At long last we reach the end of “Inner Vision and Synchronicity:  Dream Work as Taught by Charles Fillmore and Carl Jung.”  In retrospect, I regret that I did not flesh out the conclusions section much more fully.  Fortunately dream workers such as Jeremy Taylor and the Haden Institute have provided the general public with great resources for pursuing dream work.

In future entries, I’ll come back to dream work as well as address other topics…

CONCLUSIONS

One can’t help but wonder how the understanding of dreams may have been altered in the public sphere had Charles Fillmore and Carl Jung met in person; these men who in so many ways were so similar: teachers, leaders, and healers for so many.  The synchronistic connections that link them grow the more both men are studied.

As the foregoing has shown, both men possessed incredibly sharp minds and capacity for insight.  Both were unequivocal in their belief that the study of dreams was a priceless tool for uncovering the contents of their deepest soul and psyche.  Both knew that a study of the mind was vital to the unfoldment of consciousness.  Both recognized that inherent value in the partnership of the clergy with psychologists in service to individuals.  Both understood that “called or not called, God would be there.”

Jungians today continue to build on the foundations laid by Carl Jung and use the dream material of their analysands as he taught.  In the Unity Movement, the study of dreams has faded into the distant mists of history; however, a quip often repeated in Unity circles says that “nothing is ever lost in Spirit,” so it is not too far a stretch to consider the possibility of the re-emergence of this foundational teaching of Charles Fillmore.  Perhaps this essay is a start.

REFERENCES

Adams, M. (2006). What Is Jungian Analysis? Jungian Analysis: Archetypes, Dreams, Myths, Imagination [Online]. Available: http://www.jungnewyork.com/index.shtml. [2007, February 12].

Avery, D. (1921 April 2). The Subconscious Realm of Mind. Weekly Unity, 12, 1.

BabyNamesWorld.com (2007). Carl, Charles. [Online]. Available: http://www.babynamesworld.com/. [2007, February 7].

Campbell, J., ed. (1971). The Portable Jung. New York: Viking.

Eastman, M. (1915, August). Exploring the Soul and Healing the Body. Unity, 43, 98-110.

Ellenberger, H. (1970). The Discovery of the Unconscious. United States of America: Basic Books.

Fillmore, C (1894, February). Not an Answer, But an Opportunity. Thought, 5, 454-460.

Fillmore, C. (1909). Christian Healing. Unity Village, MO: Unity House.

Fillmore, C., ed. (1909, August). Untitled letter and answer from reader. Unity, 31, 30.

Fillmore, C., ed. (1911, July). Extracts From Letters Written to Students and Patients by the Society of Silent Unity. Unity, 35, 58.

Fillmore, C., ed (1914, February). Interpretations of Dreams. Unity, 39, 159.

Fillmore, C., ed. (1914, June). Interpretations of Dreams. Unity, 40, 511.

Fillmore, C., ed. (1914, July). Dreams and Visions. Unity, 41, 62.

Fillmore, C., ed, (1915, September). Dreams and the Subconscious. Unity, 43, 219-221.

Fillmore, C., (1920 February). Strength and Allied Faculties. Unity, 53, 101-113.

Fillmore, L., ed. (1920, May 15). Dream Interpretation Department Installed. Weekly Unity, 12, 7.

Fillmore, C., ed. (1920, July). Dreams and Their Interpretation.  The Inner Vision. Unity, 53, 56.

Fillmore, C., ed. (1921, January). About the Flood (Not Noah’s). Unity, 54, 58.

Fillmore, C. (1921, April). Unity – A Magazine Teaching Health, Prosperity, and Spiritual Development. Unity, 54, 302.

Fillmore, C. (1921, April 15). Guiding Visions. Weekly Unity, 6, 1).

Fillmore, L., ed. (1925 July 11). Inner Vision or Dreams and Their Interpretations. Weekly Unity, 17, 7.

Fillmore, C. (1939). Jesus Christ Heals. Unity Village, MO: Unity Books.

Fillmore, C. (1953). Keep A True Lent. Unity Village, MO: Unity School of Christianity.

Fillmore, C. (1959). The Revealing Word. Unity Village, MO: Unity Books.

Inner Vision. (1925). Kansas City, MO: Unity School of Christianity.

Jung, C. (1938). Psychology and Religion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Jung, C. (1960). Synchronicity, An Acausal Connecting Principle. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Jung, C. (1961). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Random House.

Read, H., et. al., eds. (1971). The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.    (Notated CW volume #: paragraph #)

Rude, J. (1914). The Subconscious Realm of Mind. Kansas City, MO: Unity Tract Society.

Teener, J.W. (1939). Unity School of Christianity. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.

As we near the end of Inner Vision and Synchronicity, there are “two other items” that came up during my research that were tangential to the topic at hand.  The next installment will be the final installment of this series…

Two Other Items

There are two other items mentioned in passing in Inner Vision that warrant a few words in this discussion on account of the synchronistic link they illustrate between Fillmore and Jung: the negative manifestation of the collective unconscious, and the occult.

Jung taught that inherent in all persons were universal psychic contents, most notably the archetypes, which constituted a substantial part of the collective unconscious.  Jung said that the contents of the collective unconscious “do not belong to one individual alone but to a whole group of individuals, and generally to a whole nation, or even to the whole of mankind” (CW 8:589).  Fillmore, though not using that particular term, essentially taught the same thing when discussed the subconscious mind.  Jung was greatly disturbed about the potential for the negative side to become constellated in a place or a people, and in his Memories, Dreams, Reflections said:

The Christian World is now truly confronted by the principle

of evil, by naked injustice, tyranny, lies, slavery, and coercion

of conscience.  This manifestation of naked evil has assumed

apparently permanent form in the Russian nation; but its first

violent eruption came in Germany.  That outpouring of evil

revealed to what extent Christianity has been undermined in

the twentieth century (Jung, 1961, p. 328-9).

Inner Vision, though in not such detail, made a similar point:

Man’s body is the sum total of the animal world, because in

its evolution it has had experience in nearly every type of

elemental form.  These memories are part of the soul, and

they come to the surface sporadically in the unregenerate.

Sometimes whole nations seem to revert from culture to

savagery without apparent cause, but there is always a

cause.  These reversions are the result of some violent

wrenching of the soul, or a concentration, to the exclusion

of everything else, upon a line of thought out of harmony

with divine law (Inner Vision, p. 17).

The text of Inner Vision consistently maintains a positive outlook on the future under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in contradistinction to the Jung’s comment, “How we can live with it [evil] without terrible consequences cannot for the present be conceived” (Jung, 1961, p. 329).

Inner Vision seems to take for granted the existence of supernatural capabilities.  The following lines illustrate this point:

Among the disciples, Bartholomew represents imagination.

He is called Nathanael in the 1^st chapter of John, where it is

recorded that Jesus saw him under the fig tree – the inference

being that Jesus discerned Nathanael’s presence before the

latter came into visibility.  This would indicate that images

of people and things are projected into the imaging chamber

of the mind and that through giving them attention one can

understand their relation to outer things.  Mind readers,

clairvoyants, and dreamers have developed this capacity in

varying degrees (Inner Vision, p. 21).

In reflecting about his student years, Jung wrote about his introduction to spiritualism and the occult, topics that, along with theology, held lifelong interest for him on account of their relationship to psychology.  He said, “The observations of the spiritualists, weird and questionable as they seemed to me, were the first accounts I had seen of objective, psychic phenomena” (Jung, 1961, p. 99).  Ellenberger comments:

Remarkable was the tone of Jung’s absolute conviction

when speaking of the soul (a term that had disappeared

from psychology) and the way he defined it as immaterial,

transcendent, outside of time and space – and yet to be

approached scientifically.  Among the means of obtaining

cognizance of the soul were the study of somnambulism,

hypnosis, and spritistic manifestations.  Thus to Jung

spiritism was not a matter of occultism, but of unknown

psychic phenomena that needed to be investigated with

proper scientific methods (Ellenberger, 1970, p. 689).

The concept of “soul” as used by Fillmore and Jung contained some key similarities that again point to synchronistic patterns in their thinking about the divine, mankind and their relationship.  Fillmore claimed that, “the soul is the many accumulated ideas back of his [man’s] present expression.  In its original and true sense, the soul of a man is the expressed idea of man in Divine Mind [God]…and includes the conscious and subconscious minds” (Fillmore, 1959, p. 182).    Jung said, voicing a similar thought, “however we may picture the relationship between God and soul, one thing is certain:  that the soul cannot be ‘nothing but.’  On the contrary it has the dignity endowed with consciousness of a relationship to Deity” (CW 12:10).

This interconnectedness between man and divine on the level of soul had deep implications in the discourse of both men as it related to dreams.  Fillmore was quite clear in his acceptance of dreams as communications between God and mankind as the discussion above shows.  And on this point Jung was in full agreement.  He said, “We are so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousness that we have simply forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions (CW 18:601).  He went on to say:

The Buddhist discards the world of unconscious fantasies as

“distractions” and useless illusions; the Christian puts his

Church and his Bible between himself and his unconscious;

and the rationalist intellectual does not yet know that his

consciousness is not his total psyche, in spite of the fact

that for more than seventy years the unconscious has been

a basic scientific concept that is indispensable to any serious

student of psychology (CW 18:601).

It is unfortunate that Jung did not know about the teaching of Charles Fillmore about dreams or else he might not have made the following comment: “I also doubt whether there is a Protestant treatise on dogmatics that would ‘stoop so low’ as to consider the possibility that the vox Dei might be perceived in a dream.  But if somebody really believes in God, by what authority does he suggest that God is unable to speak through dreams?” (CW 18:603).

Today’s entry in the blog is an explanation of what Charles Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity movement taught about dreams.  This is another long entry, so you may want to grab a cup of coffee… Additionally, today I’m including  a link to Unity’s online radio station Unity.fm.  It’s a great way to learn about the Unity teachings and how to apply them to your life.

Fillmore and Dreams

Charles Fillmore wrote numerous articles about dreams, most published in Unity magazine, and one sixty page booklet entitled Inner Vision. From 1917 to 1943 Unity published a short three page tract called “Interpretation of Dreams” that provided only enough text to convey the point that dreams are an avenue by which God instructs people. The text that follows will quote extensively from those articles as his printed output on the subject is much more difficult to find than Jung’s.  Additionally, references will be made to Jung as a part of the discussion.

As noted above, by the mid 1890’s Fillmore was writing about psychology, and in the early 1900’s he began writing about dreams in earnest.  An early example is this letter from and answer to a reader taken from the August 1909 Unity magazine:

I am greatly interested in dreams, but do not know how to interpret

mine.  How do you know that certain things stand for, or are they

symbols of something else? – A.A.E

We know that all external objects represent ideas.  For instance,

figures represent the principle of numbers.  An ox, or a horse,

or a body of land or water represent the Principles of Being.

We instinctively associate these objects with some idea.  The

ox stands for strength; the horse for vigor.  Land represents

the idea of stability and water of flexibility or changeableness.

So one may run through the whole gamut of existence and

find the right idea back of every visible object.  With this key,

we interpret dreams (Fillmore, 1909).

By this point, Fillmore was making the point that dream images represent ideas, a concept that is encountered again in 1911:

All dreams indicate states of mind working in the dreamer,

and how they are affecting mentality and the body.  All the

people, places, and things one sees in the dream state

represent ideas, and a true interpretation can be had by

resolving them into their primal thoughts.  Every person,

for example, that you know has some dominant characteristic,

and if you should dram about that one, he would represent

that characteristic in your own mind.

The thoughts of the day are usually carried into the

dream state, and portray their tendency and ultimate effect

in the mind before they work out in affairs.  Analyze your

dominant traits of character and your general trend of

thought, and you will find them working out in your

conscious and subconscious mind.  By meditating in the

silence, you can, as a rule, interpret your own dreams.  It

is difficult for another to do this for you, unless he is familiar

with the general trend of your thoughts (Fillmore, 1911).

Several points should be made in reference to these paragraphs.  It is clear from the above quote that Fillmore believed meditation could serve as a transcendent function, although he did not specifically use that term as Jung did.   One could ask if the “primal states” and dominant characteristics noted could be equated to the archetypes as described by Jung.  Moreover, Fillmore recognized that “thoughts of the day” do manifest in dreams.  This is known as day residue, and to Jung day residue provided important clues to the meaning of a dream since it was a link between the dream and the conscious situation of the dreamer.

Meditation in the silence could allow one to interpret one’s own dreams.  Fillmore, like Jung as noted above, believed that if one were to work on interpreting his dreams with another person, it was vital that the other person (analyst or friend) be thoroughly familiar with the conscious situation of the dreamer in order to provide a correct interpretation of the dream; however, Fillmore initially taught that the onus of dream interpretation generally rested with the dreamer.

One key disparity between the Fillmore and Jung approach to dream interpretation has to do with amplification.  Fillmore did not seem to teach a process of amplification similar to Jung’s that included study of world religions, cultures and literatures.  Thus, an individual who sought dream interpretation from Unity may have had difficulty in recognizing the emergence of archetypical energies in his or her life.

Fillmore’s interest in dreams and their interpretation continued to grow and in 1914 was installed as a regular feature in Unity magazine under the heading “Interpretation of Dreams.”  This feature continued regularly until 1917 (Teener, 1939).

The value of dream interpretation continued to grow in importance in the Unity Movement to the point that on May 15, 1920 Weekly Unity announced that Unity School of Christianity had created a Dream Interpretation Department in order to help readers with understanding their dreams.  Part of the notice read:

However, because people have lived so much in the outer,

and have not always been in touch with the higher Source

of Being, the mind faculties are usually not yet keen

enough to catch and read intelligibly the messages given.

Therefore, when the mentality is still, as in sleep, the

voice of the Master Teacher reaches the consciousness of

the soul, and the lesson one is in need of is out pictured

on the imaging faculties of the mind.  In this way, God’s

children are being educated through visions and dreams.

Unity has developed teachers who are able to

read and to interpret these messages, hence the installation

of this Department…(Fillmore, 1920).

Unity magazine posted a similar announcement in July of that year, with the name of the department noted as the Inner Vision Department.  Charles Fillmore, as previously noted, was a keen businessman as a well as a mystic, and this notice made reference to how this department would be funded:

Although the interpretation of every dream and vision

submitted to us requires the close study and clear discernment

of developed workers, we make no charge for this service, but,

like all Unity’s ministry, it shall be on a love offering basis.

We shall let the Spirit within each one determine compensation.

The Lord provides for us when we do his loving service and

make the matter known to his people, hence this explanation

(Fillmore, 1920).

Response to the establishment of the Inner Vision Department was overwhelming in more ways than one.  Many people had many dreams they wanted interpreted, but the love offerings for this service were not equal to demand put on the teachers who were doing the interpretation.  This matter was addressed in January 1921 in an article entitled “About the Flood (Not Noah’s)”:

The Inner Vision Department is flooded with dreams and visions,

and we shall hereafter limit our service to one dream interpretation

at a time for each person.  Some of our correspondents send in

as high as six dreams in a single letter.  We estimate that it costs

us one dollar for every dream we interpret, so you can see what

the financial part of the work involves.

We do not make a definite charge for this work but leave

the matter of compensation to the divine justice in those who

ask for our help in discerning the leading of the Spirit.  We

find, however, that people do not appreciate the instruction

of the Spirit as fully as they do the healing, and their free

will love offerings are not quite as generous as they should be.

We want to make this department self-sustaining, and in order

to do so, those who ask for interpretations of dreams should

be informed of the expense involved, that they may give as

they receive (Fillmore, 1921).

By the time the Inner Vision Department was created, Fillmore’s teaching about dreams had reached its apex and apparently had been taught to Silent Unity prayer workers.  The February 1914 edition of Unity magazine included with its dream interpretations this line, “Here are some samples of dreams, with interpretations by our Silent Unity correspondents” (Fillmore, 1914).  Unfortunately, a review of the Unity Archives has not revealed any notes as to how these Silent Unity workers were trained, but it can be inferred that they were taught about the structure mind and the other points noted above, along with the points noted below.

Fillmore believed that “every form and shape in the dream represents some mental or physical characteristic” in the dreamer’s life (Fillmore, 1914).  He based this analysis on a review of the dreams of Bible characters whose dreams revealed a truth or information about questions and concerns that the Bible character was experiencing.  Fillmore’s dream teaching drew heavily upon examples and models taken from the Bible, and he would often make reference to the dreams of Solomon, Job, Daniel, Joseph, and others.

That there was a connection between the spirit, mind and body made in dreams was taught by Fillmore.  He said in 1914:

There is a need of a fuller understanding of the meaning of

dreams and visions, because the Lord is educating his people

everywhere by this means.  When once a disciple gets the

key (that is, that each and everything seen in the dream or

vision represents ideas in his mind), his education goes

forward from day to day.  Many people have come under

our observation who have been trained in a few years to

interpret their dreams, and now they are guided daily in the

renewing of mind and body” (Fillmore, 1914).

Jung made a similar point in 1916 when he said, “Not infrequently the dreams show that there is a remarkable inner symbolical connection between an undoubted physical illness and a definite psychic problem, so that the physical disorder appears as a direct mimetic expression of the psychic situation” (CW 8:502).

Fillmore was clear in his belief that dreams were essentially religious experiences and should be processed as such.  The April 21, 1915 edition of Weekly Unity published a lecture he gave entitled “Guiding Visions” in which he elaborated on this idea.  He said:

Now, those visions and those things that you have seen are

from the Lord, and if you would acknowledge those occult,

hidden things as being real, and in the silent recesses of

your soul be obedient, you would get something more

definite, and this would lead to a farther revelation, and

soon you would have the door open between you and your

higher self (Fillmore, 1921).

In the same lecture he countered the claims that dreams are often considered meaningless by many religious persons:

The most delicate subject the metaphysician has to deal with

is that of  visions and dreams.  The practical everyday man

considers them foolish, childless and valueless.  The

orthodox religionist, also, who bases his salvation on the

Scriptures, puts a like estimate on these seemingly meaningless

picture of the mind.  And even those who have a certain faith

in visions and dreams are in a large degree in darkness as to

their real import.  The reason of all this is that the realm in

which these forces operate is so far removed from material

consciousness that it is difficult to get a right interpretation

or a right understanding of the symbols (Fillmore, 1921).

He goes on to comment that the Bible is replete with individuals who received divine inspiration through dreams and visions, but questions, “Does anyone know of a theological college where the interpretation of dreams is taught?” (Fillmore, 1921).

A practical matter related to dream interpretation is the question of how does one remember one’s dreams.  Jung and Fillmore both addressed this issue.  Jung said:

It is probably in consequence of this loose connection with the

contents of consciousness that the recollected dream is so

extremely unstable.  Many dreams baffle all attempts at

reproduction, even immediately after waking; others can be

remembered only with doubtful accuracy, and comparatively

few can be called really distinct and clearly reproducible.

This peculiar behaviour may be explained by considering

the combination of ideas in dreams is essentially fantastic;

they are linked together in a sequence which is as a rule

quite foreign to our “reality thinking,” and in striking

contrast to the logical sequence of ideas which we consider

to be a special characteristic of our conscious mental

processes (CW 8:445).

Fillmore’s response to this difficulty was directly addressed in Unity in 1915:

First, learn to still the thoughts when awake by entering into

the inner recesses of the being and communing with the Lord,

and second, be very quiet after awakening and refuse to allow

the conscious mind to take up at once its train of thought.

Usually when one awakens, the first thing he does is to begin

to make conscious connection between the happenings of

the day before and the possible events of the new day, and

as the conscious mind usually gets the attention more readily

than the inner voice, all the instruction of the night is put

aside and silenced by the noisy intellect which clamors for

the consideration and the interest of the outer man and his

relation to the outer world.  Instead of trying to connect

immediately with the interests of the previous day, turn the

attention within and make a quiet effort to remember your

dreams.  If even a fragment of a dream is clear, study it

carefully, asking the Spirit of Truth to reveal is significance

(Fillmore, 1915).

Along with providing a method to help individuals remember their dreams, Fillmore makes it clear that even a dream fragment has value if studied.  Moreover, as intimated throughout this essay, Fillmore taught that one could ask God – pray, in other words – for the meaning of a dream to be revealed.

In the July 11, 1925 edition of Weekly Unity was printed an ad for a new Unity publication entitled Inner Vision, a sixty page book which was written “with the firm conviction that it will answer for the seekers of knowledge some of the questions that have puzzled them, and that it will lead to a deeper understanding of the significance of their dreams and visions” (Fillmore, 1925).  This is the only book published by Unity about dream work, and for the most part is a compilation of articles, or parts of articles, that had already been printed by Unity or Weekly Unity.  Those points have already been addressed in this essay.

Inner Vision was last printed in 1945.  According to a typed note made by E. Pharaby Boileau, a reference librarian who began working at Unity School in 1942, “Inner Vision booklet was discontinued from stock because it was generally misunderstood by the public.”

In his 1939 doctoral dissertation about Unity School of Christianity, James Teener makes a remark, “This department [Inner Vision] is no longer carried regularly in Unity, but help is extended to any who ask for it, and Mr. Fillmore frequently refers to the guidance he receives through the method [dreams]” (Teener, 1939).

Apparently in the late 1920’s or 1930’s, the Inner Vision Department was closed.  Quite possibly, Unity was not receiving the “dollar a dream” suggested love offering and closed the department owing to its inability to sustain itself.  Archival research has failed to produce a date or a reason for the closure of the department; however, by 1925 dream interpretation ceased to be printed in Unity.  On August 1, 2006 the author of this essay did ask Rev. Dorothy Pierson, a Unity minister who went to work for Fillmore in the 1930’s about the Inner Vision Department.  She did not recall it; however, she did comment that, “Back in those days they were trying everything – starting and stopping projects for any number of reasons.”

Rev. Pierson did recount two stories of dreams of hers that Fillmore interpreted.  Her first dream was that another Unity worker was ill.  Fillmore asked her what she did about it.  “Nothing,” was her reply.  He promptly scolded her and said that she should have done something like bless the other worker.  He told her she may have been the only one to offer prayer for the individual that day.

Her second dream was that she was flying and what a wonderful experience it was.  Fillmore’s response – and she chuckled as she recounted this – was, “Can you pay your rent?”  Fillmore’s concern was that her dream represented escapism or inflation of ego, when her first concern should be the meeting of her earthly needs.

Fillmore retired in 1933, and it is quite probable that the teaching of dream work within the Unity Movement ended with him.  Every minister, when asked by the author of this essay if they knew that at one time Unity taught dream interpretation, has expressed complete surprise.  When asked if they knew about the Inner Vision Department, the response consistently has been “no.”  And is should come as no surprise that Unity Institute (the current name of Unity’s seminary located just outside Kansas City at Unity Village, Missouri) does not teach dream interpretation.

Now, on to the meat and potatoes of Inner Vision and Synchronicity – dreams!  It’s take some time to get here, but now that we’re here, we’ll be glad we invested the time in learning the background information.  This is a longer post than most, but well worth the time…

DREAMS

Any field of endeavor is known by the tools it uses to reach its goal.  The building trades are know for hammers and screwdrivers, the medical profession by stethoscopes and medicines, and landscaping is known for mowers and edge trimmers.  The primary tool used by the roughly 2,500 Jungian analysts worldwide is the dream material of the analysand, without which an exploration of his or her unconscious would be nearly impossible.  As Jungian analyst Michael Adams says, “The purpose of Jungian analysis is to establish an effective relation between the ego and the unconscious in order ultimately to facilitate a transformation of the psyche.  Dream interpretation is vitally important to that process” (Adams, 2006).  The concepts about dream work taught by Jung are being taught and developed further by the Jungian community today; within the Unity Movement, relatively few know that dream work was a focus of Fillmore’s work.  The following sections will highlight the main theories about dreams taught by Jung and Fillmore with a spotlight on the growth and apparent cessation of dream work taught within Unity.

Jung and Dreams

Speaking on the practical use of dream analysis in 1931, Jung said, “…the avowed aim of dream-analysis is not only to exercise our wits, but to uncover and realize those hitherto unconscious contents which are considered to be of importance in the elucidation or treatment of a neurosis” (CW 16:294).  Neuroses are common emotional disorders experienced by most people at various times of their lives.  Not nearly as severe as a psychosis, a neurosis indicates an imbalance in the psyche of an individual that may be characterized by anxiety, obsessive thinking about a subject, compulsive behavior, etc. without evidence of a physical ailment.  Generally, but not always, individuals experiencing a neurosis – such as an inferiority complex – are still able to function in the world; but what the neurosis does is limit the individual’s ability to experience peace and their own sense of wholeness.  In the same lecture given in Dresden, he said, “the dream describes the inner situation of the dreamer, but the conscious mind denies its truth and reality, or admits it only grudgingly.”  Additionally he said, “…the dream comes in as the expression of an involuntary, unconscious psychic process beyond the control of the conscious mind.  It shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would like it to be, but as it is” (CW 16:304).  Based on his observance of thousands of patients, Jung was certain that the dream served as a bridge between the unconscious and conscious minds.

This discussion begs the question, “What sort of things are in the unconscious that the dreamer should know?”  He said:

Dreams may contain ineluctable truths, philosophical

pronouncements, illusions, wild fantasies, memories,

plans, anticipations, irrational experiences, even

telepathic visions, and heavens knows what besides.

one thing we ought never to forget: almost half our

life is passed in a more or less unconscious state.

the dream is specifically the utterance of the

unconscious (CW 16:317).

The healing aspect of dream work comes into play when the patient is able to assimilate into his or her conscious mind the contents of the unconscious.  Rather than subjugating the unconscious mind and its contents, Jung’s depth psychology provides the patient with a safe venue for learning what is contained in the unconscious.  As noted in the quotation above, much of the information could be extremely helpful for individual to know as he or she goes about daily life as well as engaging in the life work of individuation.  The major danger in the process of encountering the unconscious, Jung said, is when it “is excluded from life by being repressed, falsely interpreted, and depreciated” (CW 16:329).

Another, and possibly the most important, function of dreams is that of compensation.  Like the physical body, Jung described the psyche as being self-regulating.  He said, “When we set out to interpret a dream, it is always helpful to ask: What conscious attitude does it compensate?” (CW 16:330).  In dreams, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, inclinations and tendencies that are too little valued in waking life will be brought to life so that the dreamer may realize alternatives to consciously held attitudes.  Jung put it this way:

The unconscious is the unknown at any given moment, so it

is not surprising that dreams add to the conscious psychological

situation of the moment all those aspects which are essential

for a totally different point of view.  It is evident that this

function of dreams amounts to a psychological adjustment,

a compensation absolutely necessary for balanced action.  In

a conscious process of reflection it is essential that, so far as

possible, we should realize all the aspects and consequences

of a problem in order to find the right solution.  This process

is continued automatically in the more or less unconscious

state of sleep, where, as experience seems to show, all those

aspects occur to the dreamer (at least by way of allusion)

that during the day were insufficiently appreciated or even

totally ignored – in other words, were comparatively

unconscious (CW 16:469).

Just as some dreams are compensatory, offering other points of view that the conscious mind may not have considered, other dreams have what Jung called a “prospective function,” that is, they outline possible future outcomes.  Some dreams of this nature are clearly prophetic, offering any number of specific future events (CW 16:493).  Other prospective dreams offer the attentive dreamer possible outcomes that play out in the outer world, but maybe not exactly as dreamed.  However, Jung did warn against giving prospective dreams too much authority.  When an individual’s conscious and unconscious minds are adequately functioning, dreams generally hold to a more compensatory rather than prospective function. (CW 8:494).

In Jungian analysis, the analyst must be apprised of the conscious situation of the dreamer.  Just what is happening in his or her waking life?  If the dream serves as a bridge between the dreamer’s inner and outer life, then the analyst and analysand must have some understanding of the dreamer’s day to day life, otherwise it will be difficult, if not impossible to link the dream symbols to the conscious life of the analysand.  Jung put it this way:

If we want to interpret a dream correctly, we need a

thorough knowledge of the conscious situation at

that moment, because the dream contains its

unconscious complement, that is, the material which the

conscious situation has constellated in the in the

unconscious.  Without this knowledge, it is impossible

to interpret a dream correctly, except by a lucky

fluke (CW 8:477).

Pivotal to Jungian dream analysis is an understanding of symbols.  Since dreams are primarily experienced as pictures, it is vital that these pictures that emerge from the unconscious be given meaning.  Jung recognized that although some symbols are universal to mankind, such as the circle, the meaning the patient gave to the symbol was the most important from a therapeutic point of view (CW 16:342).  If the therapist were to assume that all symbols had fixed meaning there was a danger of “his falling into mere routine and pernicious dogmatism, and thus failing his patient” (CW 16:342).  This is not to say that symbols with relative fixed meanings are useless in dream interpretation, they are useful; however, each individual will have his own “take” on the symbol, with his or her own shade of meaning (CW 16:351).  This process of determining the meaning of symbols is often called explication (Adams, 2006).

A process related to explication, is amplification.  In the process of amplification, comparisons of dream images or symbols are made to similar images found in literature, religion, mythology, culture, etc. in order to recognize and/or identify archetypical elements of a dream or dream series (Adams, 2006).  The appreciation of archetypical energy or imagery in dreams can be both a therapeutic tool towards the healing of a neurosis as well as an important milestone in the path to individuation.

Jung also took into account the dramatic structure of dreams.  With this perspective, every part of the dream could be considered a part of the dreamer.

The whole dream-work is essentially subjective, and a

dream is a theatre in which dreamer is himself the scene,

the players, the prompter, the producer, the author, the

public, and the critic.  This simple truth forms the basis

for a conception of the dream’s meaning which I have

called interpretation on the subjective level.  Such

interpretation, as the term implies, conceives all the

figures in the dream as personified features of the

dreamer’s own personality (CW 8:509).

Thus the dreamer seeks to discover what is happening in his inner world by asking, “What, in me, does this dream part represent?”  In this way he or she could come to greater understanding of him or herself.

Just talking about dreams was not enough for Jung.  One had to engage them actively in a process he called active imagination.  In a nutshell, the process of active imagination is when form is given to a dream image for the purpose of further analysis.  For example, the dreamer may paint or draw a dream image, or with the help of others, act out the scene as if it were a drama.  Jung himself painted many of his dream images.  There’s no limit to the forms that active imagination can take.  The key in this process is for the dreamer not to judge the quality of the creation, but simple to express it (CW 8:168-171).  The active imagination process is an example of the transcendent function, the bringing together of conscious and unconscious contents by transcending the apparent gulf between them (CW 8:131).

This is the last installment of background information before we get to the meat and potatoes of this paper – dreams; however, it’s important background.  So here it is, installment 9 of “Inner Vision and  Synchronicity:  Dream Work as Taught By Charles Fillmore and Carl Jung.”

Jungian Religion

Carl Jung’s exploration of Eastern, Western and primal religion and religious traditions is vast.  His interest in religion was concentrated on effect of religious experience on the individual.  “Religion, as the Latin word denotes, is a careful and scrupulous observation of what Rudolf Otto aptly termed the ‘numinosum,’ that is, a dynamic existence or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will…The numinosum is either a quality of a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence causing a peculiar alteration of consciousness” (Jung, 1938, p. 4).  A full volume (number 11) of his Collected Works is dedicated to the subject of Eastern and Western religion and his psychological treatment of religion garners mention in other volumes as well as countless articles and lectures.  Jung was a baptized Protestant, but on account of his focus on the psychology of religion, he was sometimes questioned about his own personal views.  Answering a question about his belief in the existence of God he said:

I am sufficiently convinced of the effects man has attributed

to a divine being.  If I should express a belief beyond that

or should assert the existence of God, it would not only be

superfluous and inefficient, it would show that I am not

basing my opinion on facts… I am well satisfied with the

fact that I know experiences which I cannot avoid calling

numinous or divine (CW 18:1589).

Since Jung was an empiricist, his interest in religion was predicated on the facts of religious experience. He was of the opinion that humans only were able to conceive of an image of God, not totality of God.  Because the facts surrounding God’s existence could not be fully known, discourse about what God is or is not would be generally untenable; however, there was some hope.

What God is in himself nobody knows; at least I don’t.  Thus it is

beyond the reach of man to make valid statements about the divine

nature…I strongly advocate, therefore, a revision of our religious

formulas with the aid of psychological insight.  It is the great

advantage of Protestantism that an intelligent discussion is possible.

Protestantism should make use of this freedom.  Only a thing that

changes and evolves, lives, but static things mean spiritual death

(CW 18:1595).

Regardless of his personal religious views, Jung recognized that one’s mental health was often a result of one’s religious or spiritual sense of well being.  He said:

Among all my patients in the second half of life – that is to say,

over thirty-five – there has not been one whose problem in the

last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.

It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had

lost what the living religions of every age have given to their

followers, and not of them has been really healed who did not

regain his religious outlook.  This of course has nothing

whatever to do with a particular creed or membership of a

church (CW 11:509).

Jung’s statement is a powerful witness to his belief that clergyman and doctor could and should work together.

So just how did Charles Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity movement, incorporate the new science of psychology into the Unity theology?  In this installment of “Inner Vision: Dream Work as Taught by Charles Fillmore and Carl Jung,”  we’ll examine that question.

Fillmorean Psychology

Since he was not formally educated as a psychologist, and in fact had no college education at all, it may be surprising to discover Fillmore did teach a coherent theory of the mind and how it functioned; however, articles from Unity magazine and Weekly Unity indicate that he was well versed in the advances of psychology in the first half of the 20^th century.   In fact, Unity magazine, while under the direction of Fillmore, had psychology as a principle focus.  Its raison d’être was noted in this way:

Unity is a handbook of Christian Healing and Christian

Psychology.

The purpose of Unity is, not to found a new sect, but to

give people a practical application of what they already

have through their church affiliations.

Unity therefore stands independent as an exponent

of Practical Christianity, teaching the practical application

of the doctrine of Jesus Christ in all the affairs of life;

explaining the action of mind, and how it is the connecting

link between God and man; how mind action affects the body,

producing discord or harmony, sickness or health, and how it

brings man into the understanding of Divine law, harmony,

health and peace, here and now.

Unity explains how this power of mind action by every man

and woman, for it is as operative today as it was two thousand

years ago (Fillmore, 1921).

Although his knowledge of psychology did not reach the depth or breadth of that of Jung, the volume of similarities is of note.  Many of them will be noted in the discussion below.

To Fillmore, the mind of man consisted of three distinctly different, yet interconnected phases: superconscious, conscious, and subconscious.  In the September 1915 edition of Unity magazine, this insightful presentation of the three phases of mind was offered:

While there is but one mind, it has three distinct phases in man.

These the metaphysician has named superconscious, conscious

and subconscious.  The majority of people know nothing about

any department of mind except the conscious, and they know

little about that because they do not study it.  Every thought

passes through the conscious mind sinks back into what is

called the subconscious, or memory, and makes up a great

internal realm of forces that are always at work in the man to

build up or tear down, according to the character of the thoughts

he has held.  In this great unknown, inner realm lie all the

causes of joy and sorrow, peace and pain, sickness and health.

Ignorance has always led men to look outside of themselves

for the cause of all their troubles.  Now we are entering a new

dispensation of life and the wise are learning to correct their past

errors and cleanse their subconscious with the Word of Truth,

which enters into the conscious and sub-conscious from the superconscious or Christ Mind (Fillmore, 1915).

The subconscious realm of mind, which corresponds to the use of the term “unconscious” by Jung, was of particular interest to Fillmore and his contemporaries within the Unity movement.  In 1914 the Unity Tract Society, noted above as owned and operated by Fillmore, published the 40 page booklet The Subconscious Realm of Mind written by Unity worker J.R. Rude.  In it Rude says, “All the great psychologists agree that there is a phase or stratum of mind known as the subconscious, which is capable of independent action and which has powers distinctly its own.  They have deduced this from certain psychical experiences and observations carried on by themselves” (Rude, 1914, p. 7).  Regrettably, Rude does not name the “great psychologists” or their experiences; however, this quote does suggest that Fillmore knew that the subconscious functioned independently of the conscious mind.

Although Fillmore did not teach a clearly defined concept akin to the archetypes as did Jung, he did make mention of the many “types” of man found within the subconscious.  Writing in 1920 he stated that the subconscious contained, “the wise man and the foolish man, the kind man and the cruel man, the loving man and the hateful man, the stingy man and the generous man” (Fillmore, 1920).

In August 1915, Unity magazine reprinted an article entitle “Exploring the Soul and Healing the Body,” written by philosopher Max Eastman that was originally published in Everybody’s Magazine.  The article discussed the new field of healing called “Psycho-analysis,” which, in Eastman’s words:

…means analysis of the soul, or mind.  And the theory of it is

that countless numbers of diseases that we call nervous, or

mental, and countless others that we do not name at all, are

caused by desires which dwell in our minds without our

knowing they are there; and that if we can be made clearly

aware of these desires, their morbid effects will disappear

(Eastman, 1915).  N.B. italics in text

Unlike Rude’s booklet, Eastman’s article goes on to name the specialists in this new field: Freud, Charcot, and Janet in Europe along with several American doctors.  And Jung.  An exhaustive search of Unity literature for references to Jung has produced this one reference in Eastman’s article that occurs in a discussion of Freud:

Freud is now a professor of nervous pathology in the University

of Vienna.  But his psychological theories, his interpretation of

dreams and his method of treating nervous and mental disorders,

developed not out of professorial speculations.  They are the

result of twenty years’ practical experiment and concrete

observation not only by himself, but by a distinguished group

of physicians who have surrounded him.

The most notable of among these is Dr. Carl G. Jung of

Zurich, who stands at the head of another “school” of Psycho-

analysis.  For in Europe this movement has gone so far as to

produce two, if not indeed more than two, different groups of

physicians, emphasizing different parts of the theory and its

method of application (Eastman, 1915).

To Rude and Fillmore, a central issue was how to control the subconscious.  One reason for this was that “the objective mind has been pouring into the subconscious a stream of errors, false beliefs, and the husks of materiality…As these errors are incorporated into the organism, their blighting influence is seen” (Rude, 1914, p. 19). Thus to live a healthy life, one would want to ensure that whatever was put into the subconscious were words, concepts, ideas and the like that promoted good health and abundant living.  Additionally, Rude recognized that “when the conscious mind loses control of the subconscious, insanity is the result” (Rude, 1914, p. 21).  In other words, psychosis.

Although Jung was clear that the unconscious mind did contain potentially damaging elements and energies, it would appear by the following comment he was ambivalent about value of full cohesion of consciousness:

It is a long way indeed from primitivity to a reliable cohesion

of consciousness.  Even in our days the unity of consciousness

is a doubtful affair, since only a little affect is needed to disrupt

its continuity.  On the other hand the perfect control of emotion,

however desirable from one point of view, would be a questionable

accomplishment, for it would deprive social intercourse of all

variety, colour, warmth, and charm (CW 18:443).

In a Weekly Unity article from 1921 entitled “The Subconscious Realm of Mind, Doratha Avery, though not using the terms collective unconscious or archetypes, implies their existence:

The subconscious realm of mind is the storehouse of all the

knowledge which a soul has gathered from its experiences

and wanderings since it left the Father’s house in the Edenic

garden of innocence, up to the present time.

Many true and beautiful gems of thought are hidden away

in the recesses of this wonderful storehouse.  There are

also hung on its walls undesirable, crude and ugly thought

pictures of man’s emotional nature (Avery, 1921).

Perhaps the “soul” she references is the soul of every person (the collective) and the “gems” and other “thought pictures” could be the archetypes.                                                           The other two phases of mind Rude identified in this manner: “The superconsciousness is the Mind of Christ, Heaven, the kingdom of God, the Holy of Holies.  It is the realm of Divine Ideas.  From it all things proceed and all things are enveloped in it” (Rude, 1914, p. 10).  “The conscious mind knows itself as a living, intelligent being at work in the outer world.  It reasons, compares, weighs, measures.  It gathers its information through the sense from the surface of things.  It is well fitted to cope with the changing environment of this life.  In man’s normal condition, the conscious mind is at the helm…” (Rude, 1914, p. 4-5).

It is helpful to understand the three phases of mind as understood by Unity because Fillmore taught, as psychologists still teach, that dreams emerge from the subconscious mind.  Moreover, dreams emerge from the subconscious to help man know himself and his wholeness.  In 1915 Fillmore wrote:

Even when one understands that he has a great mental

housecleaning to do he discovers that he has much to

learn about what is really within him, and he is glad

for every means of finding out in his overcoming what

he has stored away in his subconscious.  Just here

dreams are of value.  When the conscious mind is still

in sleep, the subconscious has the opportunity to be

very active and it expresses itself in dreams; therefore

one can readily see that by studying his dreams he

can get a great deal of information about what is

going on in his subconscious mind (Fillmore, 1915).

Another central aspect of Fillmore’s psychology was the importance he placed on man’s capacity to think and the power of words.  “One of the axiomatic truths of metaphysics is that ‘thoughts are things.’ That the mind of man marshals its faculties and literally makes into living entities that it entertains is also a forgone conclusion” (Fillmore, 1959, p. 193).  In his first book, Christian Healing published in 1909, he said, “…every word has its effect, though unseen and unrecognized… and a close observation of the power of the mind proves this to be true.  What we think, we generally express in words; and our words bring about in our life and affairs whatever we put into them” (Fillmore, 1909, p. 64).  Fillmore’s focus on the creative power of one’s thought process could be considered a forerunner to the cognitive behavior therapy developed by Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck.  No discussion of Fillmore’s psychology would be complete with mentioning this crucial fact.

Today we’ll look at the interplay of religion and psychology.  To some, mixing those two is as  productive as mixing water and oil… an especially powerful image in light of the ecological disaster currently happening in the Gulf of Mexico.  So, please hold the vision of a speedy and complete recovery from this experience.

In the meantime, here’s a the preamble to the discussion of “Fillmorean Psychology” and “Jungian Religion” that appear in “Inner Vision and Synchronicity: Dream Work as Taught by Charles Fillmore and Carl Jung.”

PSYCHOLOGY AND RELIGION

To Charles Fillmore, there was no separation between psychology and religion.  Writing in 1939 he said, “Then the carping critic cries, ‘Your religion is psychology instead of Christianity.’ Our answer is that the new Christianity includes an understanding of psychology but does not stop with an analysis of the mind.  It goes on to the highest phase of mind’s possibilities, unity with Spirit” (Fillmore, 1939, p. 143-144).  Moreover, in speaking directly about the relationship between religion and psychology, he said:

Thought control is imperative, and there is urgent need of

teachers on both the mental and spiritual plane of

consciousness if the race is to go forward in development.

To this end there needs to be more co-operation between

these two schools, because they complement each other.

Religion becomes practical and effective in everyday life

when it incorporates psychology in its litany.  Without

religion psychology is weak in its fundamentals, and without

psychology religion fails to give proper attention to the outlet

of its ideals.  The fact is that religion, comprehended in its

fullness, includes psychology.  Jesus was a profound psychologist (Fillmore, 1953, p. 75-76).

Jung shared a similar point of view as is illustrated in his essays “Psychoanalysis and the Cure of Souls” written in 1928 and “Psychotherapists or the Clergy” written in 1932.  He said, “It is high time for the clergyman and the psychotherapist to join forces to meet this great spiritual task” of leading individuals to reclaiming their religious outlook (CW 11:510).  Echoing the Fillmore quote noted above is this exhortation from Jung:

The Protestant minister, rightly seeing the cure of souls

the real purpose of his existence, naturally looks round

for a new way that will lead to the souls, and not merely

the ears, of his parishioners.  Analytical psychology seems

to him to provide the key, for the meaning and purpose

of his ministry are not fulfilled with the Sunday sermon,

which, though it reaches the ears, seldom penetrates to

the soul, the most hidden of all things hidden in man.

The cure of souls can only be practiced in the stillness

of a colloquy, carried on in the healthful atmosphere

of unreserved confidence.  Soul must work on soul,

and many doors be unlocked that bar the way to the

innermost sanctuary.  Psychoanalysis possesses the means

of opening doors otherwise tightly closed (CW 11:544).

If, as Fillmore and Jung both say, psychology and religion are complements, it is necessary to know how the theologian Fillmore understood psychology and the psychiatrist Jung understood religion.  From that point it will be appropriate to investigate the place of dreams in the teaching of each.

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…

In this installment of “Inner Vision and Synchronicity:  Dream Work as Taught by Charles Fillmore and Carl Jung, ” we’ll examine key teachings of Charles Fillmore that became the foundation of the Unity Movement.

Charles Fillmore Fundamental Teachings

A key to understanding the theology of Charles Fillmore is found in the name he gave the nonprofit church organization he founded in 1903: Unity Society of Practical Christianity, with the emphasis on the word “practical” (Vahle, 2002, p. 145).  A consistent theme throughout his teaching was that religion, if it is to be helpful to its adherents, must be of practical value in helping the individual to live a healthy and abundant life in the here and now.  Prayer and meditation, along with other spiritual practices, had practical and immediate benefits to the individual who engaged them on a regular basis; including, but not limited to peace of mind, harmonious relationship, health and healing and demonstration of prosperity.

According to biographer Neal Vahle, Fillmore’s “primary interest as a person and as a spiritual teacher was in manifesting the indwelling presence, the Christ Consciousness, and helping others to do the same” (Vahle, 2002, p. 46).  To this end, he intuited that there were twelve spiritual centers within the body, which, when quickened or energized would allow the individual to release negative beliefs and behaviors that hampered the unfoldment of the indwelling Christ.  Moreover, he taught that the activation of the twelve powers (faith, strength, wisdom, love, power, imagination, understanding, will, zeal, order, elimination, life) could lead to the overcoming of physical death, a process he termed “regeneration;” however, Fillmore did not demonstrate the overcoming of physical death and died from kidney failure (Vahle, 2002, p. 63).

As regards the central figure of Christianity, Jesus Christ, Fillmore “considered Jesus to be human at birth rather than divine as taught by traditional Christianity.  Jesus transformed himself and realized the indwelling presence…by developing and implementing in his life all twelve faculties of mind” (Vahle, 2002, p. 67).  The activation of the twelve faculties, Fillmore taught, was symbolized by the calling of the twelve disciples.  From this perspective Jesus was, to Fillmore, a model to be followed, rather than a deity to be worshiped.

The study of Christian metaphysics is another hallmark of Fillmore’s theology.  He defined metaphysics as “the systematic study of the science of Being; that which transcends the physical.  By pure metaphysics is meant a clear understanding of the realm of ideas and their legitimate expression” (Fillmore, 1959, p. 132).  “Being” was a term used by Fillmore to connote God, yet it’s definition, with an emphasis on archetypical ideas, is of note in light of the discussion of Jung that follows, for Fillmore referred to Being as “God; the Mind of the universe composed of archetype ideas: life, love, wisdom, substance, Truth, power, peace, and so forth.  Being is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient; it is the fullness of God, the All-Good” (Fillmore, 1959, p. 22).  Thus when Fillmore addressed spiritual laws and principles, he was engaging in what he considered to be Christian metaphysics.

Within the study of his Christian metaphysics, one encounters the terms “personality” and “individuality” with some frequency, and Fillmore’s usage of these terms shows some semblance to Jung’s usage of the terms “persona” and “individuation” as noted below.  Fillmore said that personality was:

The sum total of characteristics that man has personalized

as distinct of himself, independent of others or of divine

principle.  The word personality as used by metaphysicians

is contrasted with the word individuality.  Individuality is

the real; personality is the unreal, the mortal, the part of

us that is governed by the selfish motives of the natural

man (Fillmore, 1959, p. 148).

Fillmore wrote and lectured extensively about many spiritual and religious topics, but the aforementioned concepts of practical Christianity, the indwelling presence, the twelve powers, and metaphysics are standout ideas associated with him and his theology.

In the next post, we’ll look at some of fundamental teachings of Carl Jung.  Stay tuned!

In this installment of “Inner Vision:  Dream Work as Taught by Charles Fillmore and Carl Jung,” we’ll look at the life of Carl Jung…

Carl Jung Biography

Information about Jung’s life is relatively easy to come by, especially since, unlike Fillmore,  he did write an autobiography – Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

Jung grew up in Switzerland, the son of a minister father and a homemaker mother.  He did not have the physical trauma that Fillmore did, so his education was not interrupted.  In 1900 he decided to become a psychiatrist, and that same year was appointed Assistant Staff Physician at the Burghölzli Mental Clinic in Zurich, Switzerland.  In 1902 he studied with Pierre Janet and published his first two articles.  The following year, 1903, he married Emma Rauschenbach.  They had five children.

In 1906 he met Sigmund Freud and began a relationship that would be both inspiring and painful for him.  Inspiring in the sense that he considered Freud a master psychologist, and painful on account of the break with Freud that occurred in 1913.

In 1909 he began intensive study of the world’s mythologies which would figure prominently in his concept of the collective unconscious.  In this same year he traveled with Freud to the United States for his first visit.

Jung’s work as a scholar and physician flourished in the years 1913-1946.  His writing output, which was already impressive by 1913, continued unabated.  During this time he published his theory on psychological types (forerunner to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator commonly known today), wrote eloquently about archetypes, explored alchemy in depth, made psychological examinations of Eastern and Western religion, and traveled extensively around the world.

In his later years he continued to write, though for the most part, he had retired to his home at Bollingen Tower on Lake Zurich.  His wife Emma died in 1955, and Jung himself died in 1961 (Campbell, 1971, p. xxxiii-xlii).