Selected "Astronomy pictures of the day" (index): here, here, here, here, here, and here. Plus this big one of Mars.
there was some program on jung yesterday on pbs. some of his acolytes were saying that the prevailing myth of our time is science and technology having usurped religion in our belief system and that searching for extraterrestrials is somewhat akin to a search for the holy grail. whats your understanding of jung with regards to this. what does the archetype of the alien represent in our collective psyche?
That deserves a well thought out answer. But instead of that, I'll just say a few things off the top of my head. It is a very interesting topic. A lot of Terence M.'s thoughts on aliens came straight out of Jung (or so it seems to me.) "Flying Saucers - A modern myth of things seen in the skies" (isbn 0-691-01822-7) is a short, very accessible book by Jung on the topic. Here is a statement by Jung made to the United Press International where he tries to clear up some misconceptions about his Ufo beliefs: "As a result of an article published in the APRO bulletin, the report has been spread by the press that in my opinion the Ufos are physically real. This report is altogether false. In a recently published book (Ein Moderner Mythus, Zurich 1958), I expressly state that I cannot commit myself on the question to the physical reality or unreality of the Ufos since I do not possess sufficient evidence either for or against. I therefore concern myself solely with the psychological aspect of the phenomenon, about which a great deal of material is available. I have formulated the position I take on the question of the reality of Ufos in the following sentence: 'Something is seen, but it isn't known what.' This formulation leaves the question of 'seeing' open. Something material could be seen, or something psychic could be seen. Both are realities, but of different kinds." The Ufos, for Jung, are manifestations of the other. The unspeakable, unnameable, other. We see "something", but since this something is precisely the thing we can't see (or name, or speak of) we imagine it to be a Ufo. The Ufo is like a placeholder in our thoughts for something we can't get our heads around. And not just "something," but the thing. That it manifests as a Ufo is in keeping with our technological society. In previous times, we might have seen angels, or the the Virgin Mary. Or in different cultures, maybe gnomes or elves or any of the myriad "little people" (much like the little creatures with big heads and pointy ears who seem to drive the Ufos.) Here's Terence on the same subject:"I'm speaking specifically of the post-World War II spinning silver disc in the sky, and the accompanying myth of the pointed-eared, cat-eyed aliens. This myth has numerous variations, but it's clearly an idea complex emerging in the collective psyche. The question is, what is it? Is it prophecy? Is it a vision of the human future? What is it? The postmodern phase of UFO speculation recognizes that the UFO is no mere light seen in the sky, but that it is somehow mixed up with human psychology. Researcheers have determined that peole who have seen UFOs were in many cases thinking about something very odd and unusual immediately prior to the sighting. The UFO seemed to act as a kind of ideological catalyst for some purpose. Jacques Vallee was the first person to suggest what I would call the "cultural thermostat theory" of UFOs, in a book called The Invisible College. He proposed that the flying saucer is an object from the collective unconscious of the human race that appears in order to break the control of any set of ideas that are gaining dominance in their expanatory power at the expense of ethics. It is a confounding that enters history again and again whenever history builds to a certain kind of boil.
"Colin wilson suggests a similar idea in his novel The Mind Parasites, stating that the career of Christ was an earlier confounding in which roman science and roman militarism were unseated by a peculiar religion that no educated Roman could take seriously. Educated Romans were well versed in Democritean atomism, Epicureanism, and Sophism; yet their servants were telling stories about a rabbi who had risen from the dead and opened a gate that had been closed since creation, permitting the soul of man to be reunited with God. Though these stories made no sense to the Roman authorities, their adherents quickly overwhelmed the empire. Today science has replaced Roman Imperial aspirations as the dominant mythos of control and thought; it offers neat and tidy explanations of the world. Yet the folk persist in telling stories of lights in the sky, strange beings, and bizarre encounters that cannot quite be laid to rest.
"My own personal encounter with a UFO has led me to view them as real, whatever "real" means. They are phenomenologically real...." I think Jung and Terence both believe in Ufos, but they have to go to great lengths to distinguish themselves from people who "believe" in Ufo's in a different sort of way (I mean the people who niavely believe that space men from other star systems have made the physical flight to earth in metal space ships.) What Jung and others believe is perhaps even more radical than the naive belief in Ufos. They aren't from outer space, they're from an alternate space, maybe from inner space. Jung would call this the collective uncounscious.
We could view this all through the lens of a binary split in the way things are. On the one side there is a tendency toward conservation of the known (or of the norm.) On the other side there is a tendency toward overstepping the known. We could call the two tendencies "habit" and "novelty." Habit keeps us all alive and safe, because we keep doing the things (and thinking the things, and seeing the things) that we know. And doing the same things keeps us safe because in these situations we can count on the outcome of events. (Plant these seeds here, and food will grow, ect...) But habits can be good or bad, and the way to get out of a bad habit is to introduce a little novelty into the system. It's dangerous, in the sense that you don't know what the outcome will be, but it is effective in breaking the rut of habit. Sometimes this is called for. If novelty is introduced in a systematic way, then we call it scientific research. But then sometimes it just happens without being called for. That is what I think Jung is pointing to with the Ufos. These are our technological age's manifestations of the general principle of spontaneously breaking set. It's the thing that makes you say "Woh" in a voice of astonded disbelief, and then requires you to step back and reevaluate everything else. And once you are reevaluating, you are already back involved on the conservation side. That's where we usually reside, but these little bursts of novelty keep pushing us forward (assuming they are not too novel, or too frequent, which is to say: assuming they can be integrated into some sort of whole which then can become a new habit rut.) Robert A. Wilson would call these ruts of habit "reality tunnels." We have to live inside some sort of reality tunnel. But that doesn't make any one tunnel "true" (except in the sense that its the tunnel you are in at any given moment.) If you are not in a reality tunnel then people tend to think of you as crazy (and they might be right.) So its good to have a reality tunnel (which is something like a belief set,) and in so far as we can communicate, and be said to share the same culture, we are all in the same reality tunnel. This is good. But the problem occurs when the dominant reality tunnel becomes ethically (or otherwise) unfeasable. How do you break out? I think Jung and others are suggesting that life comes with a built in mechanism with which to snap out of the conditioning put on us by the dominant reality tunnel. This mechanism is always truely weird. Uncanny might be the best english word for it. Change comes through an encounter with the Uncanny. And right now that is the Ufo experience.
I think I may have not really said anything with all that. It is fun to blabber on though. Oh well. Maybe the quotes are of some use. Thanks for the big grapefruit of a question. Maybe Alex might have something more interesting to say on the matter?
you get post of the month award for october
yes, well done and in the final inning.......
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- jim 10-30-2000 2:27 pm
there was some program on jung yesterday on pbs. some of his acolytes were saying that the prevailing myth of our time is science and technology having usurped religion in our belief system and that searching for extraterrestrials is somewhat akin to a search for the holy grail. whats your understanding of jung with regards to this. what does the archetype of the alien represent in our collective psyche?
- dave 10-30-2000 3:47 pm
That deserves a well thought out answer. But instead of that, I'll just say a few things off the top of my head. It is a very interesting topic. A lot of Terence M.'s thoughts on aliens came straight out of Jung (or so it seems to me.) "Flying Saucers - A modern myth of things seen in the skies" (isbn 0-691-01822-7) is a short, very accessible book by Jung on the topic. Here is a statement by Jung made to the United Press International where he tries to clear up some misconceptions about his Ufo beliefs:
The Ufos, for Jung, are manifestations of the other. The unspeakable, unnameable, other. We see "something", but since this something is precisely the thing we can't see (or name, or speak of) we imagine it to be a Ufo. The Ufo is like a placeholder in our thoughts for something we can't get our heads around. And not just "something," but the thing. That it manifests as a Ufo is in keeping with our technological society. In previous times, we might have seen angels, or the the Virgin Mary. Or in different cultures, maybe gnomes or elves or any of the myriad "little people" (much like the little creatures with big heads and pointy ears who seem to drive the Ufos.) Here's Terence on the same subject:I think Jung and Terence both believe in Ufos, but they have to go to great lengths to distinguish themselves from people who "believe" in Ufo's in a different sort of way (I mean the people who niavely believe that space men from other star systems have made the physical flight to earth in metal space ships.) What Jung and others believe is perhaps even more radical than the naive belief in Ufos. They aren't from outer space, they're from an alternate space, maybe from inner space. Jung would call this the collective uncounscious.We could view this all through the lens of a binary split in the way things are. On the one side there is a tendency toward conservation of the known (or of the norm.) On the other side there is a tendency toward overstepping the known. We could call the two tendencies "habit" and "novelty." Habit keeps us all alive and safe, because we keep doing the things (and thinking the things, and seeing the things) that we know. And doing the same things keeps us safe because in these situations we can count on the outcome of events. (Plant these seeds here, and food will grow, ect...) But habits can be good or bad, and the way to get out of a bad habit is to introduce a little novelty into the system. It's dangerous, in the sense that you don't know what the outcome will be, but it is effective in breaking the rut of habit. Sometimes this is called for. If novelty is introduced in a systematic way, then we call it scientific research. But then sometimes it just happens without being called for. That is what I think Jung is pointing to with the Ufos. These are our technological age's manifestations of the general principle of spontaneously breaking set. It's the thing that makes you say "Woh" in a voice of astonded disbelief, and then requires you to step back and reevaluate everything else. And once you are reevaluating, you are already back involved on the conservation side. That's where we usually reside, but these little bursts of novelty keep pushing us forward (assuming they are not too novel, or too frequent, which is to say: assuming they can be integrated into some sort of whole which then can become a new habit rut.) Robert A. Wilson would call these ruts of habit "reality tunnels." We have to live inside some sort of reality tunnel. But that doesn't make any one tunnel "true" (except in the sense that its the tunnel you are in at any given moment.) If you are not in a reality tunnel then people tend to think of you as crazy (and they might be right.) So its good to have a reality tunnel (which is something like a belief set,) and in so far as we can communicate, and be said to share the same culture, we are all in the same reality tunnel. This is good. But the problem occurs when the dominant reality tunnel becomes ethically (or otherwise) unfeasable. How do you break out? I think Jung and others are suggesting that life comes with a built in mechanism with which to snap out of the conditioning put on us by the dominant reality tunnel. This mechanism is always truely weird. Uncanny might be the best english word for it. Change comes through an encounter with the Uncanny. And right now that is the Ufo experience.
I think I may have not really said anything with all that. It is fun to blabber on though. Oh well. Maybe the quotes are of some use. Thanks for the big grapefruit of a question. Maybe Alex might have something more interesting to say on the matter?
- jim 10-30-2000 9:26 pm
you get post of the month award for october
- Skinny 10-31-2000 1:50 am
yes, well done and in the final inning.......
- bill 10-31-2000 7:18 pm