Preamble: The Age of Enlightenment - a Movement, Ideology and Social Consciousness!
The Age of Reason or the Age of Enlightenment was not a static rational, philosophical, or academic argument or achievement. The Age of Enlightenment was about ideas, ideals, and social, political, intellectual as well as cultural growth and change. That is Enlightenment was a movement, an ideology, a social consciousness, and a state of mind. An article The Enlightenment, known in French as the Siècle des Lumières (or Century of Lights), was a high period of intellectual proliferation in the domains of art and science. Many ideas put out by Enlightenment thinkers paved the way for how we perceive the world today. The Enlightenment, which is perhaps better remembered as the Century of Lights - Siècle des Lumières, by the French. For the French, the Century of Lights gave birth to a number of great thinkers and intellectual immortals: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, Beaumarchais, Condorcet, Lavoisier, and Marivaux. The Enlightenment was an ideology and social consciousness of growth, progress bringing dramatic social, religious, and political developments and change, which in France, advocated individual liberty and religious tolerance which brought it into direct conflict with both the absolute power of the monarchy as well as the fixed dogmas of the Church. Without question the Enlightenment Ideology created the force that emerged as the French Revolution.
The idea and importance of reason – as opposed to religious dogma or power based on divine right - was the driving force for the Enlightenment Movement-Ideology which gave birth to the ideas of constitutional government, progress-change, separation of church and state, tolerance and fraternity, as well as freedom and liberty. Many of the major political figures and founding fathers of the American Nation were associated and involved in the Enlightenment Ideology such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and several others. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison incorporated some of the Enlightenment Ideals and Political theories such as John Locke’s Social Contract Theory as well as Thomas Hobbes arguments for representative into the Declaration of Independence, and later the United States Constitution in 1787.
Communication – perhaps even Jung’s contagion effect - was pivotal to the spread of the Enlightenment ideas. Philosophers and scientists of the period widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffeehouses and in printed books, journals, and pamphlets. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Catholic Church and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Social Perception & Unconscious-Nonverbal Communication
Several different types of norms are identified by sociology and social psychology. One definition of norms would be "patterns of behavior that are self-enforcing within a group." In one of the many experiments on the ingroup-outgroup syndrome, the psychologists Locksley, Ortiz, and Hepburn assigned subjects to groups using a random lottery. Even though the assignment of group members was random and absent of any similar characteristics, group members still showed ingroup favoritism. (p 501 need) Even in experiments in which the subjects were explicitly told that their assignment to a group was completely random, the subjects involved in the experiment still expressed a favorable ingroup bias. The psychologists, Rabbie and Horwitz, found that subjects gave more favorable evaluations to ingroup members versus outgroup members even though the outcome of the competition staged in the experiment was decided by the flip of the coin. Experiments have shown that even arbitrary distinctions such as the color of one’s shirt or liking one painting over another were sufficient distinctions to elicit ingroup favoritism. It would seem an inevitable conclusion then, that the group-related processes in the human mind are very pervasive – and very powerful as well. The bottom line as Baumeister and Leary explain it is that members of groups “readily and easily
The idea that social perception is a largely automated psychological phenomenon is now widely accepted. Many years of research have demonstrated the variety of ways in which behaviors are encoded spontaneously and without intention in terms of relevant trait concepts (e.g., Bargh & Thein, 1985; Winter & Uleman, 1984; Carlston & Skowronski, 1994; Uleman, Newman, & Moskowitz, 1996), how contextual priming of trait concepts changes the perceiver's interpretation of an identical behavior (through temporarily increasing their accessibility or readiness to be used; see Bargh, 1989; Higgins, 1989,1996; Wyer & Srull, 1989, for reviews), and how stereotypes of social groups become activated automatically on the mere perception of the distinguishing features of a group member (e.g., Bargh, 1994, 1999; Brewer, 1988; Devine, 1989). Perceptual interpretations of behavior, as well as assumptions about an individual's behavior based on identified group membership, become automated like any other representation if they are frequently and consistently made in the presence of the behavioral or group membership features.
“In the first [experiment] (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996, Experiment 3), participants who were subliminally presented with faces of young male African Americans subsequently reacted with greater hostility (a component of the African American stereotype [e.g., Devine, 1989]) to a mild provocation, compared with the control condition. As predicted, the partners of participants who had earlier been subliminally primed with African American faces manifested greater hostility than the partners of those who had not been primed. Most important, the primed participants themselves rated their partners as being more hostile than did nonprimed participants. For the primed participants, their own hostile behavior, nonconsciously driven by the content of their stereotype of African Americans, caused their partners to respond in kind, but the primed participants had no clue as to their own role in producing that hostility.” So, what happened is that there was nonconscious communication of hostile feelings from the participant in the experiment to their partner – without any conscious communication at all. Of course, an important fact is that what was communicated unconsciously re very potent and emotionally charged stereotypes and symbols.
“Imagine for a moment that you are a psychology professor who does experiments on conscious awareness. You keep finding that your subtle manipulations of people’s judgments and even behavior are successful –causing your experimental participants to like someone or to dislike that same person, to feel happy or sad, to behave rudely or with infinite patience. However, none of your participants have a clue as to what caused them to feel or behave.” The Unbearable Automaticity of Being, John A Bargh & Tanya L. Chartrand - p. 462 July 1999 American Psychologist) That further demonstrates there is unconscious-nonconscious communication.
Mental categories are absolutely essential in simplifying and understanding the information-rich environment (e.g., Bruner, 1957; E. E. Smith & Medin, 1981), but stereotypes are maladaptive forms of categories because their content does not correspond to what is actually present or going on in the environment. We reasoned therefore that even though automatic stereotype effects on behavior could cause problems in social interaction as demonstrated by Chen and Bargh (1997), the more natural effect of perception on behavior—when perceptual activity is based on what is actually going on at the moment— would be more positive. In other words, the express link between perception and action likely exists for a good, adaptive reason, such as creating appropriate behavioral readinesses in the absence of conscious guidance and monitoring. Within a social group setting, one is more likely to get along harmoniously with others in the group if one is behaving similarly to them, compared with being "out of sync" and behaving differently. Thus, it makes sense for the default behavioral tendency in an interaction to be based on one's perception of what the other person is doing.
I. Background & Theoretical Factors: Spiritual-Psychic Experiences & Collective Consciousness
Carl Jung stated the very self-evident fact that peoples' beliefs and worldviews are largely shaped and determined by their experiences. Jung's inspiration for his theory of the Collective Unconscious stemmed from some personal spiritual-psychic experiences. Jung’s spiritual guide, Philemon, first appeared to him in a dream: “There was a blue sky, like the sea, covered not by clouds but by flat brown clods of earth. It looked as if the clods were breaking apart and the blue water of the sea were becoming visible between them. But the water was the blue sky. Suddenly there appeared from the right a winged being sailing across the sky. I saw that it was an old man with the horns of a bull. He held a bunch of four keys, one of which he clutched as if he were about to open a lock. He had the wings of the kingfisher with its characteristic colors.” (Memories…p.182-183). Since Jung didn’t really understand the image or the dream, he painted a picture of the figure he had seen. While he painted the picture, he found a dead Kingfisher in his yard which surprised him greatly since he had never seen one before - or after, for that matter and kingfisher were extremely rare in Zurich. As Jung relates the story Philemon became his mentor spirit with whom he imagines having many conversations. Jung's theory of the Collective Unconscious centered on unconscious idea-symbols or archetypes largely focused on spiritual, mythical, or religious symbolism - clearly influenced by his personal subjective spiritual-mythic experiences.
Similarly, my spiritual-psychic experiences complemented by some more ordinary political intuition all dealt, one way or another with political Intuition-Precognition and "perceptions of threats to the group - parallel to the "alarm calls of animals." That is, In my roughly thirty eight years of experiences, nearly all of my spiritual-psychic experiences could best be described as "perceptions-warnings of threats to the group," and without question rooted instinctual processes. Very relevant to this issue is that both the psychologists, Dean Radin and Daryl Bem, argue vigorously that instinctual processes are involved with many spiritual-psychic experiences, and of various designs of Daryl Bem's precognition experiments, the design specifically focused on precognitive perception of sexual stimuli by far outperformed all other designs. Daryl Bem's precognition experiments have been performed a large number of times resulting in repeated successful precognition experiments, even though the experiments had different designs. An article summarizing a Meta-analysis stated that "The complete database comprises 90 experiments conducted between 2001 and 2013. These originated in 33 different laboratories located in 14 countries and involved 12,406 participants." (1.) By far Daryl Bem's best performing design was 'the precognitive detection of erotic stimuli' (1.) It would seem somewhat self-evident that some of the mind's spiritual-psychic processes rooted in instinctual processes must in some way be connected into a collective consciousness in one way or another.
In general I should say that of my spiritual-psychic experiences, I have one very detailed and remarkable "once in a lifetime" transcendental spiritual-psychic experience tiled "What a nightmare" - which comparatively speaking was exceptionally detailed and comparatively speaking historically unprecedented. What makes my "What a nightmare" remarkable is that, the last line included the "Mustard Seed" [Parable] which, in my view appears to be actually a "divine insight!" The Mustard Seed Parable dovetails perfectly with the Synthesis-Consensus of Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, William James, and Emile Durkheim that states unequivocally that "spirit" [spiritual processes] create meaning - and relative to the parable are "metaphorically" mustard seeds that create growth and produce a wonderful Mustard Seed Plant. Also, I have a few 'detailed' precognitive dreams, and perhaps as many as a couple dozen what I call precognitive perceptions or dreams which I would describe as "tags" - which I define simply as 'a fairly well described central action plus one or two details.' Of those precognitive dreams and perceptions, perhaps six or seven are documented.
From my research, It appears readily apparent that the three best psychological analyses of spiritual and religious beliefs were done by Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, and William James as well as the sociologist, Emile Durkheim. The Synthesis-Consensus of these greats is that "spirit" [spiritual processes] create meaning and a sense of reality. I am a bit different form them since my most profound transcendental spiritual-psychic experience clearly involved information, that though it flowed through my consciousness, pretty clearly came from an external source, and as anyone who knew me then would have said I could not possibly have 'done it' by myself. Carl Jung believed in one way or the other that 'everything' came from or through human consciousness- Collective Unconsciousness in one way or the other. So, similar to the beliefs of the famous physicist Max Planck who believes in an "intelligence Mind" that pervades the universe, I concluded that there must exist a "transcendental Intelligence" of some sort.
One of my strengths turned out to be political intuition-precognition, which resulted in an interest and seeming natural grasp of ideology, instincts, and collective consciousness. First, I should mention that there is solid evidence for the existence of mental telepathy, and if there is mental telepathy, then, at bare minimum that would necessitate the existence of a "consciousness internet of some sort - so the Collective Consciousness would most likely be incredibly complex. Furthermore, in that political events are involved in most all my experiences, it would necessarily include of processes of the human mind involved in processing social-political signals and stimuli. Of course, Durkheim's concept of collective consciousness focused to a large degree on [largely unconscious] "norms." That again is a big difference from the other psychologists theories.
Besides myself, however, there are some historical illustrations of others such as Joan of Arc or the contemporary White Rider, where the integration between political and spiritual processes appear - which is a new twist in spiritual-psychic experiences. Here is a link to "St. Joan of Arc, the White Rider of Revelations: Prophecy, Madness, and the Holy Spirit" - which includes some illustrations from the dark side of spirituality of assassins who believed they were divinely ordained in their acts of mindless violence. https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/post-titledda7ac8a
II. Setting the Stage: Research into the New Unconscious by John Bargh {and others]
John A Bargh & Tanya L. Chartrand, in their article, The Unbearable Automaticity of Being, observe that among the different research into the unconscious by Cognitive Psychology, Neuroscience, and behaviorist psychology that there are "Three major forms of automatic self-regulation are identified: an automatic effect of perception on action, automatic goal pursuit, and a continual automatic evaluation of one’s experience. From the accumulating evidence, the authors conclude that these various nonconscious mental systems perform the lion’s share of the self-regulatory burden, beneficially keeping the individual grounded in his or her current environment. (P.462) Furthermore, there is also a consensus that a large mount of what the unconscious processes is beyond the awareness of conscious thought and cognitive processes.
John Bargh consistently emphasizes the very subtle environmental influences that have significant effects on peoples' behaviors. Bargh observes, “Imagine for a moment that you are a psychology professor who does experiments on conscious awareness. You keep finding that your subtle manipulations of people’s judgments and even behavior are successful –causing your experimental participants to like someone or to dislike that same person, to feel happy or sad, to behave rudely or with infinite patience. However, none of your participants have a clue as to what caused them to feel or behave.”
In their article, the authors highlight an experiment on racial stereotypes - which can be very salient and very powerful being energized by the powerful emotions of group-related instincts. Bargh observes, "In the first (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996, Experiment 3), participants who were subliminally presented with faces of young male African Americans subsequently reacted with greater hostility (a component of the African American stereotype [e.g., Devine, 1989]) to a mild provocation, compared with the control condition."
He then summarizes the results when he states, "As predicted, the partners of participants who had earlier been subliminally primed with African American faces manifested greater hostility than the partners of those who had not been primed. Most important, the primed participants themselves rated their partners as being more hostile than did nonprimed participants. For the primed participants, their own hostile behavior, nonconsciously driven by the content of their stereotype of African Americans, caused their partners to respond in kind, but the primed participants had no clue as to their own role in producing that hostility.' (The Unbearable Automaticity of Being, John A Bargh & Tanya L. Chartrand - p. 462 July 1999 American Psychologist)
The point is that the "partner" of the subject who had been subliminally "primed" was the one who reacted more hostilely than the subject him (or her) self. The partner had not been primed - but the emotions had been communicated nonconsciously. Clearly evidence fo a colelcitve unconscious of some sort.
III. Body Language and Unconscious Psychology
Furthermore, there has been quite a bit of research into unconscious and nonconscious processes. It is well known, for instance, that body language and tone of voice are very significant in ordinary human communication. “Albert Mehrabian maintains that during a conversation, 7% of what is communicated is via what is said, 38% is via tone of voice, and the majority, 55%, is via body language. This is also referred to as the ‘7%-38%-55% Rule’, and is often considered in studies of human communications." There is a school of thought which has recently emerged in psychology that takes this idea of unconscious communication and argues that unconscious-nonconscious processes are pivotal in shaping human thought, behavior, and beliefs.
The psychologist, Kihlstrom, notes that “[A]n emerging area of research interest is implicit thought where subjects are influenced by ideas that are not, themselves, properly construed as percepts or memories” Studies and experiments have demonstrated the effects of perceptual, evaluative, and motivational nonconscious processes. Two prominent psychologists of the unconscious, John Bargh and Ezequiel Morsella, summarize their theory of the unconscious as “the view that the unconscious mind is a pervasive, powerful influence over such higher mental processes.” Bargh and Morsella go on to say that “there now exists substantial evidence that the unconscious is not identifiably less flexible, complex, controlling, deliberative, or action-oriented than is its counterpart [cognitive processes].” Neuroscience has identified 360 distinct regions of the brain, many of which most likely would be considered part of the unconscious processes. The bottom line is that the recent research into unconscious processes which clearly indicates that the unconscious processes area "pervasive, powerful influence" and the demonstrated influence of "implicit thought" would seem to strongly suggest that Emile Durkheim's concept of a collective consciousness, Carl Jung's concept of a Collective Unconscious, and McDougall's concept of Group Mind are founded on a wide basis of fact and evidence.
The research into unconscious processes and group-related dynamics has revealed some aspects of collective consciousness and group or collective behaviors. There appears to be a shift away from the ‘stand-alone’ individual as a model for many psychologists. Early on, William James observed that there is a ’connectedness’ to consciousness in that an individual, who, in his metaphor, may appear as an island, is still connected beneath the sea with other land masses. Roy Baumeister emphasizes there must exist some minimal “sharedness,” or common meanings and understandings if society is to function at all. In the end, human beings are, at the core, “social” animals. Carl Jung – and McDougall – were the first scholars and psychologists or psychoanalysts to realize the reality of social-collective consciousness - though many spiritual and religious leaders advocated the consciousness of oneness long before the arrival of psychologists and psychoanalysts.
IV. The Battle at Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War and Collective Consciousness
The Battle at Chosin Reservoir in North Korea during the Korean War, had to be one of the fiercest fights, as well as one of the most brutal and hardest fought battles in American history. The Marine, as well as Army and allies soldiers fought in the bitterest cold in Korean memory. Soldiers were found frozen in their foxholes. More Chinese soldiers died from cold than from the fight. The American forces were outnumbered over ten to one. The Chinese kept coming and coming. Somehow the American forces didn’t give up and held together in a fighting withdrawal. When the last rear guard of the marines arrived at the extradition point, the marine unit sang the marine anthem as they marched. It would seem it was their spirit – their fighting spirit – which saw the American forces through their horrific ordeal. "Materialist" psychology generally focuses on quatifiable and measurable concepts, as well as excluding All spirituality, religious beliefs, and meaning, so concepts like spirituality or esprit de corps , though dealt with by existential and positive psychologists, are generally avoided by mainstream psychology and materialist psychologists often dismiss any and all concepts or ideas of spirit in any form. Yet, it is crystal clear that the intangible (and unquantifiable) concept of esprit de corps was incredibly salient and actually vital in the actions of these marines in their battle at Chosin Reservoir.
This "esprit de corps" is an excellent illustration of a collective consciousness - a 'something' intangible that connects individuals and brings them together as a group. In fact, it is very suggestive of in a tangential way of the "emotional effervescence" Emile Durkheim observed at the 'primitive' or traditional societies of the Australian Aborigine. In any case there is an unspoken 'bond" or "attachment" between the individuals of a military unit. Several military documents have highlighted soldiers who fairly frequently explain that, in the end, they are not fighting for apple pie, or, mother and country, but what they are fighting for their "buddy" - their fellow soldier fighting beside them. That would be a basic ingredient of collective consciousness - an unspoken physical bond or connection between people. As, Nicki Lisa Cole, (Ph.D.) explains Durkheim's concept of collective consciousness, "The collective consciousness informs our sense of belonging and identity, and our behavior."In this case, the unspoken bond is clearly unconscious by nature.
VI. Carl Jung
Collective Unconscious
Carl Jung, the famous psychoanalyst based a large part of his theory of human consciousness on the concept of a Collective Unconscious which emphasized the role of archetypes. Archetypes were a pivotal concept of Carl Jung’s Theory of the Collective Unconscious. “These themes, symbols, and motifs are all a psychic mechanism of a collective repository of our shared evolution as a species and have grown around shared and repeated exposure to dilemmas and challenges to human experience. This repeating pattern of experience is expressed in the psyche as an archetype……In other words, we are endowed at birth with an innate sense of what experiences are likely to occur during a lifetime on earth as a human and are ‘preprogrammed’ through the psyche to respond in a typical human fashion.” (J. L. Henderson) Jung often spoke of "instinctual" capacities. Carl Jung distinguished between a personal unconscious and a Collective Unconscious. The Collective Unconscious contained the transpersonal and interpersonal psychic influences, as well as religious, spiritual, or mythic influences that were essentially extra-personal. These "collective psychic forces" were expressed and manifested as "archetypes." Archetypes are also typically described as "predispositions."
Somewhat prophetically foretelling the concept of "genetic memory, Carl Jung spoke about the instinctual "capacities" and potential in the human mind that contain what might be called 'historically gained or 'learned capacities.' In, The Undiscovered Self, Jung stated that "Religion....is an instinctive attitude peculiar to man." (CW 10 par 512). In light of Jung's statements that spiritual, religious, mythic, and instinctual "capacities" are focused in the Collective Unconscious, it would seem clear that The Collective Unconscious would have been a primary force in the creation of religious and spiritual beliefs and religion. Jung states about the Collective Unconscious that, "its contents are not personal but collective, that is they do not belong to one individual alone but to a whole group of individuals, and generally to a whole nation, or even to the whole of mankind." (p.117 Borderland).
This remarkably mirrors Emile Durkheim's description of a Collective Consciousness. Durkheim also emphasized the emotional and instinctual nature of religious beliefs. There is some recent research which could be used to support Jung's idea of the Collective Unconscious. If there are two thing social psychology has definitely proved that would be stereotypes and the ingroup-outgroup syndrome. Stereotypes are 'pictures' or models of a class of people as defined by ethnic, gender, or other characteristics which are applied to that group as a total. There is a definite emotional-unconscious aspect to stereotypes. In fact, in social psychology, "implicit stereotypes" have been identified which reside in the person's unconscious. In Jung's analysis these "predispositions" would reside in the collective unconscious, that people ordinarily have no control over. While Jungian analysts ordinarily wouldn't go out and celebrate about stereotype "archetypes" stereotypes are still by any consideration still definitely "unconscious predispositions" which do, in fact, provide scientific confirmation that Jung's theory of the collective unconscious has some basis in fact.
VII. Emile Durkheim's Collective Consciousness
Besides psychology, several sociologists also advocated the idea of a collective consciousness. Nicki Lisa Cole, (Ph.D.) states, "Collective consciousness (sometimes collective conscience or conscious) is a fundamental sociological concept that refers to the set of shared beliefs, ideas, attitudes, and knowledge that are common to a social group or society. The collective consciousness informs our sense of belonging and identity, and our behavior." It is somewhat evident that much of the operations of the Collective Consciousness takes place at an unconscious level. Presaging social psychology's concept of a Need to Belong (i.e. Roy Baumeister), Emile Durkheim, a founding father of sociology, argued that people had a drive to achieve a "solidarity." Roy Baumeister argues that the Need to belong is the most powerful need in human beings. The communal "solidarity" then produced a collective consciousness - which he defined as "the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society." Durkheim argued that "norms" and values were produced by the collective consciousness in a large part through [unconscious] religious vehicles such as rituals and symbolism. Durkheim argued that religions in primitive or traditional societies generated social norms and ideals. For instance, all the major religions advocate compassion, justice, and righteousness - all of which could be said to represent social ideals. As Emile Durkheim noted norms as well as social ideals such as compassion, justice, and righteousness do emerge from collective consciousness.
VIII. Psychologist William McDougall's Group MInd
There were a few psychologists besides Jung early in the history of social psychology who echoed Jung’s idea. William McDougall (1871– 1938), who actually predated Jung, was a psychologist who was influential in the development of the theory of instinct and of social psychology. McDougall did propose the concept of a “Group Mind.” McDougall stated: “We must recognize……the existence in a certain sense of over-individual or collective We may fairly define mind as an organized system of mental or purposive forces, and in the sense so defined, every organized human society may properly be said to possess a collective mind….which yet is not compared within the mind of any Individual. (1921, p.9)
IX. Dark Side of Collective Consciousness
There is, without question, a dark side to collective consciousness. McDougall also observed: “Participation in group life degrades the individual, assimilating his mental processes to those of the crowd, whose brutality, inconstancy, and unreasoning impulsiveness have been the theme of many writers; yet only by participation in groups life does man become fully man, only does he rise above the savage. (1921, p.20) (Soc Psych Handbook, p.899) Jung was actually a bit prophetic about the rise of Nazism. Much of what Jung says mirrors what McDougall states. Jung stated that "All human control comes to an end when the individual is caught in a mass movement."(Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 395) Also Jung emphasized that "When you are in a herd you lose the sense of danger, and this it is that makes us unable to see where we deviate from the deep currents of collectivity." (Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 75)
X. The Ingroup-Outgroup Syndrome
of Social Identity Theory
The ingroup-outgroup syndrome simply put is the predisposition to view ingroup members favorably and outgroup member unfavorably. Those two processes appear to be related in that stereotypes encourage ingroups (differences are minimized and similarities highlighted) and outgroups (differences are maximized). That is, some people use stereotypes to feel better about themselves because stereotypes mean that my group is better than the “other” group. Roy Baumeister sums up a lot of their work when he emphasizes how people “readily and easily” adopt group values and norms and become members of a group. In fact, I would argue that it would appear very likely in the proliferation of groups and ideologies throughout human history that there would likely be group-related instincts, factory installed software, and 'preformed' models of group member roles and so on that explains why individuals so readily and easily adopt values, norms, and behaviors of the group. The bottom line is that social psychology has definitely shown that groups are a huge influence on individuals and most often individuals form their “identities” by defining themselves in terms of their groups. So, social psychology has shown that McDougall’s concept of a Collective Mind and Jung’s concept of a Collective Unconscious has some merit, based on facts and evidence.
Today, any objective view of contemporary politics would seem to reveal some obvious "herd" or "mob" behaviors in the Trump cult of personality. In the 2016 election zombie-like Republicans mindlessly chanted about putting Hillary Clinton in jail (or even death at one Republican rally I believe). And now, at Trump rallies the Republican "mobs" at rallies (many of whom would seem to claim to be "Christian") chant "Send them back" - referring to the four minority Democrat Congressmen.
As Carl Jung observed, 'The great dangers threatening the life of millions are not physical factors, but mental folly and diabolical schemes causing mental epidemics in the mentally defenseless masses. (Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 124-125). Elsewhere Carl Jung observed, "As a rule, when the collective unconscious becomes really constellated in larger social groups, the result is a public craze, a mental epidemic that may lead to revolution or war or something of the sort. These movements are exceedingly contagious—almost overwhelmingly contagious because, when the collective unconscious is activated, you are no longer the same person. You are not only in the movement—you «are» it." (C.G. Jung, The Tavistock Lectures, Lecture II - The Symbolic Life, Collected Works Vol. 18, par. 92-93)
In any case, the frequent "mob" or "herd" political - and religious - public displays which give a clear indication that there is, in fact, a literal and physical "collective consciousness" in human behavior and society. The lesson to be learned from this would seem to be that besides there being an unconscious communication of potential "political" of "religious contagions, it would stand to reason that there is an existing unconscious interconnection capable of communicating other intricate symbolism as well as information.
XI. The Materialist's Human Brain
The social psychologist Allport, in the 1920's, utterly rejected William McDougall's 'Group MInd' approach. He stated, in a rather pedagogical manner: “There is no psychology of groups which is not essentially and entirely a psychology of individuals.” (1924, pp. vi, 4) (Soc Psych Handbook) This remarkably reflects the materialist view that human consciousness is restricted entirely to the brain of a separate individual, and that that all of human consciousness is constrained to the firing of neurons and the thoughts of the individual minds. We have seen that the existence of "collective consciousness" is a reality in one form or another. Even the mainstream social psychologist Baumeister argues that there must exist a "sharedness" in human consciousness if society were to be able survive intact at all. Since Allport, social psychologists have been reticent to advocate any ideas of collective consciousness.
However, if there are two things that social psychology has ‘proved’ that would be the ingroup-outgroup syndrome and the existence of stereotypes. Stereotypes would seem to show certain processes-beliefs common to most human minds. Plus, there are the unconscious processes that show, as the neuroscientist Joshua Green did that there are certain relatively common unconscious processes which have a predisposition to avoid interpersonal conflict. Furthermore, the research into meaning by existential and positive psychologists demonstrate that meaning is, in one way or other "socially" derived and, in the end, obtained in one fashion or another from or through others. That is, human beings are intricately and inextricably connected. It would seem that to completely separate an individual from the "social" environment, or others, to which the person is so intricately connected, in any meaningful way would not, on the face of it, appear to be a reasonable or viable scientific proposition. In the end, everything about a person is in "social being" and "others."
Einstein emphasized that the idea of separateness from others is an illusion and that people are intricately and inextricably connected with others. William James, the Father of American Psychology, also unequivocally stated: "This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed." Strict materialist psychology completely excludes not only "meaning" altogether, but spirituality totally, as well. Perhaps it is the anti-spirituality bias of the materialist view which drives materialist orientated psychologists to take the rather extreme - and rather untenable, in my view - position that the human mind is a separate and isolated "mechanism" much reminiscent of the mechanistic-materialist position alluded to by the French philosopher Rene Guenon, who believed materialism began with Descartes. As Higgins and Kruglanski, in their 700 plus page Social Psychology Handbook of Basic Principles, observe, "Psychologists who study groups approach the idea of a group as an entity only very gingerly." Besides having no references to collective consciousness, there are also no references to spirit, spirituality, or religion in Higgins and Kruglanski's reference Handbook. Not many are aware of academic taboos which not only appear to exist but to have some strong resilience as well.
XII. Consciousness as Max Planck's Matrix or Intelligent Mind
Max Planck, a German physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in 1918. Physics in 1918. Planck’s fame came from his creation of quantum theory and quantum mechanics. Planck came to the conclusion that “consciousness [is] fundamental. [And that] matter is derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. Later Planck observed, “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."
XIII. Collective Consciousness &Transcendental Intelligence
The "What a nightmare - Mustard Seed" transcendental spiritual-psychic and nearly all my other personal spiritual-psychic experiences reflect to a large degree the same idea as Planck's "intelligent mind" or consciousness matrix. However, in light pf my experiences Planck's idea of "intelligent mind" and consciousness matrix needs to be adopted, or modified, especially in light of the fact that nearly all of my experiences are, in one form or another, expressions of "perceptions of threats to the group." As such, the experiences could perhaps be explained, possibly, as a human variant of animal "alarm calls" - for instance, such as Vervet monkeys who have four separate alarm calls for four different predators. Of course, social signals and political stimuli are conveyed by the collective consciousness - much in the sense of Emile Durkheim's collective consciousness which conveys "norms."
Both the parapsychologists Dean Radin and Daryl Bem, argue that many spiritual-psychic experiences are rooted in instinctual processes. Daryl Bem has performed repeated successful precognition experiments of different designs. Repeated (and successful) experiments have been performed in over 90 countries involving over 1500 subjects. Bem's best performing experimental design was picking out sexual images prior to the images actually being shown. The famous TV Long Island Medium, Theresa Caputi, who is amazingly consistent, is obviously helping people get closure with departed loved ones - perhaps via the instinctual processes in the anterior cingulate which Tania Singer has shown are implicated in "empathy." Many people thank her profusely. Also Edgar Cayce the famous documented psychic active roughly from 1925 to 1945 was a documented "healer." There is documented evidence that Edgar Cayce is known to have 'cured" 8 epileptics, in a day and age when there were No medicines - and even today modern medicine largely "manages epilepsy with cures being largely unknown even today. In any case the argument that spiritual and psychic experiences are rooted in instinctual processes would seem to have a solid foundation.
After thinking it over, and turning the myriad questions over and over in my mind, for very long time, I came to several conclusions. First, it seemed clear that the only way I could have become conscious - or ‘received’ - the rather detailed precognitive "information" - which I had written out in the notarized stream of consciousness before the event occurred - was, in fact, if there did exist some kind of Collective Consciousness - Transcendental-Intelligence [from whence the information came]. Furthermore, it seemed clear to me from my experience that there must be some kind of a physical inter-connectivity as well as an acausal characteristic which must be very intricate and inherent in human consciousness, both through mental telepathy as well as in clairvoyance. Pauli observed that “although [particle physics] allows for an acausal form of observation, it actually has no use for the concept of ‘meaning’” — that is, meaning is not a fundamental function of reality but an interpretation superimposed by the human observer."
Judging from that experience, it would seem that human consciousness - collective consciousness must possess an "acausal" aspect or characteristic of some sort, perhaps much like quantum entanglement. Without question, human consciousness - especially in light of collective consciousness is incredibly complex. Neuroscience has identified 360 distinct regions of the brain. Many MRI studies show that specific situations - as in the "trolley dilemma" versus the "footbridge dilemma in a n MRI experiment on moral judgment - trigger separate and different regions into activity depending on the situation. Furthermore, a recent neuroscience experiment on the regions of the brain activated by specific objects showed that a brain MRI of a simple image of a hammer shows up in 5 or 6 different regions of the brain. - or more complex - than quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement.
Reflections and Commentary:
Spiritual Aspects of Collective Consciousness: St Gregory of Nyssa and Tolstoy
It is a bit remarkable, in my mind, that St Gregory of Nyssa (335 – 395), an early Christian mystic and vocal opponent of slavery and saint who was venerated in Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Lutheran Church, the Episcopal Church, as well as Anglicanism, observed long ago the dangers of (group-related) ideologies. Echoing what Jung, McDougall, as well as William James would say much later, St. Gregory of Nyssa unequivocally stated, "Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees." Historically, it is very true, indeed that political, as well as religious, ideologies - 'conceptual idols' - have in fact been responsible for killing millions and millions of people. From The Life of Moses, St. Gregory of Nyssa states, "[E]very concept that comes from some comprehensible image, by an approximate understanding and by guessing at the Divine nature, constitutes a idol of God and does not proclaim God." Perhaps reflecting this sentiment, a Baptist woman once said to me, "Religion is of man! Spirit is of God!"
Tolstoy, the brilliant Russian novelist and radical Christian was, perhaps, the 'ultimate' pacifist. Tolstoy was against any time of warfare by anybody anywhere. When the brief Russo-Japanese War came along in 1903, Tolstoy noted that even though he was a dedicated pacifist, he still felt very strong patriotic emotions. Tolstoy felt that patriotism and ideologies generally should be kept at arms-length, as it were. Tolstoy inspired both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. by his commitment to Christian virtue and principle of pacifism. I feel Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. would all be revolted by the resurgence in America of the aggressive, very intolerant and hateful, and sometimes violent White Supremacist and Neo-Nazi movement.
The oneness of life and energy within the All - and the idea of collective consciousness, as well as unity and frequently nondualism - can be found in all the major religions. The Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, who was an activist in the South African civil rights struggle along with Nelson Mandela, stated, "The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated." In Christian theology, the term Body of Christ has a couple of different meanings, one which is associated with Jesus' words over the bread at the Last Supper when Christ stated, "This is my body" (Luke 22:19–20) along those lines the passages in Romans 12:4-5 state, “Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.”
Within Hinduism, there is a tradition, and spirit, of inclusiveness. The Hindu Radhanath Swami observed: "In Sanatan Dharma, or what is commonly called Hinduism, I discovered the basic truths of all religions in a way that the oneness of God and religion is comprehensively understood." As the Muslim scholar, Bakri Aladdin observes, Ibn 'Arabi, a Sufi mystic, poet, and Muslim scholar wrote: "God is exalted above being multiple in His essence, far transcendent and great beyond that indeed. To Him belongs absolute Oneness. he is the One (al-wahid), 'the Only One, Allah the eternal Refuge, He neither begets', that He would be a premise, 'nor is He begotten', that He would be a conclusion." Ibn Arabi is credited with founding the Oneness of Being (waḥdat al-wujūd) Sufi order. Similar to Anglican Bishop Tutu's statement that there was a religious and spiritual "oneness" before religion even came into being in the very existence of God, Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi observed that "God has no religion. Each one prays to God according to his own light."
Einstein, especially in light of some of his lofty ideas about relativity and quantum mechanics, was really very down to earth. Along the same exact lines of thought as these religious and spiritual leaders, Einstein stated unequivocally: “A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Carl Jung has an interesting take on 'final' or ultimate "unity," which the author of C.G. Jung And Paul Tillich: The Psyche as Sacrament, John P. Dourley, compares to Tillich's concept of "God as the "ground of being"." The "magical" - or perhaps transcendental - "creation of unity" produced a "union with the world - not with the world of multiplicity as we see it but with a potential world, the eternal Ground of all empirical being, just as the self is the ground and origin of the individual personality past, present, future." (p.85) That is actually, in my mind, a rather complex idea as Jung expresses it. Jung seems to say true unity transcends the world but consists of the "ground of being" on which worldly being is actually based. This does, however, appear parallel, in a way, to what Lao Tzu says: Those who are highly evolved, maintain an undiscriminating perception. Seeing everything, labeling nothing, they maintain their awareness of the Great Oneness. Thus, they are supported by it.
Highlighting Transcendental Spiritual-Psychic Experiences
Before beginning this section, I would like to briefly highlight some recent studies done by existential and positive psychologists of people who have spiritual experiences or transcendental spiritual-psychic experiences. The psychologists Paloutzian and Park, in their Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, also cite the fact that "numerous surveys" of people who have spiritual or transcendental spiritual-psychic experiences have been done. They go on and emphasize the point that spiritual and transcendental spiritual experiences appear to occur relatively frequently and that spiritual experiences appear to have some "normalcy" - something mainstream psychologists to have no awareness of.
As the religious scholar Fraser Watts states, several "surveys" which have been done of people who have spiritual experiences seem to show roughly about one third of people surveyed have spiritual experiences. Fraser Watts goes on to say that most people don't ordinarily talk about their experiences openly. As, I explain elsewhere "mainstream psychology does have a distinct "materialist bias" and has generally sidelined existential and positive psychology where these studies have been done. The bottom line is that while existential and positive psychology argue that there is a "normalcy" to spiritual experiences, mainstream psychology appears, at times (depending on what psychologist you talk to), to actively portray spiritual experiences as "superstitious nonsense" or worse.
Edgar Cayce, the famous documented psychic and healer who was active roughly from 1923 to 1945, also spoke of the concept of a 'Collective Unconscious,' though I suspect it may have been more in the context of psychic and mental telepathy. There is,m actually, some solid evidence from research into mental telepathy as well as Ganzfeld experiments which support the idea and existence of mental telepathy. My personal reflection on the existence of mental telepathy would be, "If there is mental telepathy, in some form or fashion, then, it would seem readily apparent that there must exist some kind of collective consciousness in the sense of telepathic connection, perhaps, in the sense of a "psychic consciousness internet," as it were. A thought behind that would be that, in a "psychic" sense one could "search" the consciousness internet for information which some psychic seem to be able to do. Though Jung believed "spirits" originated from the Collective Unconscious, this "psychic connectivity consciousness" would necessarily diverge greatly from Durkheim's concept of Collective Consciousness - which seems to highlight the meaning-emotional mutual community aspect of the Collective Consciousness.
Jung also emphasizes the emotional "power to grip" of spirit by which spirit moves the person to action (psyche as...p. 80). It would seem readily apparent that human connectivity, as in collective consciousness, is both incredibly complex, and very sophisticated, as well. It is noteworthy that Carl Jung argued that, "When its [spirit] meaning is restricted to the supernatural or anti-natural," then spirit loses "its substantial connection with psyche and life." (Psyche as Sacrament, p. 79) That is something that resonates strongly with my (notarized) precognitive transcendental spiritual-psychic experience.
Because of some spiritual and religious symbolism and the emotional content, as well as the fact that the experience was rather exceptionally detailed so I concluded there had to have been a transcendental aspect, I concluded that it was an expression of then Holy spirit. I should add that Ruach Hakodesh, generally understood as "divine inspiration," is a very similar concept in "Judaism. In Islam, Ruh al-Qudus is also a very similar concept to the Holy spirit. Needless to say the Holy spirit would necessarily convey a 'connectivity as well as an aspect of oneness.
In the context of the Holy Spirit, it would appear relevant that Christ said to worship in "Spirit and Truth" (John 4:23-24) Some Christians, at times, seem to 'over-emphasize' the transcendental aspect of God. Christ in John 4:23-24 said to worship "In Spirit and Truth" Christ didn't say to worship the 'Transcendental God' - as it were. In my view, the emphasis on "Spirit and Truth" versus 'Transcendental God' would seem to suggest an entirely different "orientation" or way of looking at things - a more down to earth - or imminent - viewpoint, in my mind.
The famous Lutheran Theologian, Paul Tillich (1886 – 1965) stated "In the human spirit's essential relation to divine Spirit, there is no correlation, but rather, mutual immanence." Sacrament,..p.89) A question that crossed my mind would be: As a result of a personal transcendental spiritual experience which I believe was an expression of the Holy spirit, my sense of my experience was that an important aspect of the experience was connectivity, a connectivity I associate as being similar to "collective consciousness." Both Carl Jung and Viktor Frankl agree that there is a 'transcendental or 'superior' conscience or spirit in human consciousness, and the pretty wild thought occurred to me that metaphorically speaking the Holy Spirit could possibly be viewed from a certain perspective as a superior conscience or higher collective 'self' to the Cosmic-Collective Consciousness.
In light of the contemporary "politicization" of Christ's Teachings [which historically appears to have begun in the late 1980's - about when G. W. Bush converted) especially by Trump Christians, it seems clear that some "Christian" leaders purposely emphasize the Transcendental and essentially Other-worldly God specifically to orient a person's attention completely on that which would marginalize a person's sense fo agency or autonomy thsu making Church members dependent on [the leaders' interpretation of] God!
Postlude: Perspective of Group Mind in Historical Cycles in Contemporary Events.
Jung's Prophecy of Hitler and Trump as the Mirror Image of Hitler
Carl Jung was a very brilliant individual who had some brilliant insights. He saw the politics of his day very critically and objectively! Some of his insights and perspectives are particularly relevant to contemporary politics, in my view. "And a new miracle happened. Out of nowhere certain men came, and each of them said like Louis XIV, “L’etat c’est moi.” They are the new leaders. The State has proved its personal reality by incarnating itself in men that came from Galilee, inconspicuous nobodies previously, but equipped with the great spirit voice that cowed the people into soundless obedience. They are like Roman Caesars, usurpers of empires and kingdoms, and like those incarnations of a previously invisible deity devoutly invoked and believed in by everybody. They are the State that has superseded the medieval theocracy. This process of incarnation is particularly drastic in Hitler’s case. Hitler himself as an ordinary person is a shy and friendly man with artistic tastes and gifts. As a mere man he is inoffensive and modest, and has nice eyes. When the State-spirit speaks through him, he sends forth a voice of thunder and his word is so powerful that it sweeps together crowds of millions like fallen autumn leaves. There is obviously no power left in the world and particularly no State-loving “-ism” which is capable of resisting this incredible force. (Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 567-581)
Many people compare Trump to Hitler and the Republicans to Nazis. Historically, a comparison of Trump to Hitler reveals that Trump's politics mirror perfectly Adolf Hitler's well known and despicable tactic of "scapegoating." Hitler gained popularity with his "nationalism" platform which of course triggered strong instinctual "patriotic emotional responses. Also, Trump's narcissism, which is well known, matches perfectly Hitler's narcissism. Trump's homophobic anti-gay and anti-transgender matches Hitler's well-known homophobia. Furthermore, Hitler's apposition of "internationalism" matches perfectly Trump's antagonism to "globalism" recently espoused in a speech at the U.N - and Trump advocates "nationalism" which historically has demonstrated itself to be aggressive, inflexible, and often very violent. So, politically Trump is a clone of Hitler's politics of hatred and aggression. Statistics and facts support the argument that Trump's hate speech has incited, encouraged, and increased right wing extremist violence - that's a hard fact. I(n 2017, after Trump took office, hate crimes increased 25% and even though Trump supported Israel, since hate is hate, attacks increased against Jews by 90%. Also, an article showed a serious spike and surge in right wing Neo-Nazi and White Nationalist violent terrorist attack
Link to website: https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/
Hopefully, you will consider making a donation! - or possibly even becoming a Patron!
My writing and ideas are born of passion, which are inspired and driven by some personal spiritual experiences. Many others besides me also find inspiration, creativity, or love and peace in spirituality.
While I will never claim to have The Answer, or know the Absolute Truth, the insights form my spiritual experiences as well as understanding gained from substantial research, I can provide others some tools, analyses, and basic concepts by which hopefully would allow people to better understand the dynamics involved in human consciousness, and hopefully help them forge their own paths through life.
If you have found my writing helpful in any way, please consider assisting my efforts to remain independent and able to focus on research and writing. I am retired and on fixed income. Your support would make all the difference.
Paypal Donation Button Below
Content Copyrighted Charles E Peck Jr. Copyright © 2020
John Bargh, PhD: http://bargh.socialpsychology.org/
Viktor Frankl: http://www.viktor-frankl.com/
Viktor Frankl: http://www.viktorfrankl.org/
Roy Baumeister: http://www.roybaumeister.com/
Roy Baumeister: https://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/baumeisterr/baumeister.dp.php
Dr. Paul Wong: http://www.drpaulwong.com/
Dr. Paul Wong: https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/paul-wong-biography/
Clifford Geertz: https://www.biography.com/people/clifford-geertz-9308224
Carl Jung: https://www.biography.com/people/carl-jung-9359134
Carl Jung: https://www.psychologistworld.com/cognitive/carl-jung-analytical-psychology
Emile Durkheim:
http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/
Emile Durkheim: http://faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/felwell/www/Theorists/Durkheim/index2.htm
William James: https://www.biography.com/people/william-james-9352726
William James: https://study.com/academy/lesson/william-james-psychology-theories-lesson-quiz.html