Note: This is the edited version of Chapter Four as it appears in the Appendix to The Cracking Tower.

 

CHAPTER FOUR

THE MANAGEMENT OF THE WORK

 

Something empirically demonstrable comes to our aid from the depths of our unconscious nature. It is the task of the conscious mind to understand these hints. If this does not happen, the process of individuation will nevertheless continue. The only difference is that we become its victims and are dragged along by fate towards that inescapable goal which we might have reached walking upright, if only we had taken the trouble and been patient enough to understand in time the meaning of the numina that cross our path.
Jung – Answer to Job

The principal differences between a gnostic who undertakes the Work and a conventional religious believer are mostly differences of perceptual sophistication. The gnostic constantly monitors his inner images, constantly confronts the changing situation within his psyche, and reacts to these changes in terms of a constantly evolving standard of behavior—this is the essence of existential engagement, and obviously not everyone's cup of tea. The traditional religious adherent lives according to a relatively fixed canon of belief and is not usually confronted with a continuously changing set of goals and expectations; his beliefs are shared by others of his creed, and questions of behavior are usually interpreted for him by recognized authority figures. He doesn't have to do much more than stay within the structure provided by his faith. The work of the gnostic is also restricted by a set of assumptions, but he is required to realize them within the unique situation of his own evolving psyche. The differences between the two approaches might be compared to a traditional symphony performance and a jazz improvisation.

The first thing that happens when one begins to use the I Ching seriously, is an appalling confrontation with a transcendent living personality that usually appears so alien as to be considered a “not-me”—a kind of god. The hypothesis of this book is that this personality is the Jungian Self, which is the nucleus of one’s unconscious psyche. As Jung discusses many times throughout his work, the Self is an archetypal power, a “god-image”—transcendent, numinous, and beyond the full comprehension of the ego. This power really is like a god—it has knowledge that we cannot even begin to imagine, and its larger purposes in our life are so far from clear that sometimes we wonder if it really has our best interests at heart.

Because of modern religious conceptions, particularly among certain Christian sects, there is a popularly pervasive image of “God” as a kindly, loving father-figure. This is an obvious and understandable reaction to the terrible Yahweh of the Old Testament—a god of forgiveness is certainly much easier to live with than a god of irrational wrath. The empirical fact is that Jung's Self appears to the ego more often as Yahweh than as Christ. The Self is, quite simply, a numinous, incomprehensible, and fearsome archetype. We know little or nothing about the Self other than that it usually appears to the ego as a form of deity. Jung was deeply concerned with the problems inherent in learning to live with this cosmic authority figure:

The other way of looking at it is from the standpoint of the archetype. The original chaos of multiple gods evolves into a sort of monarchy, and the archetype of the self slowly asserts its central position as the archetype of order in chaos ... In the Christian myth the Deity, the self, penetrates consciousness almost completely, without any visible loss of power and prestige ... Man is merely instrumental in carrying out the divine plan. Obviously he does not want his own destruction but is forced to it by his own inventions. He is entirely unfree in his actions because he does not yet understand that he is a mere instrument of a destructive superior will. From this paradox he could learn that (whether he will or not)—he serves a supreme power, and that supreme powers exist in spite of his denial ... Through his further incarnation God becomes a fearful task for man, who must now find ways and means to unite the divine opposites in himself.

The Self is, quite simply, the most demanding force you will ever confront in this life. The ubiquitous biblical concept of “the fear of God” is proof that the ancients had few illusions about this sentient force whom they tried to obey. This entity appears to us as the supreme archon of the psyche, and the first fact to accept about it is that the Self is not rational in the sense that the ego defines that term; neither is it exactly irrational—the purposes of the Self actually transcend rationality—they are extra-rational.

The truth of the Self lies in an intuitional realm in which reason, as we understand it, is somehow beside the point. There are many times that the oracle will imply actions that don't make much sense to an ego-oriented consciousness. Your ego will conclude that the oracle is wrong, or that you have somehow failed to understand the message, and you'll do what makes sense within your limited belief system. The oracle will continue to confront your ego with this error—always in terms that make no bones about the inferiority of your choice of action. Dream images will begin to parallel the oracle responses until it becomes shockingly apparent that there is a definite counter-will within the psyche which opposes the ego's actions.

It is usually at this point that the ego must make its first major decision—whether to continue living “as usual,” basing its choices on the kaleidoscope of everyday experience, or to literally relinquish its illusion of free will and follow the dictates of this inner voice. The courage required to make the latter choice is often the courage of total desperation. It is the courage of one who has tried everything else and found that no matter what he does, his situation somehow always returns him to a point of existential confrontation. It is only when one has taken enough carousel rides on the Wheel of Life to know that he is just going around in circles that he is willing to step off into the unknown and see where it might lead. The fact that it might lead to schizophrenia is one of the unavoidable risks of such a choice, but usually by that time even schizophrenia might seem preferable to another round-trip on the carousel. Thus begins the Work.

The stresses encountered by any rational human being in relinquishing his choices to the patterns evoked by falling coins and a Chinese oracle book cannot be appreciated until one tries the experiment for oneself. The point is that, although reason rebels strenuously against such a course, the oracle creates its own logic that cannot be rationalized away. Quite simply, there is abundant evidence for a supreme intelligence at work—an intelligence that is usually so numinously wise that only a fool would ignore it.

Jung, as a twentieth-century psychiatrist, counseling twentieth century patients, could hardly have achieved the stature that he did if he had advised his clients to obey completely all of the implications of their inner imagery—few people are willing to go that far in their individuation. One-hundred-percent devotion to the Work is therefore an extreme position adopted only by those who are unwilling, or unable, to compromise. Jung himself opted for a state of continuous confrontation between ego and Self:

Conscious and unconscious do not make a whole when one of them is suppressed and injured by the other. If they must contend, let it at least be a fair fight with equal rights on both sides. Both are aspects of life. Consciousness should defend its reason and protect itself, and the chaotic life of the unconscious should be given the chance of having its way too—as much of it as we can stand. This means open conflict and open collaboration at once. That, evidently, is the way human life should be. It is the old game of hammer and anvil: between them the patient iron is forged into an indestructible whole, an ‘individual.’

This is as good a description of the stresses of the Work as I know of.

The I Chingis a book which is “read” in a different sequence by everyone who uses it. No two people receive the same series of answers, and so in a very real sense, the oracle is unique for everyone—there are as many I Chings as there are people who consult it. The Book of Changes adapts itself to the psyche of each of its users. Likewise, the Work begins exactly where you pick it up in your life. Unlike a conventional religious dogma to which the worshipper must obediently adhere, the I Chingis a template that conforms to each individual's unique situation and then leads the seeker toward his or her own latent ideal. The difference is exactly the difference between the concept of a universal God and an individual Self. Although the Work does consist of general precepts and principles, they are ultimately just a universal framework within which each person must achieve his own uniquely individual potential.

The ego dwells in a body within a space-time dimension. A whole panoply of forces are continuously welling up from inside this ego-body in response to constantly changing external circumstances. To be a human being is to make continuous choices from an almost infinite number of possibilities of action. Each choice has its consequence, which in turn demands new choices. The life of any individual is exactly defined by the choices made during this existence in space-time. If an ego makes its choices on the basis of the partial realities (“illusions”) of this dimension, without any reference to the center of consciousness (the Self) which dwells beyond space-time, then that lifetime is largely determined by chance and circumstance.

If, on the other hand, the ego has learned to carefully differentiate the forces emerging within the psyche and has identified the Self as the source of its being, then prudent choices made in this dimension can be directed toward a goal transcending space-time conditions. This transcendent “purpose” has been clearly identified by the Jungians as “the goal-directedness of psychic energy”:

It is as though all events are manifestations of some purposive force, a force which has been appropriately termed “the goal-directedness of psychic energy.” It is this energy which provides the thrust for the individuation process.

The philosophical term for this concept is the word teleology. It is an indispensable paradigm for comprehending the Work.

Teleology: 2: the fact or the character of being directed toward an end or shaped by a purpose—used of natural processes or of nature as a whole conceived as determined by final causes or by the design of a divine Providence and opposed to purely mechanical determinism or causation exclusively by what is temporally antecedent.

Simply put, teleology deals with the idea of ultimate purpose and meaning in life. Is there an “objective” ideal or goal toward which our lives are directed? Is there a transcendent meaning giving shape to our lives? If we accept the evidence of Jungian analysis, personal experience with the I Ching , and countless other manifestations of the gnostic template, the answer is clearly in the affirmative.

Scientism (“science” experienced and interpreted by some rationalists as an emotionally based religion) repudiates the concept of teleology because of scientism's refusal to recognize any force existing outside of what can be demonstrated by draconian standards of proof and repeatability in the “real world” of space-time. According to its canons, any hypothetical forces transcending space-time, such as the Jungian archetypes (who ignore such puny, man-made rules), are outside of the game, hence cannot exist.

Scientism is very suspicious of subjective awareness (despite the fact that all differentiated awareness is by definition subjective), and doesn't generally consider our means of perception—consciousness itself—as a legitimate category of observable nature. When directed outward into space-time, consciousness is somehow considered to be adequately objective, but not when directed inward. Despite the admittedly complex problems involved in studying subjective phenomena, this perspective is still an absurdly limiting restriction upon what one will allow oneself to observe.

I only mention this prejudice here because it is the prevailing social context within which one must pursue the Work, and is a powerful force challenging our higher intentions. If in Jung's metaphor the extrarational demands of the Self constitute the hammer, then the superrational expectations of conventional belief systems constitute the anvil, and “the Work” is consciousness being bludgeoned into shape between them. The key to sane survival lies somewhere in a dynamic balance between the forces of two diametrically opposed worlds.

TheI Chingidentifies these two realms as the “World of Thought,” and the “World of the Senses.” These correspond with the unconscious psyche beyond space-time (the gnostic Pleroma) and the physical dimension of space-time itself. Heaven is associated with the World of Thought, and Earth is associated with the World of the Senses. The I Ching is a bridge that connects the two realms and makes possible a complete circuit between them. The Work consists of keeping this circuit open and flowing.

The sequence goes something like this: the ego is confronted with a situation requiring a choice. Perhaps there is a strong desire involved, but the ego has had enough life experience by now to know that choices involving the indulgence of desire often result in consequences that directly interfere with larger life goals. A decision must be made, so the ego carefully differentiates the situation and writes it out in the form of a question. (Energy from the World of Thought is organized and condensed into language, then emanated into the World of the Senses in the form of writing.) The ego then takes further action in the form of throwing the coins and recording their configurations—thus a hexagram (a magical figure of six elements) is created. This hexagram is studied, and the images evoked are interpreted in reference to the situation under question. The hexagram is, in Jungian parlance, a “readable archetype”—a message from the Self to the ego.

Oracle consultation is predicated on the hypothesis that the Self exists outside of the restrictions of space-time. It observes the unfolding life situation from the center, or nucleus of the psyche, and can thus see probabilities that do not yet exist in the physical dimension. In other words, the Self is able to see which choices will result in which consequences. The ego, locked in space-time, only perceives an extremely limited set of probabilities, and has no conception of the long-range consequences of what may appear to be a very insignificant choice. This disparity can obviously cause great stresses in the conduct of the Work because here is where the goals of ego and Self become confused, and it is precisely within this conflict of interests that the often irrational nature of the Self manifests itself. William Butler Yeats was for many years in communication with guiding entities who often exhibited these traits—if we substitute his word “Spirit” with Jung's concept of the “Self,” we receive a frighteningly accurate description of the phenomenon:

The Spirit ... may know the most violent love and hatred possible, for it can see the remote consequences of the most trivial acts of the living, provided those consequences are part of its future life.

As long as the ego makes its choices on the basis of restricted vision and autonomous desires, one's life is largely determined by unconscious fate. When the ego gives up its freedom of choice to the direction of the Self, one begins to attain one's full potential as a human being because it is now following the Self’s intent. However, it is the ego's unique responsibility to maintain some degree of equilibrium between the conflicting demands emerging from the psyche. If we accept Jung's equation of the Self with the god image, then this sometimes demands that the ego have the courage to, in effect, rebel against “God”—without, however, repudiating “His” ultimate purposes or severing contact with the Work. This is the essence of gnostic existentialism and precisely what it's like to be psychologically bashed between the hammer of Heaven and the anvil of Earth.

The I Chingis the most immediate and reliable way I know of to maintain contact with the Self. The cast hexagram becomes a kind of mirror by which the ego may see the larger aspects of the situation and come to a decision about them. The structure and imagery of the hexagrams is such that extremely subtle nuances of meaning may be communicated—indeed, highly sophisticated conversations between the ego and the Self are possible once the ego has learned how to use and interpret the symbolism of the oracle.

More likely than not, the hexagram will image some form of nonaction. Even a superficial familiarity with the I Chingreveals that a large proportion of its answers suggest choices in which forces are kept under restraint, or no action at all is taken. Westerners are very action-oriented—we habitually think in terms of “doing something,” and are not generally used to the profound idea that not doing anything is often one of the strongest options we have.

In terms of inner work, what effect does this have? First, the archetypal complexes are immediately frustrated. If the Work is just getting under way, for perhaps the first time in the ego-body's current sojourn in space-time the complexes are unable to have their way. The ordinary individual lives according to the dictates of desire—his life is shaped by choices that originate from his own particular constellation of archetypal complexes. He rationalizes these choices in many ways, not realizing that his rationalizations actually reflect the satisfaction of unconscious drives. Of course, it is normal for the Self to play an indeterminate role in the ego's choices—the unconscious participation of the Self in any individual's life is dependent upon many variables, but one cannot be said to have fully engaged in the individuation process until the ego becomes conscious of the Self and consciously chooses on the basis of the Work's overall intentions. There is a great deal of difference between an unconscious “Saint” and a gnostic who is fully aware of everything he does and why he does it.

At any rate, nonaction is one of the basic principles for the transformation of awareness. The symbolism of alchemy in the Perennial Philosophy revolves around the metaphor of the ego-body as a hermetically sealed vessel that is slowly heated until its contents are transformed from a lower to a higher state of matter. The image of a pressure cooker is perhaps more accessible to modern understanding—particularly because the pressure cooker releases just enough steam to prevent the vessel from exploding yet still allows its contents to be rapidly transformed. Alchemically, the ego-body is the vessel of transformation, and the complexes of the unconscious psyche (the “beyond within”) are the contents to be altered “from lead into gold.” When one does not act as usual in a given situation, the complexes are unable to express themselves in space-time. This creates pressure within the psyche. If one continues to refrain from action, the pressure builds up and the psyche is stressed. Over a long period of time, considerable tension accumulates—only one who has commenced the Work can fully comprehend the incredible levels of stress that are created in this fashion. This is the infamous Dark Night of the Soul encountered by everyone who accepts the Work. The proper role of the ego is that of conscious choice-maker for the Self in space-time—the entire success of the Work depends upon the ego's will to hold the line. At certain times during this process, the ego-body is little more than a psychological bomb on a very short fuse. Even the slightest release of tension results in failure—the Work must then begin all over again. (Anyone who has tried to quit smoking, maintain a strict diet or restrain any compulsive habit or appetite will recognize the difficulties confronted here.) Given enough time and perseverance, the ego begins to gain more and more control over its inner forces, there are fewer failures, and gradually one becomes aware of permanent changes taking place within the psyche. This is the essential meaning and purpose of Alchemical transformation.

From this it is obvious that willpower has to be one of the cornerstones of the Work. The I Chingalludes to this faculty over and over again in almost every hexagram. Legge translates it as “firm correctness.” Wilhelm uses the phrase “perseverance furthers.” Blofeld renders it as “righteous persistence,” and Liu generally says “persistence.” All of these phrases could as easily be interpreted as “willpower.” The perseverance of the ego is essential to the success of the Work. In alchemical symbolism, the ego's willpower can be seen as the release valve on the pressure cooker.

We live in an era that generally rejects such notions as these in the name of liberation from the totalitarianism of a Puritan past. The pendulum has swung from the extreme repression of Victorian morality to a modern ethic of almost total permissiveness. (Two hours of prime-time television viewing will confirm this observation.) For all of its popular acceptance by the general culture, this unrestrained freedom is regarded as a symptom of pathology by at least some mental health professionals:

Borderline personality [disorder] has been considered an independent diagnostic entity, a disorder of developmental arrest, a psychostructural disorder defining the boundary between neurosis and psychosis, a set of syndromes with varying genetic bases, a personality disorder related to, but poorly differentiated from, a hysteria/sociopathy cluster, and a mixed set of affective and personality disorders. The issue is further clouded by the apparent ubiquity in our culture of emotional immaturity, self-gratification, impulsive use of drugs, sexual promiscuity, identity confusion, unstable love relationships, and other traits. This has suggested to some that our culture is dominated by narcissistic and borderline features. The diagnosis of borderline has become a catch-all, and “the borderline patient appears to be the problem of our time.”

As we have seen, the path of the mean repudiates, and eventually transcends, both of the extremes of repression and permissiveness, but when one first begins the Work, it may seem that the Self is a psychic Puritan demanding that the ego stifle almost every impulse emanating from the psyche. This is a particularly painful phase of the Work, but it doesn't last forever, and it is based upon universally recognized principles:

The diseases of the soul are bad character traits, i.e., moral vices. Since they are in the appetitive part of the soul, where they are entrenched by habit, knowledge alone does not suffice to effect the cure. The sick soul must repeatedly perform actions that are opposed to his vice in order to make his character traits conform to the mean ... The repetition of the appropriate actions over a period of time can reshape the passions, producing new moral habits, so that reason can take command over the appetitive part of the soul.

The traditional vehicle of communication from the Self to the ego takes the form of dreams. These are, of course, vital to the Work and must always be monitored—the ego cannot afford to be unaware of any information emerging from the psyche. Suffice it to say that what Jungians call “the symbolic life” is the template for the individuation process, and the symbolism of the oracle and the symbolism of dreams both reflect the same inner reality.

Nevertheless, it must be remembered that the unconscious is the domain of all the archetypal complexes, of which the Self is only the estranged nucleus. Some dreams (in the author's experience) seem to reflect confusing subordinate positions among the archetypal complexes—habitual powers which, once the Work has begun, will conjure images to maintain their status. Therefore, for immediate insight the I Ching is usually a more comprehensible guide to choice. Once one has learned the structure and symbolism of the oracle and experienced its teleological consistency, it is seldom that the message is misunderstood.

There is no way to adequately describe this process – it can only be experienced subjectively. It must be reemphasized that the Self, as a numinous archetype, transcends conscious concepts of propriety – it is common for oracle messages to lead one into extremely stressful situations which are apparently essential for transformation. It is always the ego’s choice of how far to take these injunctions, and it is usual to be frequently tested for one’s comprehension of principles. Refusal is a legitimate choice which will always take you to your next challenge: “ Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Conceptually, the Work is very simple—it consists of soliciting, understanding, then obeying, as much as possible, the will of the Self. This is the most challenging task you will ever undertake in your life.

FOOTNOTES

Jung (1973), p 98

Jung (1969), (Page reference lost)

Jung, C. G., Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, quoted in, Whitmont, E. C., op. cit., p. 264.

Singer (1972), p. 271.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1966).

Yeats (1966), p. 235.

Horevitz and Braun (1984), p. 72.

Weiss and Butterworth (1983), p. 12.