The inner universe of the mind is, like the physical world, a living organism that functions according to natural laws. Deciphering them has been the work of holy fools, for who can presume to understand the sacred inner workings of creation? Yet we do try to understand these autonomous patterns of energy (archetypes) in our individual minds (the psyche) and in the mystery of the One Mind beyond ordinary consciousness (the psychoid) because we feel their profound influence on our lives every day.
Our brains know two languages. Dr. Ian McGilchrist has conducted extensive research into the brain’s hemispheric specialties and discovered that the left hemisphere is obsessed with data and sorting things into objective, provable categories, whereas the right hemisphere is the self-aware, imaginative, subjective part of our brains which understands relationships and context. Separately, each has limits, but an individual who respects both can make brilliant inroads into these mysteries. Albert Einstein was one such person. He said, “Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell were others. Jung scientifically compared his inner life and that of his clients with the objective data from the outer world, including the myths and metaphoric symbols of various wisdom traditions which showed up in their dreams and addressed the inner world of the soul. Campbell developed some of Jung’s themes. Their work shed much-needed light into the darkness of our contemporary collective unconscious. Following are some natural laws they midwifed into our awareness.
1. The Law of Correspondence: The outer universe is a reflection of the inner universe. This intuition gave rise to the ancient adages, “As above, so below,” and “As without, so within.” Humanity has expressed this in diverse symbol systems such as mythology, religion, tarot, alchemy, astrology and magic.
2. The Law of Synchronicity: Meaningful coincidences between our inner and outer universes occur more frequently with self-reflective practices like dreamwork and active imagination. Synchronicities are not products of “cause and effect,” but of an imaginative, heartfelt search for personal meaning which eventually produces what Jungian Monika Wikman calls, “a psychology of synchronicity instead of linearity.”
3. The Law of Opposites: For everything we consciously know about ourselves (beliefs, values, attitudes, emotions), there is a corresponding unconscious opposite. In our psychological immaturity we see things dualistically, (in terms of either-or, good-bad), and automatically repress or disown that which our egos consider the less desirable option.
4. The Law of Oneness: Beneath all apparent dualities lies a fundamental connectedness with All That Is. We can tap into this One Mind by integrating pairs of opposites to create partnerships which see, think, and behave holistically.
5. The Law of Entropy: When opposites remain isolated from one another, any disorder within them remains constant or increases.
6. The Law of Change: Energies in both universes are constantly circulating. Change toward stasis and polarization increases disorder and chaos. Change toward communication and integration increases movement toward perfection and completion.
7. The Law of Love: Love is the most powerful healing and unifying force in Life. It has its roots in the heart, i.e. honest, compassionate feeling, not the head, or logic.
8. The Law of Choice: Our ego, the organizing center of our consciousness, can choose to serve or fight these laws, and our personal choices influence ours and the world’s welfare. For example, if we serve the Law of Love, we respect and integrate ours and others’ religions, making space in ourselves and the world for both. If we fight this law we are choosing love’s opposite, fear and hatred.
9. The Law of Three: We can reconcile opposites and transform them into Oneness, or wholeness, by applying the Law of Three. This means to 1) stay fully present to both sides of any conflict, 2) tolerate the tension of exploring and accepting both perspectives, then 3) wait for a Third Force solution that integrates and transcends both extremes. Jung called the process of dialoguing with the unconscious the transcendent function. It creates a bridge to Oneness called the Ego-Self axis.
We can cultivate our imagination or bury it. View ourselves as separate or as connected. Integrate otherness or fight it. Nurture love or hate, trust or fear. How can our beloved country serve these sacred laws at this point in history? How can you and I? This is a subject I will address in upcoming posts.
We live in a time when our ability to be conscious and self-aware enough to use and make choices from both sides of our brains can make all the difference between whether our species survives and evolves or descends into a destructive cycle of world-wide death-dealing chaos. The choice is ours.
Image credits: Ian McGilchrist on the Divided Brain. Aminotes.tumbir.com
Paper and E-book versions of The Bridge to Wholeness and Dream Theatres of the Soul are at Amazon. The Wilbur Award-winning Healing the Sacred Divide can be found at Amazon and Larson Publications.com. Jean’s new Nautilus Award-winning The Soul’s Twins, is at Amazon and Schiffer’s Red Feather Mind, Body, Spirit. Subscribe to her newsletter at www.jeanbenedictraffa.com.
15 Responses
Thanks for this post, Jeanie. You help me take stock of what I’ve learned from many wise teachers including Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, the Dalai Lama, and Pema Chodron. As Solstice nears, I feel the power of the pause when ultimate darkness has been reached and the light is about to return. May this be a sacred moment for the major transitions we need in the world. We certainly seem to have the darkness, but I’m also counting on the Law of Love and Law of Choice..
Blessed Solstice to you and your family and thank you for another year of sharing your wisdom so generously,
Elaine http://elainemansfield.com/
Thank you, Elaine. Vic’s book is one of my teachers too. I love your strong and heartfelt connection with the natural forces of life. They’re evident in every blog post you write and the way you live your life in conscious harmony with nature and her laws. I think your timely and apt mention of “the pause” just inspired Friday’s blog post!! Thank you, my friend!
Wishing you joy and love in this holy season.
Jeanie
Hi Jeane! Let me now dare to write my shy feeling and point out the extensive teaching of your words. Despite my silence, I follow and catch all the benefits of your articles. I am reading a lot of Jung in German these days and try to understand and translate as far as I can to share them. With your help, it has become much easier for me. Thank you.
PS; I have had some dreams with your presence, though I forgot to write them down. I can only say they were terrific.
Hi Alaedin! Thank you for sharing your thoughts despite your shy feeling. I’m thrilled to know that my work is helping you with your work. You are most welcome! I too have been more silent lately. After so many years of writing and sharing my thoughts about Jungian psychology, I’ve been experiencing the call to pay more attention to other areas of my life. I still check in and seek out the offerings of my special long-time internet friends such as you, but I no longer spend as much time on social media as I used to.
I do read your posts when I receive notice of them and have tried several times, without any luck, to post my responses. There seems to be some sort of disconnect between my site and yours. I’ll write a comment but when I try to post it, it asks me to login but there doesn’t seem to be anyplace for me to do that! I need a lot of help with technology and I’ll try to get that fixed. Meanwhile, please know that I’m enjoying your writing very much. Your post about Nietzsche was especially interesting to me. Thank you for providing translations and explantations of some of his passages! They were very helpful.
How neat that you have dreamt of my presence despite the fact that we’ve never met. I wonder what aspect of your unconscious psyche I represent! As you know, according to Jung, other people in our dreams always represent parts of ourselves. There must be something about what I write about, perhaps our mutual search for psychological and spiritual meaning, that resonates with your soul.
Blessings to you, my friend. I’m enjoying seeing how your knowledge and voice are broadening and growing and touching more and more people. It seems you have found your calling as I have found mine! Jeanie
My lovely Jeane, you are talking about technical trouble, and I had to search through my mailbox and further into the web to find your precious comment, which I saw last week but have not had enough time to answer. But later, when I wanted to return to it to respond, I couldn’t find it anywhere! Anyway, thank goodness I saved your site, which helped me find it. It fulfilled my heart and gave me the courage I need to do more. (Honestly, I am always thrilled when seeing your beautiful face in the rows of the likes. I feel I am in heaven.)
Of course, you help me. Your explanations and enlightenment on Jung’s teaching make it much easier to understand, especially when I read him in German! I thought the same as I dreamed of you. My soul is looking more deeply around and maybe more awakened. Your kind and supporting words make me proud and encouraging, dear Jeane, my forever lovely adorable teacher. Stay safe and well. Thank you, and thank you.
It looks like we’re both being plagued by technical problems. Your site still won’t let me respond to your posts. I’ll continue to try to find a way, but if I can’t, please know that I read them and love them. Your recent one about the girl who was killed for showing her hair is heartbreaking. Thank you for making the western world know about these atrocities! I am so sorry things like this are still happening in your beloved homeland. You are doing a wonderful service by alerting the world to them. May your work make a healing difference. Stay safe and be well. Jeanie
I am so thankful for your wise and kind words to me. It encourages me a lot, and your pure and valuable humbleness reminds me of Dr Jung’s humility. I bow to you both.
And now, about our technical problems: I wonder why you can’t comment on my post, but the others can!! It is really strange; anyhow, I did what you told me to do in your kind Email. I hope it works, and I will have the privilege to read your wisdom. 🤗💖🙏
Beautiful and clear summation of complex ideas!
Thank you, Jody! I really appreciate hearing from you. 🙂
Always so simply, beautifully and clearly expressed thank you Jeanie. I think was thinking about teachers earlier and I can say 200% that I regard you as one. Carl Jung, James Hollis, Marian Woodman, Alan Watts (am reading his The Wisdom of Insecurity – rather brilliant) and others Iain McGilchrist I’ve listened to on you tube.
I’m hoping not to be so awol as I’ve been in last long while. We’re off to Cape Town tomorrow to see a vascular specialist on Friday and I’m hoping that an angioplasty will be done on my right leg which will allow blood flow down to lower leg and my toes – very restricted blood flow over last 3 1/2 months. Pain in my toes is my night time companion and my leg gets sore during the day when I walk. It’s been an interesting time for me to be so restricted – I yearn to return to good health once again. Love to you and I hope you’re all well. Susan
Dear Susan,
I’m so sorry for your recent physical problems and restrictions. I totally understand how it unsettles your world. Illness has a way of doing that.
My mother had the same surgery in her 80’s for her right leg. It was a piece of cake and she lived to 93. She died peacefully of no particular malady. Her heart just gave out, she was ready to go, and she died peacefully while I sang her favorite hymns to her. We should all have that kind of transition to whatever awaits us!
Thank you for your kind words. I’m so honored that you include me among your teachers! I haven’t read Alan Watts…I think I might need to!
I am well. Just growing in a new and challenging but very interesting way.
And the insecurities and adventures keep coming! I’m beginning to expect and welcome them. I’ve just finished reading a book about one of my teachers, Henri Nouwen. It’s called Flying, Falling, Catching, and deals with some of the issues of transitions and aging we’re experiencing. I loved it.
Blessings on your ongoing journey.
Love, Jeanie
Thank you for your lovely reply Jeanie – I take your words of encouragement to heart. Your book ‘Flying, Falling, Catching’ by Henry Nouwens sounds wonderful. Thank you for mentioning it. I know of Nouwens … Love, Susan
I love journeying with you dear Jeanie and enjoy reading your older posts. Me, I’ve always wondered if our brains speak more than two languages, especially in what I call the, “Middle Earth” terrain where left and right hemispheres overlap. Why? Because I intuit that it’s a little too neat and orderly for me to accept that one hemisphere does this, while the other does that.
For even when Jung explores the realms of the archetypal Persona and Shadow in essays and books, I’m there reading between the lines, as poets and dreamers do, thinking of those oases within. Those places “between land and sea” where I live most of the time. In two worlds, not one. With one foot in each world and another in each word, everywhere all at once.
Interestingly, as an aside, I’ve dreamt in other languages too, sometimes French, occasional Russian and German too. I have no conscious knowledge of those languages yet in those dreams I could speak the language and understand others. Another strange dream as a child also revealed an ability to speak umm Galactic! Apparently a language spoken without any words.
Oh, I love the mystery and beauty of the poetic landscapes of our soul! Thank you so much for encouraging and inspiring us to journey above and below, within and without. Love and light, Deborah.
Thanks, Deborah. I love journeying with you too. And I especially love your term for the Third Way: Middle Earth. I can’t believe I forgot to include it here. Thank you for reminding me. I will add it to this post asap and discuss it further in a later post. As you know, the Law of Three is the theme of The Soul’s Twins. For me, it’s symbolized by the mandorla, the space in between two overlapping circles, which I think of as the One Mind. In the opening image it’s represented by the bridges and little people hopping between the two brain hemispheres.
How fascinating that you dream in other languages! And Galactic? Very cool. Apparently, being fascinated by and knowing different ways to use language has always been a passion and a specialty of your soul. I’ve occasionally dreamed that I was communicating with someone without words, but never thought to name it. I guess I assumed it was akin to ESP.
Thank you for your enriching observations and associations. They add so much to my explorations into the mystery of the life of the psyche. Love, Jeanie