An introductory interpretation of Carl Jung as Mircea Eliade's shaman. Building from C. Michael Smith's book Jung and Shamanism: In Dialogue, I also interpreted other elements I learned about Jung and his life that connect to shamanism. In this presentation, I learned that shamanism connects a lot to Jung's analytical psychology, and Jung's own role was shamanic.
2. Why a Shaman?
• Priest – Priests belong to an orthodox religion and
must be initiated through orthodox measures.
• Mystic – Mystics tend to receive ecstatic visions, yet
they are still attached to a particular religion’s beliefs.
• Prophet – It is never clear who or what Jung is arguing
for. His religion can be seen as a trickster’s religion. He
could be seen as the prophet of analytical psychology.
He never claims divine inspiration though.
• Shaman – Can be initiated by spirits, gains magical
power to heal and through negotiation with spirits.
• Image credit: Samuel Davenport,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_shaman
_banging_a_drum_and_dancing_to_invoke_spirits_t
o_cur_Wellcome_V0014909.jpg.
3. Shaman
a. “a person who acts as intermediary between the
natural and supernatural worlds, using magic to
cure illness, foretell”
b. Etymology of the word shaman is “connected to
a Tungus root ša- ‘to know’.”
c. “denoting specific magico-religious practices in
which malignant spirit powers are overcome
with the aid of more powerful helping or
tutelary spirits” (Smith 11)
Image credit:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_Afric
an_shaman_or_medicine_man_dressed_in_ritual
_mask_and_Wellcome_V0016256.jpg
5. Shamanic Beliefs
• Spirits exist and they play important roles both in individual lives and in human
society. [Archetypes]
• The shaman can communicate with the spirit world.
• Spirits can be benevolent or malevolent.
• The shaman can treat sickness caused by malevolent spirits.
• The shaman can employ trance inducing techniques to incite visionary ecstasy and go
on vision quests.
• The shaman's spirit can leave the body to enter the supernatural world to search for
answers.
• The shaman evokes animal images as spirit guides, omens, and message-bearers.
[Scarab]
• The shaman can perform other varied forms of divination, scry, throw bones/runes,
and sometimes foretell of future events. (“Shamanism”).
• Time is cyclical. [Del tiempo y la eternidad.]
• Unus mundus.
6. Carl Jung
• An artist, craftsman, builder and prolific writer.
• Jung’s mother’s family (and grandfather) were spirit
mediums.
• “one night he saw a faintly luminous and indefinite
figure coming from her room with a head detached
from the neck and floating in the air in front of the
body” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections 18).
• His dreams revealed a darker aspect to spirituality.
• Jung had a mannequin he would write messages to in
a secret language.
• “this ceremonial act brought him a feeling of inner
peace and security. […] he discovered similarities
between his personal experience and the practices
associated with totems in indigenous cultures” (Carl
Jung”). 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961
7. Carl Jung
• Started to faint from childhood trauma, later
overcame his trauma. [Self-recovery]
• Jung had suicidal tendencies.
• “During his student days, he entertained his
contemporaries with the family legend, that
his paternal grandfather was the illegitimate
son of Wolfgang Goethe and his German
great-grandmother, Sophie Ziegler. In later
life, he pulled back from this tale, saying only
that Sophie was a friend of Goethe's niece.”
(Wehr 14) [Trickster]
8. Jung & Freud
• Freud’s own ideas have been compared to ancient religious ideas.
• Freud’s ideas of the id, ego and superego are not original, several religions
conceived of men having good and bad angels.
• Freud said, “Everything new must have its roots in what was before.”
• Bakan’s Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition speaks of:
• If god is identified with the superego, then the corresponding
antagonistic image is the Devil, who dwells in hell. […] The Devil is that
part of the person which permits him to violate the precepts of the
superego.
• …the moment a child is born into the world, the evil prompter
straightaway attaches himself to him. . . . But the good prompter first
comes to man only . . . When he reaches the age of thirteen years. From
that time the youth finds himself attended by two companions, one on
his right and the other on his left, the former being the good prompter,
the latter the evil prompter. (Zohar qtd. in Bakan)
9. Jung as the Wounded
Healer
• The wounded healer is an archetype for a shamanic
trail and journey. This process is important to the
young shaman. S/he undergoes a type of sickness that
pushes her or him to the brink of death. This happens
for two reasons:
1. The shaman crosses over to the underworld.
This happens so the shaman can venture to its
depths to bring back vital information for the
sick, and the tribe.
2. The shaman must become sick to understand
sickness. When the shaman overcomes his or
her own sickness s/he will hold the cure to heal
all that suffer. This is the uncanny mark of the
wounded healer.[23]
10. Jung Journeys
to the
“Underworld”
• Jung suffers from his separation from Freud.
• Jung retreats into a self-inflicted exile.
• In his exile, he begins to explore his mind and finds
archetypes with whom to communicate with.
• Jung calls these archetypes, but later admits that
archetypes can be considered spirits.
• Desert.
• Jung’s conception that these archetypes are neither
good nor bad, mirrors shamanic perspectives.
• Jung’s suffering brought him incredible knowledge.
• He refers to his return specifically as coming back from
a trance (Confrontación con el inconsciente 209).
• His journey mirrors the descent to the underworld
taken by many heroes in Greek mythology, such as
Dionysus and Orpheus.
11. Jung’s Initiation
• One can say Jung was truly initiated into
his craft at age 38.
• Jung meets his spirit guide, Philemon and
later on he meets Ka.
• Jung also learns to respect the serpent, his
spirit animal.
• Spirit of the depths, spirit of shamanism, of
ancient knowledge (Liber Primus 229).
• “if you enter into the world of the soul, you
are like a madman, and a doctor would
consider you to be sick” (238).
• Suffering.
• Image credit: Carl Jung
12. Jung Learns to Love
Salome
• “An important division of the
‘mythology of woman’ is devoted to
showing that it is always a feminine
being who helps the hero to conquer
immortality or to emerge victorious
from his initiatory ordeals” (Eliade,
78).
• Part of our journey to self-
realization, is to integrate the anima
archetype into our consciousness.
• Image credit: Salome and the
head of Jokanaan by Aubrey
Beardsley (1894)
13. Jung Dies to Speak with the
Dead
• “‘Seeing spirits,’ in dream or awake, is the determining
sign of the shamanic vocation, whether spontaneous or
voluntary. For, in a manner, having contact with the
souls of the dead signifies being dead oneself. […]
throughout South America, the shaman must so die
that he may meet the souls of the dead and receive
their teaching; for the dead know everything” (Eliade,
84).
• Jung speaks with his dead father.
14. Jung as a
Trickster
• Jung was known to play tricks in social
events.
• He would pit friends against each other
using his words.
• Analytical psychology can be viewed as an
elaborate trick.
• Everything that becomes too old becomes
the same is true of your highest. Learn
the suffering of the crucified God that one
also betray and crucify a God, namely the
of the old year. If a God ceases being the
he must fall secretly. (109)
• Jung uses trickery and cunning to kill
Siegfried.
15. Jung’s Shamanic Power
Jung’s serpent premonition in
Modern Man in Search of His
Soul.
Has a premonition of great
natural disaster, the World
Wars.
Jung also has premonitions of
people’s individual deaths,
the patient who shot himself
in the head.
Incredibly influential in the
creation of the “New Age.”
Heals people by listening to
them.
Initiates and creates a whole
new host of psychoanalysts.
“I can no longer recognize
myself It seems to me that I
have become a monstrous
animal form for which I have
exchanged my humanity”
(240). Shape-shifting.
Jung predicts or provokes
sounds to occur in his
meeting with Freud which he
interprets as supernatural in
nature.
16. Jung’s Ritual for the
Dead
Therefore on your journey be sure to take
golden cups full of the sweet drink of life,
red wine, and give it to dead matter, so
that it can win life back. The dead matter
will change into black serpents. Do not
be frightened, the serpents will
immediately put out the sun of your days,
and a night with wonderful will-o'-the-
wisps will come over YOU. (140)
Take pains to waken the dead. Dig deep
mines and throw in sacrificial gifts, so
that they reach the dead. Reflect in good
heart upon evil, this is the way to the
ascent.
Image credit:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/1156195
7@N06/50179373226.
17. Conflicts and Resolutions
Shamanism Analytical psychology
Follow the path of the mythical gods Follow your own heart
Gods, heroes and spirits Archetypes
Rituals Therapy sessions
Complex possession Spirit possession
• Even if we follow our own paths. Someone else in history has already gone through similar trials.
• Jung’s dreams feature heroes from the Bible and gods from pagan religions. He only calls them archetypes
after his insights.
• Therapy sessions mirror conversations with shamans. They also mirror confessionals with priests. One
could see therapy sessions as being shamanic healing without the use of substances.
• Jung even has an archetype for time. Archetypes are autonomous.
• “Me parece que los espíritus tienden a mezclarse con los arquetipos” [“It appears to me that spirits mix with
the archetypes”].
• Complexes as free-floating.
18. Final Thoughts
• Shamanism applies to everything, because it deals with processes of
initiation. Everything is suffering, we learn through suffering.
• Almost every vocation one can imagine deals with processes of
initiation.
• Hal and Sidra Stone’s Voice Dialogue in Buddhism.
• Treating art and dreams as part of our patients’ reality, of their
psyche.
• “Hoy en día es probable que se diga que un individuo es un monstruo
psicopático porque se abusó gravemente de el cuando era niño,
mientras en la Edad Media se consideraba que fue el Diablo quien lo
hizo obrar así” (265). [Today it is probable for people to say that an
individual is a psychopathic monster because they were severely
abused as children, while in the Middle Ages they would consider it
the Devil’s influence who made them behave that way.]
19. Power of Words
• Words have the capacity of healing.
• Because words are powerful, certain sacred words, like the
different names of God are hidden from common people.
• Shamans and priests inherit these words.
• Think of our practice in psychology.
• Schizophrenic, bipolar, depressive, all of these words contain
power. They can either help a person understand themselves, or
destroy them.
• Hillman – Words are like angels or persons.
20. Works Cited
Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.
Trans. Willard R. Trask. Princeton-Oxford UP, 2004.
Jung, Carl. “Del tiempo y la eternidad (Sincronicidad)”. 257-285.
Jung, Carl. Liber Primus. Edited by Sonu Shamdasani. 229-240.
“Mircea Eliade." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia, 28 Jan. 2016.
Smith, Michael C. Jung and Shamanism In Dialogue: Retrieving
the Soul / Retrieving the Sacred. Paulist Press. 2007.
Wehr, Gerhard. Jung: A Biography. Dorset. 1987.
