Good read, thanks C. Mikkal Smith Here is a recent systematic, if strongly biased critique of the work of James Hillman by a classic Jungian scholar, David Tacey. I dont take sides myself, as I really see Hillman and Jung as complimentary in some sense, and doing quite different things. I do feel both Jung and Hillman did important bridge work in the revival of shamanism in the modern Western context. This review, while one-sided, does highlight the major differences between the two pioneers.for some of my own views, seem my discussion in the thread below. The critique is posted in this box immediately below, not the video. Enjoy. Mikkal M-L von Franz regards identification with the puer aeternus (eternal youth) as a neurosis belonging to the narcissistic spectrum (The Problem of the Puer Aeternus). James Hillman, however, elevated it as an ideal, bringing him into a collision course with von Franz. David Tacey has in two articles in JAP formulated a praiseworthy critique of Hillman (Journal of Analytical Psychology, Vol. 59, Issue 4, 2014). It was about time! Hillman is an extremely controversial author and very destructive to boot. After all, he has repudiated all the central tenets of Jungian psychology. Individuation is depreciated as a way of building ego, not soul. The Self and the drive towards wholeness is regarded an authoritarian and monotheistic ideal that devalues the multiplicity of souls. The archetype is reinterpreted as a mere image painted by consciousness, and it has therefore lost its metaphysical foundation in the unconscious. In his later work he also contests the Jungian method of introversion and regards the introverted standpoint as life-denying. He even turns against the discipline of psychotherapy itself. Yet, it is counter-productive to repudiate the notion of the Self, because it is necessary to retain a sense of wholeness in face of the multifarious unconscious and of life overall. It is this very factor that allows us to hold the reins, thus enabling us to meet the multiplicity of souls in a constructive way. The Self does not exclude multiplicity but allows us to relate to it. Tacey shows that Hillman, according to all evidence, got stuck in a neurosis deriving from childhood, predicated on the well-known pattern of absent father, domineering mother. The puer neurosis had as consequence that Hillman threw out all things fatherly and orderly, including scientific rigour. He could not derive any sense of beauty from the scientific terms. Instead Hillman advocated the amoral and aesthetic attitude of the puer aeternus. Tacey says: Hillman advocated what Jung warned against: an enthrallment to anima and a fascination with the unconscious at the expense of conscious development. Letting anima rule meant abandoning the goals of development, social adaptation, normative morality and allowing a Dionysian ecstasy to dictate the terms of life--and of clinical practice. This Dionysian libido is what got Hillman into trouble (JAP 59:4, part 1). Intellectual interpretation and understanding wasnt to his taste, because this is the way of gray-faced king of Saturn figure, old hardnose, hardass, hardhat [who] wants statistics, examples, studies, not images, visions, stories (Hillman, The Souls Code, p.283). Tacey says: Hillman wanted us to observe and enjoy images as aesthetic productions, and not to integrate their meaning. Jung argued that the point of psychological life was to understand the productions of the unconscious, and not to admire them. Jung thought that understanding the images built consciousness and soul, whereas Hillman thought it only built ego and control (Tacey, ibid.) Yet, Hillmans creed of fantasy and aestheticism is not generally endorsed by the unconscious psyche. I provide my own example. In the early twenties my unconscious instructed me to interpret my dreams. For instance, I was encouraged to solve rebuses. So, in the dream I found myself translating images to words. In another dream I was listening to Bob Dylan. A voice told me that you mustnt only listen to the music--you must take heed of the words! Thus, the dreams encouraged me to overcome my aesthetic attitude, characteristic of a daydreamer. While I was enchanted by the Sirens song, the unconscious directed me to the dull intellectual analysis of gray-faced old hardass, hardhat. Hillman, however, was rarely, if ever, concerned with such clinical matters, and there are no case studies in any of his works. Tacey says: In the wave of interest generated by The Red Book, advocates have forgotten that Jung denounced this work as belonging to his aestheticising phase: I gave up this aestheticising tendency in good time, in favour of a rigorous process of understanding (Jung, MDR, p.213). This aspect of Jungs experience is not featured in the cult of The Red Book, because its promoters are more interested in aesthetics than understanding (ibid.). It is remarkable the way in which the fatherly aspects of Jungian psychology are experienced as an encumbrance, among post-Jungians, generally. Of course, the archetypes are the dominants of the unconscious; individuation is a prescribed path; the Self is a demanding goal. Thus, these aspects are experienced as regulatory decrees from the fatherly spirit, as it were. In the present day, many intellectuals embrace relativism in all its forms, and take exception to the scientific attitude, which is very analytic, regulatory, and lawful, indeed. My own take on this is that there is a longing to achieve transcendence from the necessities of life. Jung is seen as making matters worse by adding even more necessities. Thus, they want Jung without the necessities. Tacey shows that this is what Hillman has done: he has retained the aesthetic, fanciful, exotic Jung and removed the fatherly side. In doing this, he has unabashedly appropriated certain of Jungs thoughts as his own, such as the ideas around anima mundi. In fact, Hillman is not much of an original thinker--he also copied much from romantic idealism and its descendant, namely phenomenological philosophy. Tacey says: Hillman was Jung sans individuation, sans development, and sans masculine principle. There was an early stage in Jungs career where he was mesmerized by the wonders of the unconscious, and by the seductions of the anima and her ability to draw a man into unfathomable depths (ibid.). Hillman takes exception to the Jungian idea of development, that is, to become aware of the powers of the unconscious for the purpose of conscious integration. Tacey says: Hillmans faithfulness to images was impressive. However, the result was an ideological refusal to interpret the unconscious, because he felt this was too heroic. This is a side of his work which I am less impressed with, as it was as if Jungs stick to the image had become for Hillman, stick to the unconscious, or rather, remain in the unconscious. Hillman wanted us to observe and enjoy images as aesthetic productions, and not to integrate their meaning (ibid.). I hold that the longing after transcendence, including the evasion of lifes obligations and responsibilities, takes a turn for the worse in the development of a puer aeternus neurosis. It is a neurotic solution to the problem of transcendence, which should really be understood in terms of Eastern philosophy, Christian mysticism, meditation and contemplation. If that had been the case, then the post-Jungians would not have had this urge to throw out the demanding ideals of Jungian psychology. Classical Jungian psychology interprets transcendence, the mors voluntaria, and the nigredo, as the immersion in the unconscious. However, it is an enterprise no less demanding than following the dictates of society. The Jungian Self is a towering ideal, demanding adaptation to the outer as well as the inner world. Arguably, it is what causes the theoretical deterioration in post-Jungian psychology. There is no notion of transcendence proper, capable of diverting the regression to the aesthetic and daydreaming attitude of the puer aeternus. Jung is all about integration and thats why he claimed that God wanted to become man, and still wants to. But is this the whole truth about the Christian myth? In the bible the Father and the Son have a longing for each other, and their union is also what is achieved. We tend to see it as the myth of incarnation, but it is primarily the myth of apotheosis, that is, the transcendence of a human being. Jung disregards this. I have proposed that Jungs Self of immanence be complemented with a Self of transcendence. Since there is no transcendental ideal of Self, the puer aeternus tends to fulfil this role in modern culture. This is essentially what Hillman has done; he has substituted the puer aeternus for the Self. Late in life, Hillman experienced a remarkable turnaround, which Tacey accounts for. After having championed the feminine ideals of anima mundi his values suddenly become overly worldly and masculoid, centering around social activism and angry, assertive, masculinity, in the way of John Wayne. Von Franz says that this development is characteristic of the neurosis: Then, instead of being a brilliant puer, such a man suddenly becomes a cynical, disappointed old man. The brilliance has turned into cynicism and the man is too old for his age. He has neither belief nor interest in anything any longer. He is absolutely and thoroughly disillusioned and thereby loses all creativeness and élan vital, all contact with the spirit. Then money, ambition, and the struggle with colleagues become paramount, and everything else disappears with the romanticism of youth. There is very often an embittered expression on the face of such a man (The Problem of the Puer..., pp.135-136). This is probably why he has in the book, Senex & Puer, created a dichotomy of his earlier puerile ideal of Self, now claiming that the senex-et-puer is constitutive of personality. (The senex is gray-faced old hardass, hardhat.) Moreover, senex-et-puer is foundational to conscious life, which consist of an endless dialogue between the two aspects of our psychology. Yet, in the book he soon returns to advocating the ways of the puer aeternus: to be opportunistic, to lie, to do the devious, to cut out and around the system (cf. Senex & Puer, Kindle loc. 1788-1838). The senex is a companion to the puer from Hillmans earlier work. Hillman has himself referred to these writings as a prolonged and still incomplete defense of my traits and behaviors (Re-Visioning Psychology, 1992, xiii.). Yet, archetypes refer to collective traits. One cannot claim that ones own traits and behaviours are archetypal. Thus, it appears that his theoretical edifice is predicated on his own neurotic constitution, because this is the only empirical source of his theory. Against von Franzs view, Hillman argues that the puer is not under the sway of a mother complex but that it is best seen in relation to the senex or father archetype. However, Tacey says that the puer cannot be dissociated from the mother by intellectual reconfiguration. If these figures are archetypally bound, why would intellectual trickery separate them? The wrenching of the puer from the mother to the father is a display of intellectual deceit, for a self-serving purpose (cf. Tacey, JAP 59:4, part 2). I believe Tacey is right. Comparatively, Winnicott accounts for his own horrible neurotic symptoms that coincide finely with his theoretical notions, which have been put forth as normal psychology. Thus, one could argue that Winnicotts theory is genuinely a neurotic edifice that could help to understand the narcissistic pathology as it comes to expression in himself and in his colleague Masud Khan. Khan made himself guilty of many transgressions resulting in his expulsion from The British Psycho-Analytical Society and the International Psycho-Analytical Association. Hillmans psychology isnt even that. It cant help us understand the puer aeternus neurosis, because the senex-puer dichotomy is an intellectual fabrication. I believe it builds on the alchemical theme of the winged and wingless dragon, forming a circle by biting each others tail. However, this symbol really points at something quite different. Intellectual deceit, and any form of deceit, is characteristic of the puer aeternus. In this sense, Hillmans theory is wholly predicated on his neurosis. Characteristic of the puer is false pretensions, says von Franz. Hillman is sheer fake, through and through. I think that his speech at the symposium on C.G. Jung & The Red Book is very telling. vimeo/88459298 He does not contribute much to the understanding of the Red Book but only talks about his own reduction of the psyche to fantasy. One would expect Jung to be in the limelight here, but it revolves around Hillman himself. He had brought a white lily to Jungs vigil, which proved that he was now ready to abandon Jungs intellectual achievements. Allegedly, the Red Book verifies that concepts of psychology, such as ego, anima, and shadow, lack veracity, and that the psyche doesnt produce such contents--only fleeting fantasy. Evidently, he has no qualms about his self-centeredness, because there is no ego, anyway. Although he is wholly unintelligible (and quite boring) he gets applause. It remains to explain his popularity. Tacey argues that the Americans, on account of a cultural complex, are enchanted with the ideals of the puer aeternus. I would add that they, and increasingly the Europeans, are also obsessed with its shadow, namely money, status, and opulence, because senex and puer go hand in hand. (Other speakers at the symposium can be viewed here: https://youtube/watch?v=Oy-x7BLlBYg) The question is why people buy this deceit, as when he betrays no interest whatsoever in the Red Book, as such, but merely takes it as an excuse for talking about himself. Comparatively, Masud Khan found that Winnicotts ideas tallied with his own traits and behaviours, which had the consequence that he lived out his neurosis to the full, thinking that its wholly normal. Arguably, then, Hillmans popularity can be accounted for by the prevalence of the puer aeternus symptom, especially in America. Hillman gives the pueri aeterni an excuse to live out their neurosis to the full, and thus relieves them of the responsibility to take root in grey reality. However, according to Jung, the only cure is to devote oneself to lifes obligations and necessities, especially in the form of hard work. Instead they are persuaded to appropriate deceit as their means of transport through life, something which Hillman himself has been very successful at. It accounts for the inferior quality of the intellectual products in the field. The puer aeternus may sail through life by seating himself on the diffuse cloud of Archetypal or Jungian psychology. It is very convenient, but not much in the way of qualitative literature is produced that can make an impression beyond the Jungian bubble. It doesnt take much work to produce such books as Hillmans, since there is no requirement for the demanding and exhausting toil of research, scientific rigour, and logical coherence. It is good enough to babble nonsense. Hillman claims that Jungian concepts are based on nothing factual. Yet, people do experience anima and shadow projections. (At least, I have had such projections. I cant explain why the Freudians dont experience these, however.) He explains that there is no such thing as the ego, because he has never met one! (I dont understand what he means, because Ive met egos larger than a house.) Thus, it seems that he has acquired some Eastern wisdom, but he hasnt. The realization that the ego is an illusion is something that one can acquire while meditating on a mountain top. Yet, in our lifes struggles the ego is a very useful chimera, which we couldnt do without. The fact that we experience ourselves as separate beings, accounts for our success as a species, and as individuals. Separateness and detachment is a necessary ingredient in life. Thats why the psyche has created this illusion, because it increases our survival value and facilitates communication. Without ego there would be no Other. In fact, the God delusion is also associated with higher survival value. It leads to increased positive affect, higher health perceptions, and increased mental health status: oatd.org/oatd/record?record=handle%5C:1969.1%5C%2FETD-TAMU-2012-08-11567 I hold that ego transcendence is a central aspect of individuation, but it can only be achieved if we stand aside from life, which isnt always possible. Thus, there are two contradictory demands of individuation that we have to cope with: on the one hand there is development and conscious enhancement; on the other hand there is ego transcendence. But we can achieve neither by following Hillmans call to repudiate all the intellectual concepts of psychology. For more on the transcendental concept, which should in some form be added to Jungian psychology, please listen to Alan Watts: The Nature of Consciousness. https://youtube/watch?v=jX8PqznN0ao Mats Winther two-paths __._,_.___ Posted by: [email protected]
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 07:20:04 +0000
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