Individuals are the infintesimal units on whom the world depends

The Undiscovered Self was published in 1956 by Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Carl Jung, at the age of 81. It is a book that helps us to understand ourselves as individuals in relation to the society we find ourselves in. It is as relevant today as it was then, especially as the situation has worsened over the years, in step with an increasing decline in the health, creativity and happiness of populations across the world.

The Undiscovered Self is a fascinating book because it examines and compares the relationship between the psychological health of the individual to the psychological health of the collective, described as the mass, masses or mass consciousness. Jung noted that the conflagration that broke out in Germany was the outcome of psychic conditions that are universal. Social conditions that continue to persist to this day.

Carl Jung takes such social and political conditions into account as influential factors that have led modern individuals to be aliented and cut-off from their psychological roots - as we have been cut-off from Nature, the true nature of the Universe and our part in the cosmic play. In the name of scientism, consumerism and religion, we have been denied our brithright to experience life in freedom, safety and abundance through a lifetime of individual experience and self-discovery.

This has created an imbalance that is now being corrected because in times of physical, political, economic and spiritual distress, man's eyes turn with anxious hope to the future. The Undiscovered Self explains why this was (and still is) the case and why it's up to each one of us as individuals to wake up to discover our consciousness so that we can play a part in co-creating the world we most want to see, rather than contributing to its downfall.

The need for truth

It is important to remember that the word apocalypse does not necessarily mean total collapse. It can mean a significant revelation or unveiling of hidden knowledge.

Carl Jung predicted that, as we move from the astrological aion of Pisces to the aion of Aquarius, we would experience an apocalyptism in the modern era. This turned out to be true when we consider the word stems from the Greek word apokálypsis, meaning unveiling or revelation as ever more deeply hidden truths come to light. 

We have moved into the age of Aquarius (67 years later), and we are experiencing tremendous social, technological and cultural change. This is naturally being balanced by an increasing number of individuals inducing deeper transformation and higher frequency through increasing self-awareness both spiritually and philosophically.

It was clear to Carl Jung that there was nothing to stop the spread of apocalyptic ideas except the critical reason of a single, fairly intelligent, mentally stable stratum of the population as the gift of reason and critical self-reflection is not one of man's outstanding peculiarities. Wavering and inconsistent, the mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible with the individual, and this necesarrily leads to doctinaire and authoritarian tyranny.

As education and scientism continue to contort and hide the truth from the masses, imparting only unrealistic, abstract knowledge to the world, we realise that individuals are seen merely as a marginal phenomenon. When the individual is, in fact, the true and authentic carrier of reality - if only we could believe this of ourselves.

The need for community

Carl Jung explains that to be adherent of a creed that gives expression to a definite collective belief does nothing to give the individual any foundation. It means that for support, the individual must come to depend exclusively on a reliance on authority.

Alternatively, community becomes an indispensable aid in the organisation of the masses, the value of which depends on the spiritual and moral stature of the individuals who are composing it. This is realised when unconscious belief comes into collision with (truthful) knowledge and we are awakened to the fact that we have a duty to take responsibility for ourselves. We realise there is no substitute for inner experience and being true to ourselves.

Anyone who has learned to submit absolutely to a collective belief, renounces their eternal right to freedom and the equally eternal duty of individual responsibility. This is where communities that respect the individual's right to exist, can protect us from the danger of being cut-off and cut short by collective prejudice.

The need for individualism

Back in 1956, as now and increasingly so, the psychic situation of the individual continues to be menaced by advertisement, propaganda and other more or less well-meant advice. The purpose is to make individuals morally and spiritually inferior in the mass. It reduces individuals to a condition of diminished responsibility instead of raising them out of the torpid, mindless mass and making clear to him/herself that he/she is the one most important factor.

It is true that nothing has a more divisive and alientating effect on humanity than moral complacency and lack of responsibility. Carl Jung points out that corrective action requires self-criticism to recognise our prejudices and illusions, and that we must compare them with objective truth or fact, as only the fool can permanently neglect the conditions of his own nature.

The deciding factor lies with the individual where a human relationship is not based on differentiation and perfection, rather on imperfection where the free society bonds effecively in the spirit of love thy neighbour - remembering the truism that where love stops, power begins ... and violence and terror.

Carl Jung recognised that self-awareness and acceptance set us free as individuals and that the modern man can know himself only in so far as he can become conscious of himself.

The need for self-awareness

Carl Jung describes the individual as a microcosm - a reflection of the great cosmos in miniature. 

However, as individuals, we have been wilfully separated from our instinctual nature which has plunged us into conflict where we cling onto outward objects and make them exclusively responsible. Carl Jung identified that the more power man had over Nature, the more his knowledge and skill went to his head, and the deeper became his contempt for the merely natural and accidental.

We know better now, the truth has been revealed. We know we are as important as individuals as we are a part of the mass. We know that we have the power to influence the mass which is why we each need to heighten our awareness and raise our consciousness to a higher frequency where peace prevails.

In the end, Carl Jung says that happiness and contentment, equitably of soul and meaningulness of life, can be experienced only by the individual and not by the state which continually threatens to paralyse and suppress the individual.

Take comfort in the fact that you are the infintesimal unit on whom the world depends, and in whom even God seeks his goal.

Sue Cartwright

Spiral Leaf

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The Undiscovered Self - by Carl Jung

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