By Cynthia Chung
As many of my readers are aware, I have recently written a series of essays tackling some uncomfortable facts about Carl Jung, Aldous Huxley and some other sacred cows of our modern society as part of my larger upcoming book ‘The Shaping of a World Religion’.
Many people have written messages of gratitude, but I have also received some messages which have expressed concern that I am attacking spirituality more broadly, or throwing out the baby with the bathwater. As such I thought it appropriate to address these issues in the following post, which was originally written as a response to a reader.
First off, my intention in addressing these subjects, is not to attack spiritualism as in the general search for the spiritual or what is sacred or the belief that we can enter an age of wisdom and love, in short governed by the good, the beautiful and the true.
I think there is a lot of confusion as to how to recognize and acknowledge that there were and are some very nefarious players that were at the very origin and shaped the movements that led up to the counter-culture movement and beyond since to recognize and acknowledge this seems to thus discount all the “good” that was brought into such processes. This almost always follows with an apology for said people, that they couldn’t possibly have consciously had those nefarious intentions and because there is the appearance of so much good, in order to defend this, we must defend such destructive characters as flawed but meaning well or else risk that the entire movement, the entire institution, all comes crumbling down.
Many who feel this is in fact what I am striving for thus in turn ask “what is to replace it?”
However, this is not what I am saying at all, that all the “good” needs to be eradicated along with the “bad” as if we are unable to separate the two.
The point in this series is to showcase that such “good” teachings and such “good” insights as contained within the works of Jung or Huxley et al.. were not discovered by those individuals as is commonly portrayed, and they were not brought forward for the first time in history by these nefarious players.
They have existed for centuries prior.
Such nefarious characters are not the origin or the creators of these “good” teachings, they have simply taken such teachings and have purposefully twisted them for what they have defined as their idea of “liberation”, of being “reborn.” We must understand that all good teachings have a mirror image that appears to be its likeness but is in fact a corruption of that good teaching. For many, if not most, it will be hard to discern the difference.
In the past, such “good” teachings for instance the wise teachings of the East let us say in a very general way, these teachings were not passed down to just anybody. It was from teacher to student, and it was a select few who qualified to be students to such a teacher. Today these teachings are open to nearly everyone, but without the safe guide of a proper teacher, instead we have many charlatans who claim to be good teachers when it is in fact their intention to lead one astray.
A movement that promises such a heightened idea of liberation or “of being reborn” is a dangerous thing, and is a path that can easily lead to self-destruction. And yes, this was an explicit intention of these nefarious players as I think I have sufficiently showcased thus far in the “Who Will Be Brave in Huxley’s New World?” and “The Shaping of a World Religion” series. And with the essay “Gaslighting: The Psychology of Shaping Another’s Reality or How Mass Perception is Manufactured” which shared such quotes as:
However, I do believe that such nefarious players did view this as a real form of liberation for those who would be “worthy” who could survive this deconstruction of self and rebuilding of self. And I do not doubt that many people feel they have benefited from such movements and teachings (whether such claims are indeed accurate or whether they are self-delusional is another matter).
However, the level of destruction that has occurred as a consequence of the counter-culture movement is undeniable. The world we live in today is incredibly divided, it is fragmented, it is schizophrenic and in a spiritual frenzy. It is a world where we apparently cannot make any judgements on truth or morality and is a world where children can be taught about sexuality with an adult and we are not to pass judgement since we are told it is only “natural” and that even our very concept of a self-identity can be any arbitrary thing we feel, objects and creatures of fantasy not excluded. We are increasingly living in a world that partakes in a dream state, there is no reality, or at least it is not a reality that we can agree upon. We have arrived at this point due to the very twisting of such teachings that some people proclaim did much good for them personally as an individual and for many others such as the ‘Human Potential Movement’.
However, it becomes clear that the effects of these ideas have ultimately played the main role for the mad world we live in today. Wanting to see the good, “feeling” the good, this is not what is truly “good”.
In order to have a true “good” one must also have access to a “loving wisdom” and unfortunately the manner in which these teachings were taught to the bulk of the counter-culture movement did not partake in wisdom at all, but “feeling states”. It is not enough that we “feel good” or “feel the love in a room”, for we should know that a room could just as easily be filled with “fear” and “terror”, with “mayhem” or “burning hatred”. To be governed by feeling states is to be the furthest from control of what happens to yourself and to others around you, you are simply a receiver, a vessel waiting for whatever will be poured into you. This was the seduction of the counter-culture movement. And like I said they were convoluting very old good wise teachings of the spiritual and corrupting them into a sensorium of pleasures.
That is no Utopia.
For those who have asked me “What should replace this?” or have assumed that I am thus promoting a return to the rigid materialism of the 19th century practices of science and psychology (or the 20th century more modern practice of prescription drug), I want it to be understood that I am doing no such thing.
I do not discount the value and the necessity for a psychologist to approach the “patient” as a human being and with humility, patience and understanding. I am also not discounting the need for a responsible psychologist to appreciate the existence of a transcendental soul in all people as modern psychologists have been trained to do.
However, it is always the overall intention of the therapy that needs to be examined, and every practitioner has ultimately their own interpretations as they fine tune their practice. If the intention for instance is for “self-liberation” this of course needs to be defined, how is the practitioner understanding this, and how is the patient understanding this. You can appreciate that what is based off of this understanding of “self-liberation” will in turn dictate the direction, and the outcome of the therapy will greatly differ according to one’s understanding of what it is to be “self-liberated.” That is the whole point and where much of the confusion stems from. With a well-intentioned person this can be a perfectly fine thing, however, it can also be an incredibly destructive, deconstructing ultimately fragmenting, dissociative process. You can have good analysts, therapists, however, there is a problem when such a thing as “self-liberation” has not been defined in a healthy way, but rather has been left too much to how one decides to “interpret” or understand such a thing. In the case of Jung, which I have done more work on thus far than Freud, it is clear that he did not have a healthy definition of this. You can refer here for why I have come to this conclusion.
Talking to people in general is a very good thing. And psychology is a field that went from being very primitive in many ways, as a “science” used on “patients” to becoming very sophisticated but with a great deal of dangerous methods hence the great machine of mass perception that we all live under today.
However, it is not a bad thing to have discussions which is intended to heal and you do not have to be a “professional practitioner” to know this or to be good at this. What Jung brought forward was not just a method but an entire philosophy, arguably a religion, as to how one was to view their psyche in connection with another world and there was a great deal of liberty in painting that other world, to the point that Jung even changed his mind several times on how it should be painted. This, I find is again extremely concerning and has been ultimately fragmenting as an overall effect in how society thinks about “the self” in general.
Again my series on “The Shaping of a World Religion” is meant to showcase what was an intentional corruption of the “good” teachings and an intentional goal for where we find ourselves today. As for the answer to what is a proper approach to mind and spirituality, in short I would say it is to learn the method of Plato in forming the hypothesis of the higher hypothesis and that reason or “loving wisdom” should always be a participant in any process of mind and understanding that we endeavour. We cannot say it is enough to “feel” or “believe” in something without having any way of judging its merits, otherwise we leave ourselves as sitting ducks for who will be pulling our strings.
If anyone is interesting in pursuing this exploration further, the Rising Tide Foundation will be starting the first reading session of Plato’s Sophist this Wednesday at 8 pm ET, which very fittingly to our discussion addresses how one discerns from someone who is promoting falsehoods from someone who is promoting truths.
Those who would like to participate in the live session can access the zoom link below as paid subscribers, otherwise it will be available for free on the Rising Tide Foundation youtube channel at a later date. To access the zoom link invite to the Plato reading go to the end of this essay on Cynthia’s substack Through A Glass Darkly:
