Episode 224 - The Way of Kabbalah: ancient map of the psyche

Published: July 28, 2022, 4 a.m.

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Kabbalah is an ancient Jewish mystical tradition that has captured the imaginations of people from widely diverse backgrounds, including Jung himself. Three weeks after his heart attack in 1944, Jung had an ecstatic vision, \\u201c\\u2026Everything around me also seemed enchanted\\u2026I myself was in Pardes-Rimonim, in the pomegranate garden where Tiferet and Malchut married. I also imagined myself as Rabi Shimon ben Yochai, whose mystical marriage was celebrated now. It looked exactly as the Kabbalists portrayed it. I cannot tell you how amazing it was\\u2026\\u201d Though Jung did not live long enough to explore the Kabbalah fully, his psyche was deeply affected by the images and philosophies which played an important role in his life during this crisis.

Like analysis, Kabbalistic methods cultivate an extraordinary receptivity to Self that illuminates the inner dimensions of the human soul, its unexplored potential, and our relationship to the divine. Its first written fragments surfaced in the 13th century, but the oral tradition reaches back millennia. Its primary symbol, the Tree of Life, reflects a rich cosmology that maps the progression of archetypal forces in the outer and inner world. It helps us track the flow of psychic energy as it descends from its animating source to archetypal image, thought, and finally to action. Like all images of the Self, it invokes the transcendental ordering principle that heals and facilitates individuation.

Here\\u2019s the dream we analyze:

\\u201cI\\u2019m in Putin\\u2019s inner circle. It\\u2019s attached to some other business place that I\\u2019m working in. I\\u2019m wearing a suit. He\\u2019s got an office, like in a 1920s socialist apartment building with tall ceilings. It\\u2019s not particularly high security, and I\\u2019m in it. The place is a bit messy. Putin is thin; he looks like the younger Putin, not the rounder face. One we see on TV. He\\u2019s getting medication out of boxes, and I see their statins, and I figure he\\u2019s got heart trouble. I take a seat on a sofa, and we\\u2019re talking; I\\u2019m thinking about how vulnerable he looks like a nice man; actually, I\\u2019m sensing that he trusts me, we have a good easy rapport. I\\u2019m wondering whether he knows I\\u2019m queer and what he would make of that; given the state of LGBTQ rights in Russia, I figure out that there are two pollutants, this real one behind the scenes and the one on TV. The one on TV has a body double, but the rest of the world doesn\\u2019t know that. I wonder how I\\u2019m going to keep this from the world and whether it will ever come out that I know him and how I would justify that to the media. I go to the bathroom off his office, and Putin\\u2019s bath is running. I gather that he is going to have a bath. I go back into the office, smoke a cigarette on the sofa, and we talk some more, and then I leave. I go to another room or to my friends are out of affection. I kiss my friend A repeatedly on the face, whose name I get wrong. She tells me her name is something else. It\\u2019s the first time I\\u2019ve heard her tell me the name that she says she is hers. I know her by at least two other names. I accidentally kiss her on the lips. The other friend B is there too, and then I realized that I have kissed B, not A. B asks me whether I\\u2019ve been smoking cannabis because there is a really strong smell on my breath. I think about the cigarette I smoked in Putin\\u2019s office and wonder how it could have left such a strong smell, and for context, she says the future feels unclear.\\u201d

REFERENCES:

Dion Fortune. The Mystical Qabalah. https://www.amazon.com/dp/157863752X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_CNHVRG5XVEK52RWZMASB?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Erich Neumann. The Essays of Erich Neumann, Volume 3: The Place of Creation. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691603871/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_TMA84417K13TPNWG4DGV?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. Meditation and Kabbalah. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0877286167/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_0HVCPYAXXW8DKHKYXMJJ

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