Doctor, psychiatrist and psychologist. Jung was known for his collaboration with Freud and for founding the school of deep analytical psychology. Named so to avoid comparisons with his mentor’s Freudian psychoanalysis.

Despite all the contributions that Carl made to psychology, symbols and how they influence Western culture, he is still a person harshly criticized for his peculiar interest in the occult, mythology, religion and alchemy.

If Jung’s works were read without knowing his peculiar tastes, it would be thought that he belongs to a type of sect or cult. Or that it was part of the belief system known as New-age. Besides this, it should be mentioned that Jung was Swiss. So the translations of your works may have changed during translation. Not to mention that there are words in the Swiss vocabulary that are not found in ours.

This represented a weakness suffered by almost all authors of Jung’s time, including Freud.

It is important to remember that Carl Jung was a very curious man who was always in search of explanations. To understand the origin of their thoughts and to be able to understand their works, training is needed in subjects such as Latin, Greek, French, German, numerology, astrology, symbolism, mythology, Gnosticism, Kabbalah and alchemy.

All major sources of influence on Jung’s thoughts. Sadly, it is now impossible to ask Jung the reason for his ideas, but the good news is that we can turn to interpretations of his works.

Difficult task, right? Considering how complicated they are to read. For example, The Red Book, or Aion.

Still, we have not found evidence to point to Jung’s intentions as an attempt to compromise science with mysticism. Jung wrote for himself on subjects that were of interest to him and for others too. Hoping that with this, someone else could continue with his work.

What can lead us to this conclusion is Jung’s near death experience in ‘1944. An experience in which he claims to have had very strange visions that are difficult to explain to others.

Is it possible that Jung’s theories have been misinterpreted so far?

We can find the answer to this question by focusing on some of the criticisms that have been made of Jung’s work and his ideas. In addition to the aspects of his theories that have also been used today. Example, introvert and extrovert.

 

  • Jung and the zodiac signs.
    One of the criticisms attributed to Jung is that he was a faithful believer in the power of the constellations or signs of the zodiac (although there is no documentation to ensure this).
  • Jung considered the characters that our minds create by looking at a random pattern of stars to be of great interest. And he said that these characters were archetypes that man projected to the world around him. In fact, the Rorschach test that was designed by Hermann Rorschach himself works that way.
  • Collective unconscious and Jung.
    The collective unconscious refers only to responses inherited and based on what our ancestors learned and that are shared by a large number of people in different cultures.
  • Search for balance and Jung.
    Influenced by Eastern philosophy during his travels, Carl considered that the human psyche reaches a balance at some point. And that this homeostasis would lead man towards self-actualization. As some “humanists” have said.
  • Carl said and claimed that no person was completely introverted or extroverted. Rather, we have parts of both and that it is important to know how to use them together. The shadow, one of Jung’s archetypes, works in the same way and the more we resist accepting this primitive and dark side, the stronger it will manifest when we cannot contain it due to the same tendency of the organism towards balance.
  • Archetypes and Jung.
    According to Jung, archetypes are primordial images and symbols shared by people of all places and times that express primitive behavior patterns existing within the collective unconscious.

Jung was undoubtedly an extremely curious person. And in the fields to which I spend the most time we find mythology. This is where Jung observed that many elements such as images and symbols were repeated. Even though the cultures were far apart. Or for long periods of time.

This gave Jung a hint that images are embedded in the human psyche and that in some way they influence cultures. I think many of us can come to consider that Carl Jung has been misinterpreted as a person. He was a very curious individual who could entertain an idea without accepting it as absolute truth.

  • Personality types and Jung.
    Jung said that people could be characterized by their preferences due to a general type of attitude. Introverted extrovert. Sensory-Intuitive, Thoughtful-Emotional, Judgment-Perception.
  • According to Jung, we all have to prefer an area that is considered the dominant function and to ignore another that is called the weak function. The dominant function is the one that governs the way people are and the way they solve their problems.

Reading Jung’s work is, I consider, a complex task due to the language he uses. The terminology used, the necessary technical knowledge and the language barrier we face due to translations.

Jung is considered by many of us to be an incredibly flexible person in his thinking, who considered all the possibilities that might exist and someone who sought answers where he could.

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