From Bush Soul to Jung’s Writing

The above pictures were taken at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. The first picture is a statue of an Indigenous figure; the body appears to be closely surrounded and formed by several animals. The second picture is a waxwork figure who is dressed up and decorated as an eagle. These two displays illustrate Indigenous worldview that a human being is part of nature and should be friendly with other creatures. On a deeper level, they might represent the “bush soul” idea that Carl Jung wrote about archaic men.?

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Jung claimed that the primitive people’s consciousness is at a different level of development from ours: The soul or the psyche is not felt to be one unit. The primitives assume that a man has a “bush soul” as well as his own, and the bush soul is incarnate in a wild animal or a tree, with which the human individual has psychic identity. If the bush soul is that of an animal, the primitives consider that animal as some sort of brother to the man.?

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This bush soul concept is apparently difficult to be proven scientifically and seems to be a superstition. So why did Jung spend time studying the beliefs and thinking of primitive people? Because Jung considered the human psyche (consciousness) as a product of evolution; understanding primitive peoples’ psyche would help to solve the mystery of mind. For example, bush soul indicates that an individual’s psyche is subject to fragmentation when different objectives and instincts are in conflict. We all can suffer from procrastination, knowing work needs to start but keep delaying it; we hope to exert self-control such as stop consuming sugar and exercise more, but may continue sitting on the couch and eating cakes. How can we resolve conflicts from instincts and act for rational goals? Are there bush souls within us that deny hard work, crave sugar, and hate exercising? We are as struggling as the primitives to achieve peace in our mind.

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Jung is one of prominent figures during the psychoanalysis theory development in the early 20th century. This theory proposed that the mind is structured in three layers: the self,?ego, and super ego. Roughly speaking, the ego is the consciousness, the mental activity that we are aware of; the self is the unconsciousness, the mental activity that we have no awareness and have no control over; the super ego is the conscience, the morality awareness expected by society, peers, and parents.

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This theory considered the mind as an objective phenomenon and tried to establish a scientific theory for explaining and treating people with mental illnesses.?It deems the unconsciousness as the?manifestation of basic biological instincts below the awareness threshold, repressed memory, and unwelcome thoughts. These subliminal materials can be conscious content that are pushed out of sight.?Keeping subliminal materials separated from consciousness protects humans from feeling guilty and occupied by cluttered thoughts and irrelevant perceptions. For example, one unhappy worker can unintentionally forget important deadlines to cause interruption of work schedule.?

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The psychoanalysis theory was first proposed as a method to treat mental illnesses. It believes that the tensions and conflicts in unconsciousness can lead to mental health problems. Psychoanalysts aim to uncover these tensions and conflicts to relieve patients. Certainly, Jung was trained as a psychiatrist and applied the method in his practice. But, in Jung’s autobiography and other writings, Jung has stated all his effort has been devoted to the understanding of the human mind. Since he was very young, Jung had peculiar dreams that he could not understand. He was fascinated and tried to uncover their meaning and the mechanisms of the origin.

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Unfortunately, lacking understanding of neurology and brain functions at the time, psychoanalysts’ methods and tools for study and research are limited.?For example, Jung proposed the concept of collective unconsciousness, the common images and patterns among many people’s dreams and fantasies. Based on his writings, the evidence of this concept came from the comparative studies of myths and historical literature. He suggested the similarity of the stories and pictures are the results of the symbols produced by unconsciousness. These symbols possess specific connotations and imply meanings that can be vague, unknown, and hidden. But the symbols can induce strong emotions within us because of psychic energy according to Jung.

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Jung has considered his own dream and mental images as objects for study. He recorded and described his own dreams and analysis in his books. He even painted vivid images for what he has dreamed of. He believed dreams were important and contained messages that the unconscious tried to tell him. Jung suggested an individualization process which brings the unconscious content into consciousness and expands one’s horizons.?

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Jung called unconsciousness his second personality and followed the messages and hints in the dreams. For example, toward the end of his life, Jung was asked to write about his theory to the public, but he declined. Not long after that, he had a dream in which he was making a public speech to a multitude of people who were listening and understanding what he said. Jung then agreed with the request and decided to write a new book, Man and His Symbols [1]. In his autobiography [2], Jung has even described his dreams that predicted the first world war and the death of other people. For us educated with science and rationality, reading such claims from a reputable historical figure leads to confusion and questions. Were these dreams truly predicting future, was it because of distorted memory, or are there truly super-natural secrets that exist but cannot be explained by science?

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Physicist Richard Feynman has said “Incidentally, psychoanalysis is not a science: it is at best a medical process, and perhaps even more like witch doctoring. … Psychoanalysis has not been checked carefully by experiment.” Clearly, Feynman is not considering psychoanalysis as science, and this represents the common view today. Modern day psychology studies do not support many of the claims such as dream analysis. Today’s science can view live brain activity with medical imaging techniques. Researchers design and conduct experiments to prove and falsify hypotheses.

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Per current mainstream understanding [3], it is generally agreed that many brain activities are unconscious without our awareness or control over. It is also agreed that brain can have conflicting motives in unconscious or conscious activities. The key change of opinions is the content of unconsciousness and the relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness. The unconsciousness contains much more than repressed instincts and thoughts. The unconsciousness processes perceptions, regulate basic physiological equilibrium such as body temperature, and quick assess environmental conditions such as danger. The biggest advantage is to relieve the consciousness to other important tasks and process multiple unconscious tasks simultaneously in parallel such as walking and breathing. Unlike psychoanalysis theory that unconscious conflicts lead to mental illness, unconscious activities are helping consciousness to perform other tasks. They work together, instead of against each other.

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Though not accepted as a science theory, Jung’s writing has wide influences outside of science. He recognized the importance of one’s spiritual life on mental health. Jung pointed out that, with the development of modern science and society, there is a crisis caused by the loss of an individual's value. He suggested the mythic stories and religion can help to restore inner peace and re-gain life meaning for modern men.

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Jung also used his psychoanalysis theory to study visual arts and literature as the product of psyche, the human mind. To explain how the creation process takes place, June considered two types of source materials. The first is the personal experience in consciousness such as life lessons, emotional shocks, etc. These materials are raised from common place to a representation that allows readers to see their insights and have them enter readers’ consciousness that readers tend to evade or overlook because of discomfort. These materials come from life experiences and can be understood. The second type is the visionary experiences such as imagination, fantasies, and dreams. Jung considered these are the product of collective unconsciousness and contain symbols that lack clear meaning but can generate emotion response. It is true dreams and fantasies can provide inspiration to artists, writers, and even scientists. Jung suggested that artists are born with ruthless passion for creation and creative process originates from unconsciousness; the great work should not speak of individual experience, but of human existence. Certainly, Jung’s works themselves are devoted to understanding mankind’s mental life and achieving inner peace.

Reference

[1] Man and his Symbols. Carl G. Jung, Random House, 1968.

[2] Memory, Dreams, Reflections. Carl G. Jung, Vintage Books, 1989.

[3] Psychology Core Concepts. Philip G. Zimbardo, Robert L. Johnson, Vivian McCann, Pearson, 2012.