15-03-2016, 05:27 PM
Having said all of the above, I think I need to add that while Levenda's approach - delving into the Mauve zone and drudging up the Old Great Ones - and my approach - the Shadow confrontation are dissimilar in technique, they are also remarkably similar too. At the end of his Dark Lord he speaks of the motives behind his approach. In the Introduction to The Hitler Legacy he repeats this as follows:
With a few changes in words I could almost have written that paragraph myself.
However, the differences in approach are significant, even if the motives are very similar. Is it, therefore, simply a difference in the psychological temperament of two seekers? Maybe. Perhaps. Possibly.
Both are involved in understanding and knowing ourselves by immersion in the shadow world.
However, my view remains that for a proper understanding of the occult, one needs to read and understand Jung. And if you can find (and afford) a decent Analyst who still follows Jung's teachings (many, many do not) and is old school in their approach, then undergoing analysis with them is recommended. The very least accomplishment that is to be hoped for from analysis is a safe transition through the Shadow confrontation. In saying this I am speaking of a person who is already fairly psychologically balanced and who is on the individuation trail - rather someone who is seeking or needs analysis due to a neurosis or psychosis or other disharmony.
Jung's contributions to a deep understanding all religious flavours, the occult, alchemy, esotericism, Hermeticism, Taoism, spiritualism and numerous others is profound. There is no need for hooded gowns, incense, Atlantean calls, rods of power and all the other paraphernalia that accompany the occult wherever it goes. That is all theatre. And I dare say some feel a need for such props to proceed. But for me there are unnecessary and and a detraction.
Once during my time practicing and teaching Chinese martial arts, I attended a lesson in my Tai Chi masters house in London. His Pa-kua, Hsing-i and Yiquan master, Grand Master Han Xingyuan, was staying with him for three months. It was late afternoon and I was just about to go upstairs to the room used for changing, after the training session, as master Han was coming down the stairs. We stopped and looked at each other and began grinning. He was dressed in western pyjamas, an old flannel dressing gown and had a cigarette, curling smoke in his eyes, hanging from his mouth. I, on the other hand, was dressed in a loose, black Chinese trousers, Tai Chi slippers, and a dark blue Chinese cotton jacket bearing a symbol of the Pakua (upside down as he went on to point out). Our roles were reversed. I was the wannabe master of Chinese martial arts, he was a triple Chinese martial arts grand master presenting as a westerner.
That chance stairway meeting has never been lost on me: although theatre and props can aid, they are fundamentally unimportant.
I would also add that the Qabalah (using the bright side of the Tree of Life) is a road map of the Collective Unconscious and used in this way is an incredibly useful tool. However, proper instruction is required and for the most part, that instruction historically had never been publicly discussed (for all sorts of reasons) - although this changed with the publication of a tradition-breaching book by Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki in 1983, titled The Shining Paths. Even if you were to spend a lifetime in studying the occult in all it's intellectual avenues, it will largely amount to a futile effort unless you knew how to use it imaginatively in structured meditation as detailed in Dolores book. And the only valid reason for undertaking such journeys is to "Know Thyself". (1) Hence the words chiselled in the lintels above the entrance door Greek mystery temples for all to see: "Gnothi Seauton" - words also beloved by the alchemists.
(1) The Self is not to be confused with the ego - for a decent explanation see HERE
Quote:We have to stop being drunks. We have to stop looking for our keys under the street lamp because the light there is better. We have to look where we lost our keys in the first place: in the darkness and the shadows. It's harder, sure, but we have a much greater chance of success even though what we blindly touch and feel in the stygian night might make us squirm in revulsion. Regardless, our keys are there
With a few changes in words I could almost have written that paragraph myself.
However, the differences in approach are significant, even if the motives are very similar. Is it, therefore, simply a difference in the psychological temperament of two seekers? Maybe. Perhaps. Possibly.
Both are involved in understanding and knowing ourselves by immersion in the shadow world.
However, my view remains that for a proper understanding of the occult, one needs to read and understand Jung. And if you can find (and afford) a decent Analyst who still follows Jung's teachings (many, many do not) and is old school in their approach, then undergoing analysis with them is recommended. The very least accomplishment that is to be hoped for from analysis is a safe transition through the Shadow confrontation. In saying this I am speaking of a person who is already fairly psychologically balanced and who is on the individuation trail - rather someone who is seeking or needs analysis due to a neurosis or psychosis or other disharmony.
Jung's contributions to a deep understanding all religious flavours, the occult, alchemy, esotericism, Hermeticism, Taoism, spiritualism and numerous others is profound. There is no need for hooded gowns, incense, Atlantean calls, rods of power and all the other paraphernalia that accompany the occult wherever it goes. That is all theatre. And I dare say some feel a need for such props to proceed. But for me there are unnecessary and and a detraction.
Once during my time practicing and teaching Chinese martial arts, I attended a lesson in my Tai Chi masters house in London. His Pa-kua, Hsing-i and Yiquan master, Grand Master Han Xingyuan, was staying with him for three months. It was late afternoon and I was just about to go upstairs to the room used for changing, after the training session, as master Han was coming down the stairs. We stopped and looked at each other and began grinning. He was dressed in western pyjamas, an old flannel dressing gown and had a cigarette, curling smoke in his eyes, hanging from his mouth. I, on the other hand, was dressed in a loose, black Chinese trousers, Tai Chi slippers, and a dark blue Chinese cotton jacket bearing a symbol of the Pakua (upside down as he went on to point out). Our roles were reversed. I was the wannabe master of Chinese martial arts, he was a triple Chinese martial arts grand master presenting as a westerner.
That chance stairway meeting has never been lost on me: although theatre and props can aid, they are fundamentally unimportant.
I would also add that the Qabalah (using the bright side of the Tree of Life) is a road map of the Collective Unconscious and used in this way is an incredibly useful tool. However, proper instruction is required and for the most part, that instruction historically had never been publicly discussed (for all sorts of reasons) - although this changed with the publication of a tradition-breaching book by Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki in 1983, titled The Shining Paths. Even if you were to spend a lifetime in studying the occult in all it's intellectual avenues, it will largely amount to a futile effort unless you knew how to use it imaginatively in structured meditation as detailed in Dolores book. And the only valid reason for undertaking such journeys is to "Know Thyself". (1) Hence the words chiselled in the lintels above the entrance door Greek mystery temples for all to see: "Gnothi Seauton" - words also beloved by the alchemists.
(1) The Self is not to be confused with the ego - for a decent explanation see HERE
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14