Archetypes, astrology and Jung's functions (oh my!)

This is very much early days but I'm seeing a connection between Jung's four functions and the archetypes and astrology. I'm really an intuitive Persephone, but my whole life I've relied more on my Hecate thinking to get by. F is really an Aphrodite, which I would say is an extroverted feeling archetype. But his whole life he's survived by relying on his extroverted sensation Hephaestus. For both of us, as we deepen we've come to realize that we need to live out and integrate this other archetype that we didn't even realize was ours. We need to integrate the function that's associated with this new archetype, which feels like who we really are.

I've also been seeing parallels between this and astrology. For a while now I've suspected that perhaps your Ascendant, the sign that shows how you deal with new situations or people, is in your secondary archetype, the one that you adopt as a protective cover for your real archetype, the sign that's represented by the Sun, or your true nature. My Ascendant is in brainy, detached Aquarius, but my Sun is in emotional, intuitive Cancer! The same for F; his Ascendant is in Sagittarius, which he feels is his Dionysus fun loving wackiness. He has a lot of Earth, a lot of Virgo, in his chart too, in planets that affect how he takes action. But his Sun is in Libra, which is the sign of Aphrodite.

G too, I feel like his chart is pointing to a direction of growth; I'm not sure what his Ascendant is but his Sun is heavily influenced by Hadean Saturn/Capricorn and Scorpio/Pluto. He also has the same double Virgo that F does, which makes him even more Hadean. But his Sun is in Libra! And he definitely has issues with being unable to let out his exuberant Aries emotions, which are squashed between pessimistic Capricorn, practical, worry-wart Virgo and apocalyptic, emotionally overwrought Scorpio. I would read this as his emotional Poseidon side which needs to be developed, and it certainly seems to indicate that his path of integration is from his introverted sensation to his introverted feeling. Perhaps your dominant function is your Ascendant, but, in order to grow, you have to learn to express your Sun nature, or your auxiliary function. I don't know. Like I said, it's early days, but there does seem to be a thread running through the three different systems.

Integrating the four functions

The four functions aren't actually "types," unless people get stuck in a particular function. And then the Self will send neuroses in order to poke and prod at us until we get moving and growing. But in order to do so, we have to take a meandering path that snakes from our dominant function to our auxiliary function, to the tertiary function, and finally to our inferior function. This whole process takes a loooooooooooong time. And apparently it doesn't have to be particularly clear cut or even sequential, if my own life is any indication. This is actually how you move around the circle, integrating the first three functions. When you integrate another function, you live that function, and all it's strengths and weaknesses are yours.

The assimilation of functions is such a serious business that people generally spend a very long time in assimilating their auxiliary functions and sometimes, say for at least eight to ten years, become a type which was not their original type. I once, for example, knew a woman who was an introverted feeling type; that is, in the past she had been a feeling type, but in the stage at which we met, she had already switched the process to developing intuition and at that stage had as much trouble with her sensation as if she had been a genuine intuitive... [S]he went through all the crises of having to switch from intuition to sensation which you see with a primarily intuitive type; for example, she became completely inaccurate about facts and had trouble relating to them, exactly as an intuitive does. She then stated with great emphasis that it had always been an error to call her a feeling type, for she was an intuitive, but she was wrong! She was right and wrong for at the stage at which she was, she was exactly like an intuitive, but that was because she was at the stage of living in her second function and was just in the crisis of getting over to the third.

(von Franz, Psychotherapy, p. 131)

What seems to happen is your dominant function gets worn out from overuse; you get tired of using it and life gets sterile, lifeless. Feels meaningless. In my case, I had a combination of fascination for and out and out messages from dreams and the Tarot that pretty clearly told me it was time to move on, away from thinking and into intuition. Or, more accurately, more completely into intuition - I've always relied on my intuition to some degree. And when we integrate another function we become that function - all of it's strengths and weaknesses become ours. A feeling type that starts integrating sensation will have problems with flashes of sinister, and completely unfounded, suspicion. Or, as in my case, a thinking type moves to integrate intuition and can't balance her checkbook or keep her apartment clean if her very life depended on it. And facts? Forget about facts! I don't need facts, I know the truth :p


I think this is the stage I'm at right now. I may or may not be moving towards integrating my third function, sensation. Integration of the third function is apparently accompanied or precipitated by a crisis, which is definitely happening in my life right now. And for some reason, either because I'm moving into the third stage, or because my Animus is straightening out (or both!) I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on the physical world.

One of the reasons I'm so confused is that I've always had problems with people (the feeling function) and I've always had problems with things (the sensation function). However, and this is based solely on intuition, it seems to me that dealing with people, while not as problematic right now is the most deeply rooted problem; i.e., where I'm the most primitive. On the other hand, I feel like the world of things is a more open field. Like it's waiting for me, just over the next hill, but I have to stay in this valley for a little while longer. It's related to the feeling that Hestia is one of my tertiary archetypes - it's there, and when it's there it's very comfortable for me. It's difficult to stay in but I feel a sense of comfort and ease when I'm in Hestia mode.

One other thing that I really love and find incredibly valuable about learning about the different functions is how much it explains not only about myself but about my family and others around me. As happened with learning about archetypes, I've come to understand and have compassion where I used to just judge. I know now why Judy is manipulative (or so it seems to an introverted thinking type like me.) I now see that her extroverted feeling type is my shadow, so I have this irrational disgust of some of her behavior... and am completely mystified by the rest. And I can see how my behavior and is her shadow. I have a better, and more dispassionate, grasp of why certain things I do trigger her disgust. Probably one of the biggest realizations this past weekend has been that I'm not defective, as I've felt my whole life. I'm just an thinker/intuitive living in a family of feeling/sensation types... an introverted thinker/intuitive. In a family of extroverted feeling/sensation types. Oy vey! At any rate, this has brought up a lot of emotion that I've spent a large part of this weekend feeling and releasing.



I'm not 100% sure of which is my dominant function because I seem to have been both a thinking type and an intuitive for a long time, all the way back to childhood. The only thing I feel like I can do is just go where my subconscious/Self seems to be indicating I go, and stay there for as long as I feel like I should, and just take things from there. This is another reason I feel like intuition is my second function - when this whole thing started, I got message after message telling me I needed to let go of rationality. Whatever the case may be, I will go where the path leads.

I feel almost like I'm on a long journey, just meandering from one country to the next. If that's the case, I want to stop, smell the roses, partake of some tasty local delicacies, and enjoy my stay in each place for as long as I'm there.

Jung's four functions ("personality types")

Now I'm having second thoughts about being an Intuitive. I finally finished the (very long) section on the inferior function in Psychotherapy. Later in the chapter von Franz writes that for many people the dominant function wears out and they move to their auxiliary function. When that happens, you start having problems with that inferior function.

I want to explore the whole process of integrating the first three functions but first I want to think a little about the actual personality types. I have to eventually do a post, or maybe a page, on Jungian psychology, but I want to write a quick sketch of his thinking, both for any visitors but also for my own integration of these concepts.


Introversion and extroversion

First off, there are two basic attitudes that everyone falls into, introversion and extroversion. Jung's concepts of introversion and extroversion are so widespread they don't need much introduction but, for the sake of precision, I'd like to clarify what Jung meant. It's most commonly thought of as the divide between the kind of people who like to go to parties and those who prefer staying at home. Which may be true, but it's more accurate to talk about the flow of libido; one's energy and attention.

The extrovert is the easiest to understand - their energy and attention flow outwards, toward the outer world of things, people and ideas out there. They're the easiest to understand and the easiest to see because where their energy and attention is flowing is clear to anyone observing them. An introvert, on the other hand, spends most of their time and attention focusing on feelings, thoughts, etc. that are inside of them. The difference between the two may become more clear after looking at Jung's four functions and how each function differs when expressed by an introvert and by an extrovert.


Jung's four functions ("personality types")

There are 4 different functions in a personality, although everyone has one that's strongest, which is the one they're the most identified with, so the functions are commonly thought of as distinct personality types. The four functions are:

Thinking  A person identified with the thinking function excels at manipulating ideas. Philosophers and theoretical physicists are your typical introverted thinkers; their main focus is on the ideas within them. Their concern is more about creating systems for understanding. Lawyers and experimental physicists, on the other hand, typify extroverted thinking; they care more for ideas as they apply to the "real world" (where an introverted thinker probably feels like their inner world is more real). Extroverted thinkers use their thinking to organize, codify and understand the world outside of them.

Sensation  Someone primarily identified with the sensation function excels at manipulating objects. Engineers are often extroverted sensation types; they're the hard nosed realists who only believe in what they can see and feel with their five senses. Some may even take it to such an extreme that they even deny the reality of ideas. Introverted sensation types are also primarily concerned with the physical world but where extroverted sensation types focus on the things themselves, introverted sensation types are more concerned with the impact the world makes on themselves, on their inner worlds. I sometimes get flashes of what it's like to be an introverted sensation type when become completely absorbed in all the sensations and impressions while cooking, or biking; everything affects you deeply and the world itself becomes sacred.

Intuition  Intuition is another function that's difficult to describe, and that's because it's main focus is in potential; an intuitive knows things without knowing how they know it. This is because the intuition comes out of the subconscious, from all the information that's constantly being collected there - intuitives have an innate, instinctive ability to access the subconscious. Extroverted intuitives are those entrepreneurs who can somehow sniff out the next big thing, before anyone else has even heard of it. Introverted intuitives are your typical shaman or medium, getting flashes of knowing from within.

Feeling  If thinking types have a subtle and mature grasp of thinking, and sensation types of the physical world, feeling types have a subtle, mature and nuanced grasp of interpersonal relationships. Extroverted feeling types are those people who have an instinctive facility for understanding and working with others. Introverted feeling types are also most focused on their relationships, but they're more concerned with how those relationships are impacting them, as opposed to getting others to behave in a certain way. These are the people who can be at a party and say or do nothing but a calm good cheer spreads out from them like rings in water into which a stone has dropped (or, if they're in a bad mood, they can have the opposite effect on everyone.)

So, in a nutshell, extroverts focus on the outer world while their internal world is "merely" symbolic of what they feel is the real world of things and people. For introverts, however, their internal world is the focus of their energy and attention. The outer world is important mainly in how it provides grist for the inner mill.


Related posts

Integrating the four functions
Archetypes, astrology and Jung's functions (oh my!)

I'm not a Thinking type!

Or not primarily, at least, which is a shocker for me as I always thought I was.

I've been reading another Marie-Louise von Franz book (surprise surprise) and am currently reading about the inferior function. My interest in Jung's personality types was piqued so I went exploring around teh interwebs where I made a startling discovery: I'm not actually a Thinking type, as I always thought I was! I'm an Intuitive!!

Von Franz, among others, talks about how one's inferior function is the one that you have the most difficulty with. One key indicator was the things that took you longer to do than normal.

[T]he inferior function is generally slow in contrast to the superior function... [I]f an intuitive fills out a tax form, he needs a week where other people would take a day. He simply cannot do it, or if he does it accurately, he takes forever.

... Assimilating it, and even letting the inferior function come up, takes a great amount of time. If a feeling type wants to think, he will sit eight hours to write two pages - if as much as that. If a thinking type wants to realize his feeling, he has to meditate for hours until he feels what he feels... If you ask a thinking type what he feels, generally he will shoot a lot of conventional answers at you, but when you ask him what he really feels, he is absolutely stunned and says he does not know! If you leave him stewing for a long time, he will slowly realize what he really feels. The same is true for sensation when it is the inferior function, which is why, when intuitives begin to work on their inferior sensation, they get tremendously stiff and overly pedantic, and they have to be extraordinarily accurate in a terribly slow way. This cannot be helped; it is a stage which cannot be skipped.

(von Franz, Psychotherapy, pp. 41-42)

It reminded me of F and his difficulty writing, how it takes him days and days to write what takes me an hour to do. Based on the assumption that I was a Thinking type I tried to wrap my head around my having difficulty feeling... which I don't too much, actually. Not to that that extent. However, I do have serious difficulty with getting day-to-day things done; things like refinancing my apartment, which I find so overwhelming I usually just become paralyzed and can't even think about it.

And it actually makes more sense for a Persephone to have Intuition as her dominant function. Actually, it has a lot of parallels with my discovery that I'm a Persephone and not a Hecate; it wasn't until I took the Goddess Power quiz that I figured out that I was a Persephone. Then, after thinking about it a while, I realized that yes, I'm a Persephone. I guess I've developed my auxiliary function of Thinking so much that, like my Hecate subarchetype, it became difficult for me to see my actual main function!

This also helps in trying to figure out other people's dominant, auxiliary and inferior functions; even if an auxiliary function is very highly developed (which, if my acquaintances are any indication, appears to be quite common) you can always figure out someone's inferior function by looking at what takes a bloody long time for them to do.



Another interesting point von Franz makes about the inferior function is that it's the area in which you feel most alive.

Another difficulty in defining one's own or other people's type is that if people have already reached the stage of being bored with their main function, they very often assure you with absolute sincerity that they belong to the type opposite what they really are. The extravert swears that he is deeply introverted, and vice versa... [W]hen one is trying to find one's type, one must never ask, "What matters to me most?" but rather "What do I habitually do most?" An extravert can be constantly extraverting but will assure you, and will mean it, that he is deeply introverted and only concerned with the inner world. That is not a deception, it is how he feels, for he knows that although it may be for only a minute a day, in that minute in which he introverts he is close to himself; there he is real.

(von Franz, Psychotherapy, p. 33)

This reminds me of how, sometimes, when I can really get into it, cleaning can become a peaceful Zen activity where time expands, becomes Kairos time. And it also explains how it's when I'm in the stream of life that I feel the most anxious... as well as the most alive. As an introvert it's when I'm extraverting that life is sharp and lively. And why I can squeeze so much emotional juice out of a tiny bit of social interaction.

Now what I want to do is practice being in the Sensation function, although Jung and von Franz suggest going a meandering route through the other two functions before taking on the inferior function. It might also explain why I have a fascination with physical activities, like my cycling, or like sewing and cooking; it could be the subconscious's way of developing my inferior Sensation function.

Link: Benet Hill Monastery's page about the inferior function

Related post: Jung's four functions ("personality types")

The "I"

Been going through some crazy shit at work so my ego's been in an uproar, but this whole experience appears to be my "senior thesis" of personal growth. I've been doing everything I know to do; releasing the emotions as they come up, doing readings, trying to keep my inner ear open to the inner voice. I thought about taking a page from F's practice and writing what I want the outcome to be in a Wish Diary but decided to leave it in the Self's hands (so to speak), wishing simply that whatever was the best for me happen, and that I be soft and permeable enough to let It act through me.

This morning as I was lying in bed I was thinking "Whatever You (the Self) want, let me be in line with You, let my ego be soft and permeable to express You" when suddenly, I felt the artificiality of the ego. Consciously I've known for a while that the ego itself is a complex - a psychic structure built up in childhood as a way to exist, survive and thrive in this world. But this morning, for the first time, I felt it. And with that felt knowing, when the ego started doing it's thing, the words "The 'I' is feeling this" or "The 'I' is feeling that" came into my  head. It's the "I" that's worried about what's going to happen and if there are going to be financial difficulties. And I realized that it's the "I" that wants to be approved - the need for approval appears to be my ego's main driving force (which makes sense for a Persephone.) Not being liked exactly... being approved of.

This latest experience at work has been a flaming crucible of personal growth, with this latest crisis helping "me" separate from "it" (the ego.)

"A community of the spirit"

There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street,
and being the noise.

Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.

Open your hands,
if you want to be held.

Sit down in this circle.

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.

At night, your beloved wanders.
Don't accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover's mouth in yours.

You moan, "She left me." "He left me."
Twenty more will come.

Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.

~ Rumi


-------------------------


I just got my book of Rumi poetry the other day and started slowly reading it, from cover to cover, and today I read this poem. It just struck me and I don't know why. Or, more accurately, I have some ideas, but they're many and ghost-like. Some have to do with G, who's been showing up in dreams and readings these past few days. Some have to do with my Animus, who's been making himself felt. But mostly, it has to do with the feeling of peace and acceptance I feel when I let the words soak into me.

The similarity between physics and mysticism

New Age sections of bookstores abound with books that try to "prove" mystical truths by mis-applying quantum physics or some other such nonsense. This might appeal to someone who has no real experience with scientific thought but to someone like me who loves science, reads constantly about science, subscribes to not one, not two, but six different science podcasts (not including their separate video podcasts) this kind of fuzzy thinking drives. Me. Effing. Insane!!! I've already written what I think about that but it's recently occurred to me that in some ways science actually does share something with true spiritual, or psychological, searching.

While reading Marie-Louse von Franz's Alchemy, the topic of following one's inner voice repeatedly came up. In fact, at one point she gets into an argument with a student about whether a monk should marry a prostitute if his inner voice has told him he should (as the prophet Hosea did in the bible). Or, in other words, does God continually reveal his will through people all the time or was it a one time shot and we just need to follow the steps laid out for us. The student, who was a theologian, believed in this sort of a priori "truth" while von Franz, as a Jungian, upheld that God is a living presence with whom we must continually maintain a conversation, with no pre-judgments and with no easy, simple "truths" to mindlessly follow.

"One should always have an eye and an ear open towards the opposite, the other thing. That does not mean to be spineless, it doesn't mean just to sit there. It means to act according to one's conscious conviction, but still always having the humility to keep the door open and be proved wrong. That would be an attitude of consciousness in living connection with the other, dark side. The unjust sun is that attitude of consciousness which knows exactly what is what, a rigid attitude that blocks contact with the unconscious, while the two-rayed sun has a moulding and formative effect upon the unconscious; the latter would be with justice and the former without. I think that is highly meaningful.

"...[C]onsciousness always tends to be one-sided and sure of itself, and that does harm to the mystery of life. But consciousness can have the double attitude and then it enlightens the mystery of life and does not harm it. The humble attitude which always keeps the door open is the necessary acceptance of the fact that one may be wrong, morally or scientifically, or that one may know to some extent but not for certain, and that even the greatest certainty may be only negative, or something plausible in accordance with which I act.

"A conscious attitude connected with the religious attitude is what is required--always to give humble and careful consideration to the unknown factor, that is, to say, 'I think this is the right thing to do,' and then watch for a sign warning that one is not allowing for everything. Consciousness is essential to the unconscious for without it the unconscious cannot live. But consciousness is only a good channel of communication through which the unconscious can flow if it has a double, paradoxical attitude. Then the unconscious can manifest, and the hardening of the conscious attitude against the unconscious, which means a split in the personality--and civilization--can be avoided."

von Franz, Alchemy (p. 145)

If you believe in an already revealed truth then what usually happens is you come up against its limitations, especially if you're clinging to them out of fear and a desire for security. Your inner Self ("God") doesn't care about that and so continually throws difficulties in your paths, including subjecting you to neuroses in the hopes that your suffering will blast you out of your rut. And when that happens, people who follow this kind of religion simply blame the Devil and cling ever more to their security blanket. If, on the other hand, you believe that you need to maintain an attitude of openness, keeping the inner ear open to the inner voice, then you see these difficulties as the way your inner Self gets your attention, or is trying to guide you.

This attitude of going into an experience with no preconceived ideas struck me as exactly what a good scientist (or a good citizen for that matter) needs in order to understand physical phenomena. This mental posture of openness - this willingness to forgo security and one's most cherished notions - is also what 's needed when dealing with psychological, or spiritual, truths as well. The area of work may be different but the fearless commitment to seek the truth, whatever the cost, is the same, whether you're an explorer of science or the realms of the psyche.

I'd like to close with two of my favorite quotes, from two of my favorite scientists. They were writing about the importance of being fearless in the pursuit of intellectual knowledge but I believe they are equally applicable in the pursuit of knowledge of the Self:

"Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty." - Stephen Jay Gould

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." "Carl Sagan