In this installment of “Inner Vision and Synchronicity: Dream Work as Taught by Charles Fillmore and Carl Jung,” I have attempted to encapsulate in a few paragraphs the utterly enormous contributions Carl Jung made to the emerging field of psychology.  Call me crazy… well, don’t… that really wouldn’t be politically correct!  Anyway, it’s amazing to me how broad Jung’s influence has been.

Carl Jung Fundamental Teachings

Carl Jung is the founder of the school of psychology known as analytical psychology, the basic teachings of which were first presented in 1922 (Ellenberger, 1970, p. 703).  This section will present a brief overview of some key elements of analytic psychology.

To understand Jungian psychology, another name for analytical psychology, one must understand Jung’s teaching about the unconscious.  For Jung, the unconscious is

…everything of which I know, but of which I am not at

the moment thinking; everything of which I was once

conscious, but have now forgotten; everything perceived

by my senses, but not noted by my conscious mind;

everything which, involuntarily and with paying attention

to it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do; all the future

things that are taking shape in me and will sometime come to consciousness; all this is the content of the unconscious” (CW 8:185).

Jung taught that there was a “personal” unconscious with elements unique to an individual such as those noted above, and a “collective” unconscious which serves as the storehouse for the archetypes.  Archetypes are “centers of psychic energy; they have a ‘numinous,’ life-like quality; and they are likely to be manifested in critical circumstances, either through an exterior event or because of some inner change” (Ellenberger, 1970, p. 706).  Additionally, author and historian Henri Ellenberger adds, “Archetypes are not the fruit of individual experience, they are ‘universal.’ This universality has been interpreted by Jungians either as issuing from the structure of the human brain or as the expression of a kind of neo-Platonic world-soul” (Ellenberger, 1970, p. 706).

Much of the terminology used in analytical psychology to describe the structure of the soul has become commonplace in the world today. Included are the terms “persona” which describes one’s public, or outer demeanor including one’s attitudes or beliefs.  Behind the persona lies the “shadow,” the characteristics of that one would like to keep hidden from others, or even one’s self (Ellenberger, 1970, p. 707).  Two other terms that are closely linked in analytical psychology are “anima” and “animus.”  The anima, which is Latin meaning “soul,” is the ideal feminine figure within a man, and “animus,” which is Latin meaning “spirit” is ideal masculine figure within a woman.  Jung believed that deep in a man was his anima, and deep in a woman was her animus (Ellenberger, 1970, p. 708-9).  Anima and animus are both archetypes.

The ultimate goal of analytical psychology is individuation, the unification of all parts of an individual’s personality.  Jung said, “Individuation means becoming a single, homogeneous being, and, in so far as ‘individuality’ embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one’s own self.  We could therefore translate individuation as ‘coming to selfhood’ or ‘self-realization” (CW 7:266).

An additional contribution of Carl Jung to psychology was his study on personality types which birthed the now-common terms “introvert” and “extravert”.  This work has been popularized as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator that describes sixteen main personality types.  The MBTI is used in a wide variety of settings to assist individuals in understanding their personality preferences.

This brief sketch of analytical psychology would not be complete with commenting on dreams.  Dreams, as the Jung quote below will show, provide the gateway for exploration of the unconscious.

Even though dreams refer to a definite attitude of consciousness

and a definite psychic situation, their roots lie deep in the

unfathomably dark recesses of the conscious mind.  For want

of a more descriptive term we call this unknown background

the unconscious.  We do not know its nature in and for itself,

but we observe certain effects from whose qualities we venture

certain conclusions in regard to the nature of the un-

conscious psyche.  Because dreams are the most common

and normal expression of the unconscious psyche, they

provide the bulk of the material for its investigation (CW 8:544).

Fillmore was a theologian, Jung a psychiatrist; yet each held important and similar views about the other’s field of endeavor.   What follows is an analysis of “Fillmorean psychology” and “Jungian religion” that will set the stage for an in depth examination of their synchronistic approach to dream work.

In the next entry, we’ll explore the intersection of psychology and religion…