Jung and “Invidia-tion”

Anthony Stevens elucidates why sleep and dream scientists tend to dismiss Jung and the depth psychologists in relation to their approach to dreams. He refers to the term that Leon Daudet has coined as “Invidia,” which describes the ever re-occuring conflicts that happen when people divide themselves into the “in-group” and “out-group” dichotomy (Private Myths pg.83).

Invidia, is why scientists dismiss Jung, but also the very reason that his fellow depth psychologists support him. In an earlier post, I had mentioned that one of the hardest things to sort out is, the attempt to derive meaning from the whole, meaning, parts that we both identify, and don’t identify with. That good and the bad. But for whatever reason, one seems to glean immense meaning from swearing allegiance to one side. Hence, leaving us unprotected against inflation and alienation with the archetypes. I think this is what is being played out with this allegiance phenomena is the split in the Christ-Satan myth in our psychology. One side, the people we put in our “in-group,” becomes filled with light and becomes the Christ side, which is treated with loyalty and attachment, and the other “the out-group,” becomes the Satan side, which is to be cast out into the shadow, treated with hostility and suspicion (Private Myths pg.83).

I think that swearing allegiance to truth, rather than scientists, or Jung would help in fact create a better understanding of both, while at the same time giving due diligence to the point that each party is trying to make. Jung operates this way, meaning that he is concerned with truth over allegiance with any idea or group. He says that people are accuse him of demonology because his views correspond with the views of primitives, but what the scientists fail to realize is that he doesn’t do violence to what they are saying either. In fact, Jung uses the scientific method in all of his theories, but the phenomena of Invidia keeps the scientists in their camp and Jung in his.

Stevens goes on to say that Winson and Jouvet, don’t even acknowledge Jung, even though their hypothesis agrees with Jung’s dream theory of compensation (Private Myths pg.97). Jung being ahead of his time, even intuited Paul Maclean’s Triune brain theory in his own way by pointing out that dreams of mammals and reptiles could be related to those corresponding structures in our brain (Private Myths pg.97). Jung’s theories parallel later theorists work but have a slightly different angle and name, yet the natural process of invidia keeps Jung on the Satan side in our modern world, and the scientists on the Christ side. Healing this split is still our task to undertake to have a full and comprehensive understanding of dreams.

Lastly, Jung felt that his method of introspection was more useful than laboratory work because, in the dream, the unconscious could tell you more than the conscious mind could. The reason being is because it gives expression to the instincts and the primitive levels of nature. Through paying close attention to our findings in the dream, we can connect back to our natural law of being, (Private Myths pg.107-108) and transform the group wholes that result from the warring sides in invidia, to the unified whole present eternally, in the individual.

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