Re: Re: Jung/Hesse

[Guest guest]

Dear Deb,

Guess i was too late for the watermelon, someone else beat me to

it..Isn't that always the case! Drats! Please all forgive me for running

over my limits of posts today. I enjoyed this post, especially the

comments about Hesse's 'Demian'. And also Dennis's reply.I too was very

young when I came across Hesse(around the same age as Dennis). Like him,

something resonated but it would be years before I was introduced to

Jung(ashamed to admit it was only about 6 years ago).But reflecting now,

they seem a likely pair. Hesse is soooo

Jung or was Jung so Hesse? At the risk of sounding overly simplistic,or

silly next to your beautiful post, Deb.........

Hesse's works(especially Demian) seem to echo all of Jung's discoveries

of the psyche. First the shadow, in it's raw,unredeemed and unreflected

disguise(what was his name in the book,Cromer?)to his meeting with

Demian, a more introspective and ultimately beneficial side of the

shadow,the undifferentiated anima(a young girl he meets).. who is

elevated in the novel to a 'Sophia' like personification in Demian's

mother,Eve. Always the struggle between 'the world of the light' and the

light in the dark..a struggle of opposites, God/Devil,

Innocence/guilt,ascetics/earthly horrors and pursuits.Interesting topic

to find ourselves in tonight. Reflecting on Frances's post about the

horrors of war and you making the connection that most of Hesse's work

was done during this period of our history. Perhaps one of these days,

the world will pay heed to his and Jung's vision. Great

post...encore..encore!! Let's not forget Sinclair's 'Wise Man' in

Pistorius..after all he is who lead Sinclair to Abraxas! Also worth a

look for Hesse fans is his book of Fairy Tales.Seems so

many of our problems can be traced back to Adam and Eve..Cain and

Able(g)... L,

D Mattingly Conner wrote:

>

> et al:

>

> If you really want to know about Ludwig Klages, I fear you will have

> to read German. I don't think his books are available in

> translation. He was an Austrian, a psychologist and philosopher (

> Nietzsche -ian? ). His books are 1920s-40s. Kerr describes him as

> a former " crony of Otto Gross's on the Schwabing cafe circuit

> in

> Munich, " He was a speaker at meetings of the original Viennese

> group

> of Freud and Jung. There's some intrigue attached to him from

> his

> psych study of graphology because Hitler smiled on it (kiss of

> death), and some connection with Stefan who is bound to get

> you linked to anti-Semitism because the Nazi's made him their

> national poet after his death. Poor man! A symboliste, and like so

> many of his time (read HGWells early on) taken up with improving the

> world through eugenics. Looks like the unbearable brilliance of

> science caused at least as much destruction as any dark tide, Mr.

> Freud. The quote is from Klages' Der Geist als Widersacher der

> Seele. Kerr describes Klages as having " his own eclectic

> philosophy

> built around a personal interpretation of the myth of the

> sun-hero. "

> (I think that's his Vom kosmogonischen Eros. Greg, this might be

> somthing you might look at for your project.)

> Kerr is Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method.

>

> The masonry is the more interesting Q. Reincarnation a basic theme

> in Masonry, certainly of the Masters degree, where one is risen from

> the dead/darkness by his brothers. ( The Royal Arch is described

> pretty well in The Hiram Key.)

>

> For all the Fundamentalist anti-masonry & bad press in England over

> Masonry in recent years, should emphasisze something about

> this " Secret Society " : None of the great secrets are

> secrets... the

> secrecy itself is a symbolic ritualistic pose (likely why

> Wilde liked it so well); the acting out of the acceptance that we

> don't know and can't know the answers to the great

> questions... That

> god's name will always be ineffable. (e.g., The Triple Tau

> symbol

> is all about that.)

>

> And.., Isn't it a healthy acceptance of `what is' really,

> that helps

> keep one from falling into their own bliss? That keeps one

> centered? Yes, we have the answer! The Key to All Religions!

> Everyone does. But it can't be spoken or seen or grasped or

> owned or

> controlled. The form changes. We keep forgetting what it was.

> Feeling that soemthing is lost. It's slippery, the flashes of

> transcendence in life. Poets walk its perimeter. The act of love

> dissolves you in it. It's on the face of St. when her

> heart

> is pierced. And it's what they are saying in the boat – a

> small

> boat – in Dark City when they ask the Dr. " How We Got

> Here " . The Dr.

> Answers, " No one knows. No one remembers. " Just as Jung

> says. The

> Mason is `ever in search' of the `lost thing' –

> that is, this answer,

> the Truth – and `never to find it'. It's a

> psychological

> statement. We're all in the same small boat, asking the same

> question. And it's the asking of it that is our life and makes

> us

> most alive. The asking and not turning away is `living

> hard'.

>

> That's all very 19th C. So am I. It's Sunday. Forgive my

> spiel. I

> only know a full-frontal approach.

>

> Dunno much about what masonry is now, except that those nice old men

> in funny hats who raise all that money for the shriner's

> hospitals

> are doing a lot of good (wrote godd) work in the world. I do know

> exactly where to take you in the US Capital to see the original

> cornerstone lain by Grand Master Geo Washington. We can sit on the

> Mall there and look out at the buildings and see a whole symphony of

> Masonic symbols. Masonry is the science of the study of these

> symbols. Symbols being that which fascinates. (fascinate: 1)to

> capture the interest of; attract irresistably, 2) (esp. Of a snake)

> paralyze a victim with fear, awe. Intrigue, beguile, absorb,

> enthall, captivate, bewitch, etc.

>

> As I see it (and I only know what I see) , Jung took it a step

> further and looked at it backward (talk about circumambulation!) :

> from the symbol to the mind. Why does a thing fascinate us? Hook

> us? Capture us? What is fascination itself? And he just followed

> that thread on down to the bedrock of the psyche. That's the way

> I

> see it, anyway. What has fascinated me about Jung...

>

> Like Hesse's Sinclair (st Clair) in Demian (or 's

> Clarissa) , it was always an Orphic journey down and into dark places

> and shadows, led by the many masked psychopompos. Jung didn't

> just

> follow Mercurius, daimones, she, Eros – the rose

> by-any-other-name –

> he made it his study it his whole life long. It was Time to look at

> the medusa in the glass, and see that it is curious about us, too.

> VBG (and I've almost always got one).

>

> Do not fear said the angel. That's all.

> Jung mentions that his grandfather was the Swiss Grand Master Mason

> (or whatever the title is.. in MDR). If you go to your library, you

> can probably find an encyclopedia of masonry, the older the better.

> I used the 1884 Mackey which is the study of US Masonry, but the

> range and scope was much the same (I own – by wonderful

> circumstances!-- the later edition of this, in 2 vol from before the

> first WW) in Europe. Anyway, you'll see why I connect masonry

> with

> Jung and viceversa. Would make a good study...

>

> Interesting that Hesses' novels have recently been reprinted.

> Demian

> spoke to that interwar generation in Germany ( Mann's

> intro. to

> the novel speaks to this) . His work was also read widely in the

> 70's. I hpe they will be read widely again. Seems they speak to

> generations following periods of unbearable brightness that resulted

> in a destructive positivism. (If anyone actually reads this,

> there's

> fifty thousand dollars hidden under a watermelon at the Kansas City

> WalMart. Go there. Ask for Harry.) They satisfy a need to balance,

> to look into the shadow. Demian turning around to Emil – my god!

>

> that odd moment when you thought you saw something that couldn't

> have

> been: Demian is a projection of Emil's need to center and balance

> by

> listening to the unconsious.

>

> The symbol of Abraxas itself holds the meaning: beyond time and

> beyond being, we reflect this Tao in this symbol that is a

> psychological statement of Myth itself: The head of a cockerel (or

> eagle, etc.) , the body of a human (solar plexus, spine), legs made

> of snakes. The head's beak is open as it greets the dawn of

> light

> (active consciousness); the beingness of matter experienced as living

> in the body; the snaky legs that root one to, that explore and know,

> the dark hidden places of the unconscious. These snaky legs come out

> of the place of birth and death. Shedding its skin, it is that dark

> wisdom of our dreaming mind that speaks to us in glimmers. Like

> Demian turning to smile at us when he hasn't ever really been

> anything outside of us at all. (Everything outside is within. The

> wisdom of children)

>

> Anyway, I promise, your love is returned.

>

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