Imputation of 'Cognitive Dissonance' By Those Who Cannot Grasp Multi-Dimensional Strands of Thought

Symbols of Transformation pg. 211

At a time when a large part of mankind is beginning to discard Christianity, it may be worth our while to try to understand why it was accepted in the first place. It was accepted as a means of escape from the brutality and unconsciousness of the ancient world. As soon as we discard it, the old brutality returns in force, as has been made overwhelmingly clear by contemporary events. This is not a step forwards, but a long step backwards into the past. It is the same with individuals who lay aside one form of adaptation and have no new form to turn to: they infallibly regress along the old path and then find themselves at a great disadvantage, because the world around them has changed considerably in the meantime. Consequently, any one who is repelled by the philosophical weakness of Christian dogmatism or by the barren idea of a merely historical Jesus— for we know far too little about his contradictory personality and the little we do know only confuses our judgment—and who throws Christianity overboard and with it the whole basis of morality, is bound to be confronted with the age-old problem of brutality. We have had bitter experience of what happens when a whole nation finds the moral mask too stupid to keep up. The beast breaks loose, and a frenzy of demoralization sweeps over the civilized world. 37 [342] Today there are countless neurotics who are neurotic simply because they do not know why they cannot be happy in their own way—they do not even know that the fault lies with them. Besides these neurotics there are many more normal people, men and women of the better kind, who feel restricted and discontented because they have no symbol which would act as an outlet for their libido. For all these people a reductive analysis down to the primal facts should be undertaken, so that they can become acquainted with their primitive personality and learn how to take due account of it. Only in this way can certain requirements be fulfilled and others rejected as unreasonable because of their infantile character. We like to imagine that our primitive traits have long since disappeared without trace. In this we are cruelly disappointed, for never before has our civilization been so swamped with evil. This gruesome spectacle helps us to understand what Christianity was up against and what it endeavoured to transform. The transforming process took place for the most part unconsciously, at any rate in the later centuries. When I remarked earlier (par. 106) that an unconscious transformation of libido was ethically worthless, and contrasted it with the Christianity of the early Roman period, as a patent example of the immorality and brutalization against which Christians had to fight, I ought to have added that mere faith cannot be counted as an ethical ideal either, because it too is an unconscious transformation of libido. Faith is a charisma for those who possess it, but it is no way for those who need to understand before they can believe. This is a matter of temperament and cannot be discounted as valueless. For, ultimately, even the believer believes that God gave man reason, and for something better than to lie and cheat with. Although we naturally believe in symbols in the first place, we can also understand them, and this is indeed the only viable way for those who have not been granted the charisma of faith. [343] The religious myth is one of man’s greatest and most significant achievements, giving him the security and inner strength not to be crushed by the monstrousness of the universe. Considered from the standpoint of realism, the symbol is not of course an external truth, but it is psychologically true, for it was and is the bridge to all that is best in humanity. 38 [344] Psychological truth by no means excludes metaphysical truth, though psychology, as a science, has to hold aloof from all metaphysical assertions. Its subject is the psyche and its contents. Both are realities, because they work. Though we do not possess a physics of the soul, and are not even able to observe it and judge it from some Archimedean point “outside” ourselves, and can therefore know nothing objective about it since all knowledge of the psyche is itself psychic, in spite of all this the soul is the only experient of life and existence. It is, in fact, the only immediate experience we can have and the sine qua non of the subjective reality of the world. The symbols it creates are always grounded in the unconscious archetype, but their manifest forms are moulded by the ideas acquired by the conscious mind. The archetypes are the numinous, structural elements of the psyche and possess a certain autonomy and specific energy which enables them to attract, out of the conscious mind, those contents which are best suited to themselves. The symbols act as transformers, their function being to convert libido from a “lower” into a “higher” form. This function is so important that feeling accords it the highest values. The symbol works by suggestion; that is to say, it carries conviction and at the same time expresses the content of that conviction. It is able to do this because of the numen, the specific energy stored up in the archetype. Experience of the archetype is not only impressive, it seizes and possesses the whole personality, and is naturally productive of faith. [345] “Legitimate” faith must always rest on experience. There is, however, another kind of faith which rests exclusively on the authority of tradition. This kind of faith could also be called “legitimate,” since the power of tradition embodies an experience whose importance for the continuity of culture is beyond question. But with this kind of faith there is always the danger of mere habit supervening—it may so easily degenerate into spiritual inertia and a thoughtless compliance which, if persisted in, threatens stagnation and cultural regression. This mechanical dependence goes hand in hand with a psychic regression to infantilism. The traditional contents gradually lose their real meaning and are only believed in as formalities, without this belief having any influence on the conduct of life. There is no longer a living power behind it. The much-vaunted “childlikeness” of faith only makes sense when the feeling behind the experience is still alive. If it gets lost, faith is only another word for habitual, infantile dependence, which takes the place of, and actually prevents, the struggle for deeper understanding. This seems to be the position we have reached today. [346] Since faith revolves round those central and perennially important “dominant ideas” which alone give life a meaning, the prime task of the psychotherapist must be to understand the symbols anew, and thus to understand the unconscious, compensatory striving of his patient for an attitude that reflects the totality of the psyche.

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This profound insight is one of numerous considerable elements which plays a part in a rational mind that does not think in the same way as post moderns, and it is for this reason that such a one is capable of rendering the 'wisdom' of moderns of as little substance as matchsticks compared to giant redwoods.  It is for this reason that one must invariably and without question be privy to and ready for the innumerable mannerisms in which language conveys meaning beyond what is merely meant when it is spoken, and it is for this reason that one who lives and breathes in the world of symbols is capable of seeing the path through the mud and disingenuous minefields of intemperance and undisciplined linguistics in order to arrive at the green pastures of verdant and sound wisdom.

When such a one is faced with a world that is not capable of recognizing this and is invariably singled out for not partaking in the same caucaphony of ritualistic fervor, the prudence of such a one leads one into the desert until the time one is lead to discover has arisen where one is to be shown forth with those who welcome such considerations in psychic differentiation as being welcome.