortificatiois experienced as defeat and failure. … The ancient athanasias pharmakon, the medicine of immortality, is more profound and meaningful than we supposed. … One of these primordial thoughts is the idea of life after death. It is only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols wisdom is a return to them. But besides that there is a thinking in primordial images, in symbols which are… inborn in him from the earliest times, and, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. … thinking which is a mere equation,… is the working of the intellect. The harmful effect shows itself in the form of loss of libido, depression, and physical debility…. a persistent attachment to the dead makes life seem less worth living, and may even be the cause of psychic illnesses. … When a person dies, the feelings and emotions that bound his relatives to him lose their application to reality and sink into the unconscious, where they active a collective content that has a deleterious effect on consciousness…. They liken the art to the work of the sower, who buries the grain in the earth: it dies only to waken to new life. No new life can arise, say the alchemists, without the death of the old. The opinions expressed in these essays are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of other Jungian Center faculty or Board members. Sue Mehrtens is the author of this and all the other blog essays on this site. ![]()
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