The Quest: Vision in an age of Crisis. Economic & Financial Crisis. Jungian Psychotherapy

What is the origin of the destructiveness in humans towards the world of nature? We examine firstly the consequences, values and paradigms of Business Civilization such as removal from nature, hyper-technological rationalism, intense consumerism, over-emphasis on science and calculation, exaggerated individualism and so on. These become more intensified in the contemporary period with huge destructive consequences. It is these traits that need to change in order to modify our destructive impact. Secondly, we explore depth psychology, with reference to ideas of Freud, Jung, Klein and Groff. They all refer to a basic dualism in the unconscious. On the one hand great creativity, on the other an extraordinary capacity for destruction. Business Civilization needs to be "put on the couch". Unless it integrates its profound negativity it cannot last.

This is the final episode in this miniseries. It covers the following points. 1. A tipping point has been reached in the climate crisis past the 1.5 degree centigrade threshold and the planet is now in a stage of unpredictable runaway effects. 2. Climate defiance is in the ascendant and there is crisis, confusion, and perhaps despair in the Green ranks. The Green agenda will, however, make a come-back as the true damaging costs of fossil fuel dependency hammer home. 3. The climate crisis has to be gone through – quick fixes are not possible. It is useful to view this whole period as a rite of passage. This does not mean humanity will necessarily get through it. We might fail or not get through intact. But what is required is a total paradigm shift in human values and in global political and economic organization.

The green climate agenda is going backwards. Fifteen examples from across the world are given. Preparing for survival on a degraded planet should be a policy with the status of a national emergency. Practical policy responses are put forward for rising seas levels.

The climate crisis and the ecological catastrophe are an existential threat to Homo sapiens especially when combined with other crises of the 21st century. This is of immense evolutionary and even metaphysical significance. As our species gained in technological power the exploitation of nature became more extensive and under business civilization this has become a world wide phenomenon. The competitive state of the world economic and political system prevents adequate international cooperation on climate matters. Psychiatry and psychoanalysis have provided diagnostic terms that are useful when describing negative aspects of business civilization such as psychopathic, addictive, manic-depressive, and schizoid. They have also provided insight into climate denial as a defence against anxiety. But the more obvious source of problems is in our values systems, our beliefs about ourselves, nature and even the cosmos. There is in the human psyche a combination of opposites – god-like powers and a demonic destructiveness.

The COP commitments are critically scrutinised. Even if all its pledges were kept concerning GHG emissions, the tripling of renewable capacity, and energy efficiency improvements - and that is a tall order - the world is heading for a 10% increase in emissions by 2030, instead of the 43% reduction required to keep global warming under the 1.5 degree threshold. Following further research post Cop28 I see no reason to change my central warning: prepare for survival on a degraded planet. A new attitude on the global scene is noted - climate defiance. Arguments for climate denial are also examined and dismissed as contrary to the evidence. The episode ends with a beautiful song The Turning of the Year by Mark Dunn of The Bringers of Change whose music albums can be found on Spotify etc. and as CDs at www.fallingarecords.com This episode is being released a few days early in the breather between Christmas and New Year. The next and probable final episode in this mini-series will be Feb 1st 2024. Its subject will be the spiritual, mythical, and spiritual dimensions of the climate crisis. A free meditation programme following the Secret of the Golden Flower starts Jan 2 2024. Contact me at thepilgrimquest@gmail.com if you wish to join - up to 2 weeks late start is OK. The Quest Lecture series (as distinct from these podcasts) starts in April 2024. Syllabus on my website www.alanmulhern.com

This episode gives a review of Cop 28 which confirms the view that despite strenuous efforts of the United Nations, the IPCC, and many other institutes and organizations the world is politically and economically unwilling or unable to avoid climate catastrophe in the decades to come. Mankind’s economic short term interests triumph over reason and common sense. To prepare for a severely degraded world is a task totally other than what we have contemplated so far.

This is the fourth episode in this miniseries on the ecological catastrophe of our age. The GHG emissions targets are not being reached on time. We need to prepare for survival in a degraded world. There needs to be a spiritual vision to give us insight into the climate and other crises of our age.

This episode identifies the other elements of the ecological crisis aside from climate: Biodiversity loss Chemical pollution into land, air, rivers, and oceans Particle pollution of the atmosphere Deforestation and land use Freshwater scarcity The phosphorous and nitrogen cycle # The episode continued by identifying Business Civilization as the immediate source of the contemporary ecological disaster. # Next it introduced the Dasgupta Review with its investigation of the contemporary trauma of global biodiversity reduction. # Finally it explored Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind.

There are now some changes to the structure and timing of these podcasts. Firstly, the Spanish language podcasts, which have explored the life and work of Carl Jung, have now ended. For the forseeable future there will only be the English speaking podcasts. Secondly, I am moving the podcast release dates generally to the first of the month - an easier date to remember rather than the mid-month timing. Hence S2 Ep89 will be released on October 1st 2023 etc. The overall theme of the podcasts remains - the quest for vision in an age of crises. The current set of episodes are on the Ecological Catastrophe of our Age. As preparation for the coming episode you could read the highly recommended and freely available internet version of The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review. You could start with the Headline Messages (just a few pages) and then read the Abridged version. The full text is for the highly motivated student - who knows this might include yourself. This current set of episodes is placed within the larger context of our exploration of the multiple crises of our age (dramatically referred to as the Ten Horsemen of the Apocalypse) which, in addition to the ecological, will include the economic, financial, political, social, health, military, technological, clash of ideas and ideologies (including the Culture Wars, Woke etc. ), and spiritual crisis of our age. En route we will encounter extraordinary possibilities emerging in the 21st century - such as transformations of human nature, global totalitarianism. modification, replacement or even extinction of Homo sapiens, and spiritual transformation. As you will readily appreciate this is an ambitious undertaking, will take a number of years, and has to be done at a pace which will allow me to complete this task. So I ask for your patience. I also ask for your support, which you can do in two ways: firstly, by telling others of this podcast series; secondly by studying the content of this freely available podcast series (and its references) as seriously as you can, thirdly by leaving comments on the series. If you can accompany this with a spiritual practice, so much the better. Logic, argument and reason are important, yes, but the vision of spiritual experience is the decisive factor in the type of knowledge or gnosis we seek. As a Jungian analyst I am also very much in favour of combining this with deep self-examination. I also run periodically (say once a year) a 100 day meditation online programme based on the Secret of the Golden Flower. Also there is a parallel series of lectures and meeting (called the Quest) which takes place once a month online. For more details, including contact information, you may consult my website www.alanmulhern.com

Este es el episodio final de nuestra serie de podcasts sobre la vida y obra de Carl Jung. Este ha sido un proyecto conjunto entre el Instituto Venezolano de Psicología Analítica (representado por María Leonor de Planchart y Beatrice Rojas) y el Quest (representado por Alan Mulhern). Terminamos, como deberíamos. con las propias visiones y pensamientos de Jung al final de su vida, tal como se cuentan en los capítulos finales de Recuerdos, Sueños, Pensamientos. Estos incluyen: su experiencia cercana a la muerte; su posterior convicción de que la vida en esta tierra era como una caja tridimensional especialmente construida a la que llamamos "realidad"; sus pensamientos sobre la existencia después de la muerte; su conciencia de que esta vida era una proyección de una realidad más profunda; su convicción de que la civilización occidental necesitaba recuperar un ancla mitológica sin la cual estábamos perdidos; sus extraordinarias reinterpretaciones de la sabiduría, las religiones y las mitologías antiguas para reanimar el alma de la humanidad; y su creencia de que un amor profundo es la base del universo. Jung escribió: “Hasta donde podemos discernir, el único propósito de la existencia humana es encender una luz en la oscuridad del mero ser”. Pocas veces ha habido tanta luz en la oscuridad como la de Carl Jung.

Life has always been dependent on and deeply interlinked with climate. The earth passes through great cycles of glacial and warming conditions with enormous consequences for the promotion or restriction and even extinction of life. Hominins, our ancestors, adapted to changing habitats and climatic environments. The genus Homo, of which Homo sapiens is but one species among others, had an even greater capacity to adapt. Nevertheless many of our hominid ancestors succumbed to extreme climate change. Homo sapiens with its higher level brain power, symbolic thought and language, wider social and trading networks, more complex tools and weaponry was the most able to manage the increasingly colder and extreme climatic conditions and consequent changing food supplies - so far. However the extremity of environmental and climatic change continues to our own period and we are reminded of Toynbee’s acute observation that civilization has to continually manage its challenges or face extinction. The same applies to species. Our species, Homo sapiens, is now a global business civilization and despite all its creativity is in great danger. Climate change, often very severe, quite simply has been one of the biggest factors in earth history. It has also been one of the most powerful influences also in human history.

This is the start of a mini-series on the ecological catastrophe of the anthropocene. In the first episode the emphasis is on climate but subsequent ones will explore other components of this crisis, for example the great destruction of bio-diversity, otherwise known as the sixth extinction event. The current ecological emergency is undeniable. But current policies to deal with it are inadequate. Can the attack upon nature be characterised as evil since it is a prime example of the destruction of life and the good? Can something of the magnitude of Business Civilization, the first example of a truly global civilization, reform itself to the extent required to avoid catastrophe? Can a global leadership emerge that stops fighting and squabbling? Will a global totalitarianism be required and will this lead to a world dystopia? Can we rise to meet the scale of the challenge we face? Do we realise that what is required is not just some new inventions leaving our standard of living and way of life intact but rather a vast paradigm shift and a change in our very thinking and way of life? Episodes for the moment will continue to be released around the 15th of the month but will change to 1st of the month by the end of the year.

“La descristianización de nuestro mundo, el desarrollo luciferino de la ciencia y la tecnología, y la espantosa destrucción material y moral que dejó la Segunda Guerra Mundial han sido comparados más de una vez con los acontecimientos escatológicos narrados en el Nuevo Testamento. Cristo es este mito viviente de nuestra cultura. Es nuestro héroe cultural que encarna el mito del hombre primordial divino ...La imagen de Cristo es el arquetipo del Self”. Sin embargo, el símbolo del Cristo celestial carece de totalidad en el sentido psicológico moderno, ya que no incluye al luciferino que está separado. El cristianismo era muy consciente de esto, pero lo llamó privatio boni. Significaba la ausencia del bien más que una realidad positiva por derecho propio. Lucifer corresponde al Anticristo, la mitad oscura de la totalidad divina y humana. En el concepto cristiano, el arquetipo de la totalidad se divide irremediablemente en dos mitades irreconciliables que conducen en última instancia a un dualismo metafísico: la separación final del reino de los cielos del mundo de los condenados". Jung: Christ a Symbol of the Self. Aion CW Part 2

Human nature is the integrated but at the same time conflicting combination of six parts of our development: animal inheritance, emotional structure, conscious ego intelligence, the unconscious, higher consciousness, and what Jungians call the Self. These have evolved over millions of years and many of them are a unity of conflicting parts. Despite their conflict there is also a transformational intelligence, the Self, within the psyche of mankind, which is capable of creating harmony within itself, diminishing repression and malevolence. At the same time as the emergence of death awareness the higher self is simultaneously triggered into existence and this is closely related to love. Our higher self has many attributes such as higher intuition, illumination, revelation, music, art, poetry, and advanced forms of symbolic thought which are revolutionary in evolution. The level and range of our abstract symbolic understanding and expression are extraordinary. The existence of the higher self in humans, we suggest, is a result of the inherent spirit in the cosmos, the anima mundi, an intelligence in nature and evolution. It cannot be really explained by a materialist view of evolution for it has little, if any survival value. It is grace, primal spirit, embodied in matter.

El Libro Tibetano De Los Muertos describe las experiencias de la conciencia en el intervalo entre la muerte y el renacimiento y se divide en tres bardos: El Chikhai Bardo - "el momento de la muerte" que tiene la experiencia de la "luz clara de la realidad". El Chonyid Bardo - "la experiencia de la realidad" que presenta la experiencia de las ilusiones cósmicas. El Sidpa Bardo o "bardo del renacimiento", que es el resultado del karma y tiene imágenes típicamente de hombres y mujeres copulando que conducen al renacimiento. En el proceso de la muerte hay una posibilidad de liberación, pero muy pronto comienzan las ilusiones que conducen a la reencarnación. Las luminarias se vuelven más débiles y la visión más aterradora. Jung dice: “Las instrucciones son tan detalladas y están tan completamente adaptadas a los cambios aparentes en la condición del hombre muerto que todo lector serio debe preguntarse si estos sabios y viejos lamas no podrían, después de todo, haber vislumbrado la cuarta dimensión y rasgado el velo del mayor de los secretos de la vida.”

Since mankind began to think morally the question of the origin of evil was a continual problem. We examine some examples. We begin with the Ancient Egyptians and the Judaic tradition. Special focus is on the myth of Osiris and Seth on the one hand and Cain and Abel on the other. The contribution of envy and malevolence to conflict and evil is noted.

Estamos encantados de continuar con los podcasts del Quest. Antes de continuar con la experiencia de Jung con la metafísica tibetana será útil cubrir algunos elementos básicos de la enseñanza budista, ya que el budismo es el fundamento de la espiritualidad tibetana. “Si podemos reconocer las apariencias del bardo dharmata como la energía de sabiduría de nuestra propia mente, no hay diferencia entre el perceptor y lo percibido, y esta es una experiencia de no dualidad. Entrar completamente en esa experiencia es alcanzar la liberación que surge en ese momento en el estado posterior a la muerte cuando la conciencia puede darse cuenta de que sus experiencias no son más que la mente misma.”

This is the first in a miniseries on the origins of evil. Creative and destructive forces exist as universal principles and underpin life on earth as well as the consciousness of humanity. The essence of evil in the psyche is the destruction of the good. This is the "satanic", which is malevolently opposed to the life-giving and creative. A distinction is made to the "luciferian" which is a movement to consciousness and therefore while liberating is also the root of our alienation. Much of what we think of as bad, negative, egoistic in humans originates in our animal ancestry and has evolved. However when primate instincts, appetites and sexuality pass through the prism of human consciousness they are easily magnified and distorted.

The famous painting of the Tibetan wheel of life is in the grip of the Lord of Death. At its centre are two concentric circles: the outer shows the ascending and descending paths with souls in the death and rebirth cycle; the inner shows three animals, a pig, a snake, and a rooster which symbolise forces within human nature that perpetuate this cycle and are responsible for the suffering in life. The pig represents ignorance, avidya, which is a basic misrepresentation of reality. The snake represents aggression which in the human species reaches a malignancy unprecedented in the rest of nature. The third is the rooster symbol – lust, desire and insatiable greed. These three are surely responsible for much of the darkness in the human species. The Tibetan Book of the Dead can be used to guide the dying person through the experiences of consciousness after death, but it is also used during life by those who want to prepare for what will come after death. Liberation from the wheel of rebirth is actually possible in the after-death states or bardos.

Este episodio continúa una miniserie sobre las observaciones de Jung sobre textos orientales y explora sus comentarios sobre El Libro tibetano de la Gran Liberación, desconocido para Occidente hasta su primera publicación en 1954. El próximo episodio examinará sus comentarios sobre el Libro tibetano de los muertos. Al igual que otros de sus comentarios, como los del I Ching y El Secreto de la Flor de Oro, aquí Jung pretende construir un puente desde el budismo tibetano a su escuela de Psicología Analítica. Por ejemplo escribe: “… el inconsciente es la mente matriz con la cualidad de la creatividad adjunta, el lugar de nacimiento de todas las formas de pensamiento y similar a la Mente Universal de Oriente. Estas formas de pensamiento o arquetipos son omnipresentes y atemporales ... Por medio de la función trascendente no solo ganamos acceso a la Mente Universal sino que también llegamos a comprender porqué Oriente cree en la posibilidad de la autoliberación.”