Escapism in Extraverted World (Materialism, Theosophy, Astral and lot more).

One could find following excerpts from Dr. Carl Jung fascinating. He begins by explaining the dangers of suppressed feeling in extraverted thinking. He also notes that without extraverted feeling harmonious social life as we know it wouldn't be possible. It is precisely the feelings of extraverted people that contribute to society when it comes into common morals, beliefs and so on.

Here is presented Dr. Jung's thoughts about materialism and spiritualism, and how they are based on extraverted type of thinking, gone into extreme. Today one can observe the very same phenomenas, perhaps disguised in new clothes, but indeed transparent - just as the emperor of the story. Indeed, history kinda repeats itself as long as people's psychology remains the same; and it appears to be rigid to change.

Here are docs own words, I hope you'll enjoy:

“There are guardians of public morals who suddenly find themselves in compromising situations, or rescue workers who are themselves in dire need of rescue. Their desire to save others lead them to employ means which are calculated to bring about the very thing they wished to avoid. There are extraverted idealists so consumed by their desire for the salvation of mankind that they will not shrink from any lie or trickery in pursuit of their ideal. In science there are not a few painful examples of highly respected investigators who are so convinced of the truth and general validity of their formula that they have not scrupled to falsify evidence in its favour. Their sanction is: The end justifies the means. Only an inferior feeling function, operating unconsciously and in secret, could seduce otherwise reputable men into such aberrations.

The inferiority of feeling in this type also manifests itself in other ways. In keeping with the objective formula, the conscious attitude becomes more or less impersonal, often to such a degree that personal interests suffer. If the attitude is extreme, all personal considerations are lost sight of, even those affecting the subject’s own person. His health is neglected, his social position deteriorates, the most vital interests of his family – health, finances, morals – are violated for the sake of the ideal. Personal sympathy with others must in any case suffer unless they too happen to espouse the same ideal. Often the closest members of his family, his own children, know such a father only as a cruel tyrant, while the outside world resounds with the fame of his humanity.

[...]

The destructive quality of this thinking, as well as its limited usefulness on occasion, does not need stressing. But there is still another form of negative thinking, which at first glance might not be recognized as such, and that is theosophical thinking, which today is rapidly spreading in all parts of the world, presumably in reaction to the materialism of the recent past. Theosophical thinking has an air that is not in the least reductive, since it exalts everything to a transcendental and world-embracing idea. A dream, for instance, is no longer just a dream, but an experience “on another plane.” The hitherto inexplicable fact of telepathy is very simply explained as “vibrations” passing from one person to another. And ordinary nervous complaint is explained by the fact that something has collided with the “astral body”. Certain ethnological peculiarities of the dwellers on the Atlantic seaboard are easily accounted for by the submergence of Atlantis, and so on. We have only to open a theosophical book to be overwhelmed by the realization that everything is already explained, and that “spiritual science” has left no enigmas unsolved. But, at bottom, this kind of thinking is just as negative as materialistic thinking. When the latter regards the psychology as chemical changes in the ganglia or as the extrusion and retraction of cell-pseudopodia or as an internal secretion, this is just much a superstition as theosophy. The only difference is that materialism reduces everything to physiology, whereas theosophy reduces everything to Indian metaphysics. When a dream is traced back to an overloaded stomach, this is no explanation of the dream, and when we explain telepathy as vibrations we have said just as little. For what are “vibrations”? Not only are both methods of explanation futile, they are actually destructive, because by diverting interest away from the main issue, in one case to the stomach and in the other to imaginary vibrations, they hamper any serious investigation of the problem by a bogus explanations. Either kind of thinking is sterile and sterilizing.”

(CW 6: Psychological types. Pages 349-354. Emphasis by v01i0.)

And I begin to wonder whether anyone here on ATS can recognize themselves from above descriptions; I do, sometimes.

-v

[edit on 9-6-2010 by v01i0]

s+f

This is where dialectics becomes important.

Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis



Dr. Jung is well worth the read indeed.


ETA:
The world is way too materialistic in contemporary science and psychology. And there is an opposite to that, that alot of people who feel (sub)consciously) disenfranchised with the way things are can get swept up in. We're still seeking that synthesis.

Science without philosophy is a dangerous thing.
Just as, philosophy without application is wasted paper.

[edit on 9/6/10 by ghostsoldier]

reply to post by ghostsoldier


I agree with you. If there's a truth - yet I suspect there is, while we may not be aware what it is - it may be somewhere between black and white, thesis and antithesis. I am happy you found above excerpt worthwhile.

What people generally consider to be good isn't necessarily universally good; good in it's meaning is merely an appropriate action in a prevailing condition. For example, for the stability of society marriage was good; hence it became sacred establishment. But there are very few things - if none - that are good in all conditions.

"There is no good and evil, just shades of f***ing gray."
-Francis McReary



That said, I am not sure whether it is so in the end, but it certainly appears to be that way.

-v

[edit on 9-6-2010 by v01i0]