Fear of the Feminine

[Geof Nanto]

Here’s a passage from Heat and Dust by Ruth Jhabuala that illustrates this fear perfectly. The book is set amongst the English as colonisers in India before WWII and the speakers are English administrators revealing their Indian experience; but  it could well be read as a description of ‘masculine’ unified rational certainty confronting ‘feminine’ mystery reified as India.....

 

 

“Although the Major was so sympathetic to India, his piece sounds like a warning. He said one has to be very careful to withstand - to stand up to - India. And the most vulnerable, he said, are always those who love her the best. There are many ways of loving India, many things to love her for - the scenery, the history, the poetry, the music, and indeed the physical beauty of the men and women - but all, said the Major, are dangerous for the European who allows himself to love too much.

 

India always, he said, finds out the weak spot and presses on it. Both Dr Saunders and Major Minnies spoke of the weak spot. But whereas for Dr Saunders it is something, or someone rotten, for the Major the weak spot is to be found in the most sensitive, often the finest people - and moreover, in their finest feelings. It is there that India seeks them out and pulls them over into what the Major called the other dimension. He also referred to it as another element; one in which the European is not accustomed to live so that by immersion in it he becomes debilitated, or even destroyed.

 

Yes, concluded the Major, it’s all very well to love and admire India - intellectually, aesthetically, he did not mention sexually but he must have been aware of that factor too - but always with a virile, measured, European feeling. One should never, he warned, allow oneself to become softened (like Indians) by an excess of feeling; because the moment that happens - the moment one exceeds one’s measure - one is in danger of being dragged over to the other side.

 

That seems to be the last word Major Minnies had to say on the subject and his final conclusion. He who loved India so much, knew her so well, chose to spend the end of his days here. But she remained always for him an opponent, even sometimes an enemy, to be guarded and if necessary fought against from without, and especially from within; from within ones’ own being.”

 

 

I think it’s a valid fear - ‘she’ does destroy, but destroys in order to create anew, to allow new growth - the possibility of an expanded self (for those who survive).

[thelerner]

Rely only on expansive power and masculinity and you lose half your strength.   Add suppleness, softness, patience even retreat  to your repertoire and you gain much.

[gendao]

The answer is simple:

The Father's (male) job is the former, the Mother's (female) job the latter...

 

So much confusion in this world, only deep philopsychology can solve.

[Nikolai1]

I wonder if we have to call this 'fear of the feminine' - I think fear of the 'other' is what this is about.

 

In the times when the British were in India, the two cultures - East and West - were nowhere near as integrated as the are now.  When the westerner encounted the east, and was psychologically open to it, he became aware of a reality and an approach to reality that was radically alien.

 

Only the very strongest managed any kind of integration.  More commonly there had to be extremely strict defences put in place in order to stay western - afternoon tea, croquet, cocktails at six.  Or, there was a whole scale abandonment of the west in favour of the eastern - 'going native' as it was called.

 

Actually, these two responses are still very obvious in people today, despite the greater integration of east and west.  I know people who have become incapable of just taking an interest in Zen Buddhism.  They have had to change their name to a Japanese name, start wearing Japanese clothes and even taken up a Japanese pastime - calligraphy.  This person is a prominent Zen Buddhist in America.  He has not been able to integrate east and west, and appears as a bit of a clown at times.

 

For the thinking westerner, studying a text like the I Ching is a profoundly disorientating experience.  The approach to reality is diametrically opposed to western science.  It takes considerable effort to even understand how the I Ching might be valid.  There is a strong temptation to simply accept one method and dismiss the other as illusion.  To hold them both and endorse them both is difficult, scary and painful.  Richard Wilhelm, who made the first authoritative translation of the I Ching, was thought by Jung to have been killed by the intellectual efforts he had to make.  But the sacrifices he made has made it easier for subsequent generations.

[Nungali]

The OP reminds me of a piece I read, post- Victorian  British writer, warning of the dangers of English women listening to 'tom-tom drums'  when accompanying their husbands to remote areas  ( he meant Africa, not  Wales and Scotland   )  ,  apparently, their thin veneer of English respectability was likely to be thrown out the window as the insidious and passionate rhythms worked their way into the psyche with he potential of unleashing all sports of uncontrollable 'womanly power'    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a wonderful short novel about this process , the Englishman resisting the influence that is so tempting, then giving in, then having guilt and rejecting , ... accepting, rejecting, accepting ... and getting very confused about the whole thing its called 'Man Friday' -  the story of Robinson Crusoe, but this time, instead of being told from the  view of British Imperialism, it is told from the  view of Friday , this time it is his story , and what a different take on events it is; examining their differences of perception, like, meanin, sexuality,  religion,  consciousness ... in the most simple of forms.

 

It is a well worth reading and I recommend it it to  everybody.

 

- Yes, I can detect a distinct  'feminine  '   in Friday's approach , and the  way his tribe lives, and a very male perspective from Crusoe  and his England.    Actually, when Friday show his greatest concern and consideration for 'the sickness of the mind' Crusoe seems to have , it is that very thing that causes the most fear in Crusoe .... finally deciding that Friday is actual the Devil, sent to tempt and lead him into damnation. 

 

Also, there is film  ;    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Friday_(1975_film)

 

 

 

[gendao]

Here's what happens when Daddy's not around:

 

This week, Lance Armstrong said he made two really big mistakes in his life, and one of them has proved to be much more costly than the other.

One was doping, the other mistreating people.

Armstrong, 44, talked about how attacking people during his cycling career proved to be a much more significant mistake than his actual doping.

Armstrong, who was raised by a single mother, added, "My mom and I had more of a brother-sister relationship ... I never had that person that in my life — and I'm not making excuses — but nobody ever tapped me on the shoulder and said, Dude.

"I sort of raised myself. But nobody ever said, Dude, what I just saw. Never do that again. And so it is what it is. And I got to live with that and spend the rest of my life trying to make it right."

A matriarchal culture loves each person (being) unconditionally.

A patriarchal culture teaches each person how to live wisely (behavior).

 

The 2 are not only not at odds, but needed together to create a healthy society and individuals.

[ilumairen]

This thread, and particularly the original post, brought to mind Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Tom Cruise plays a man threatened by his perception of his wife's admission to almost having an affair. After being admonished by her for not admitting to any fantasies, desires, or longings of his own, he embarks on a trip into the darkness.

 

Here India would be that world of fantasies, desires, and longings; while the strangeness of his uttering 'I'm a doctor' would be his mantra of protection against completely losing himself in this wonderfully, shockingly, and terrifyingly strange 'place'. The realness of the threat also appears in this film...

[ilumairen]

For the thinking westerner, studying a text like the I Ching is a profoundly disorientating experience.  The approach to reality is diametrically opposed to western science.  It takes considerable effort to even understand how the I Ching might be valid.  There is a strong temptation to simply accept one method and dismiss the other as illusion.  To hold them both and endorse them both is difficult, scary and painful.  Richard Wilhelm, who made the first authoritative translation of the I Ching, was thought by Jung to have been killed by the intellectual efforts he had to make.  But the sacrifices he made has made it easier for subsequent generations.

 

If we call the intuitive approach some utilize through the I Ching the feminine, it is then very fitting to say the disorientation 'thinking' (masculine) westerners feel when attempting to 'study' it a glimpse of India.

[Wu Ming Jen]

The major is English and superior in his own mind towards the ways of India. The softing is the reality his views are wrong. To avoid his world of perception to be shattered he pushes himself to maintain a hard yang view and to ignore the yin qualities that would set him free.The major chooses to trap himself in illusion, bounded forever, the opposite of free.

 

This is not a valid fear in my opinion. 

[ilumairen]

The major is English and superior in his own mind towards the ways of India. The softing is the reality his views are wrong. To avoid his world of perception to be shattered he pushes himself to maintain a hard yang view and to ignore the yin qualities that would set him free.The major chooses to trap himself in illusion, bounded forever, the opposite of free.

 

This is not a valid fear in my opinion. 

 

To become completely lost in the wonder of India would, however, be a valid fear - one extreme for another.

[Geof Nanto]

For the thinking westerner, studying a text like the I Ching is a profoundly disorientating experience.  The approach to reality is diametrically opposed to western science.  It takes considerable effort to even understand how the I Ching might be valid.  There is a strong temptation to simply accept one method and dismiss the other as illusion.  To hold them both and endorse them both is difficult, scary and painful.  Richard Wilhelm, who made the first authoritative translation of the I Ching, was thought by Jung to have been killed by the intellectual efforts he had to make.  But the sacrifices he made has made it easier for subsequent generations.

 

 

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Richard Wilhelm is an interesting and relevant case for sure.  But to my reading of Jung’s eulogy for Wilhelm, he was not “killed by the intellectual efforts he had to make”. Rather it was because he was unable to intellectually acknowledge the deeper reality of his Chinese experience; an experience which, according to Jung, “overwhelmed and assimilated him” by way of empathy.

 

“Since it was [so Jung thought] a passive assimilation, that is to say, a succumbing to the influence of environment, there was the danger of a relatively unconscious conflict, a clash between his Western and Eastern psyche. If, as I assumed, the Christian attitude had originally given way to the influence of China, the reverse might well be taking place now [that he had returned to live in Europe]: the European element might be gaining the upper hand over the Orient once again. If such a process takes place without a strong, conscious attempt to come to terms with it, the unconscious conflict can seriously affect the physical state of health.”

 

In other words his failure was in his inability to make conscious and integrate vital aspects of his emotional / spiritual self. 

 

Jung concludes….”Wilhelm's problem might also be regarded as a conflict between consciousness and the unconscious, which in his case took the form of a clash between West and East. I believed I understood his situation, since I myself had the same problem as he and knew what it meant to be involved in this conflict. It is true that even at our last meeting Wilhelm did not speak plainly. Though he was intensely interested when I introduced the psychological point of view, his interest lasted only so long as my remarks concerned objective matters such as meditation or questions posed by the psychology of religion. So far, so good. But whenever I attempted to touch the actual problem of his inner conflict, I immediately sensed a drawing back, an inward shutting himself off — because such matters went straight to the bone. This is a phenomenon I have observed in many men of importance. There is, as Goethe puts it in Faust, an "Untrodden, untreadable" region whose precincts cannot and should not be entered by force; a destiny which will brook no human intervention.”

 

In my OP I’ve characterised this conflict between the conscious and the unconscious as between the masculine and feminine forces within us all. As Wu Ming Jen notes in his comment above, it could also be framed in terms of yang and yin.  

Edited December 12, 2015 by Yueya

[Wu Ming Jen]

To become completely lost in the wonder of India would, however, be a valid fear - one extreme for another.

For me travailing to america that is a fear based society is extreme. I can see how these same fears could be amplified in a foreign country even if they do not exist in the country being visited.

[Geof Nanto]

An interesting video here .....

 

[4bsolute]

text10cjars

Edited December 16, 2015 by 4bsolute

[centertime]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Richard Wilhelm is an interesting and relevant case for sure.  But to my reading of Jung’s eulogy for Wilhelm, he was not “killed by the intellectual efforts he had to make”. Rather it was because he was unable to intellectually acknowledge the deeper reality of his Chinese experience; an experience which, according to Jung, “overwhelmed and assimilated him” by way of empathy.

 

“Since it was [so Jung thought] a passive assimilation, that is to say, a succumbing to the influence of environment, there was the danger of a relatively unconscious conflict, a clash between his Western and Eastern psyche. If, as I assumed, the Christian attitude had originally given way to the influence of China, the reverse might well be taking place now [that he had returned to live in Europe]: the European element might be gaining the upper hand over the Orient once again. If such a process takes place without a strong, conscious attempt to come to terms with it, the unconscious conflict can seriously affect the physical state of health.”

 

In other words his failure was in his inability to make conscious and integrate vital aspects of his emotional / spiritual self. 

 

Jung concludes….”Wilhelm's problem might also be regarded as a conflict between consciousness and the unconscious, which in his case took the form of a clash between West and East. I believed I understood his situation, since I myself had the same problem as he and knew what it meant to be involved in this conflict. It is true that even at our last meeting Wilhelm did not speak plainly. Though he was intensely interested when I introduced the psychological point of view, his interest lasted only so long as my remarks concerned objective matters such as meditation or questions posed by the psychology of religion. So far, so good. But whenever I attempted to touch the actual problem of his inner conflict, I immediately sensed a drawing back, an inward shutting himself off — because such matters went straight to the bone. This is a phenomenon I have observed in many men of importance. There is, as Goethe puts it in Faust, an "Untrodden, untreadable" region whose precincts cannot and should not be entered by force; a destiny which will brook no human intervention.”

 

In my OP I’ve characterised this conflict between the conscious and the unconscious as between the masculine and feminine forces within us all. As Wu Ming Jen notes in his comment above, it could also be framed in terms of yang and yin.  

I think it is a problem when one tries to introduce a new consciousness into his world without being aware of himself as a whole.

Wilhelm' should have done a lot of inner work but how? He was not probably aware of the necessity of that.

[voidisyinyang]

The passage quoted should make people feel very uneasy.

 

India literally was "raped" by the British imperial colonialism - in so many ways that people have no idea.

 

For example I read some right-wing book complaining how Bangladesh was starving because they need to grow more rice.

 

But Noam Chomsky points out in his 500 years is Enough! book that actually the traditional crop of Bangladesh was jute - but the British destroyed that. The British destroyed the crafts culture of India - using a "divide and conquer" strategy.

 

But the right-wingers have no idea that the traditional crop of that area was not rice but jute.

 

Another issue - for example the floods in the news recently about India - saying how the canals are overflowing.

 

Guess what? The British installed those canals which caused stagnant water and massive malarial outbreaks and the British dismantled the traditional water systems of India.

 

But people reading the news would have no idea that those "canals" in India are actually British.

 

oh - then there's the genocidal famines in India caused by the British - let's see....

 

 

In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, published in 2001, Mike Davis tells the story of the famines which killed between 12 and 29 million Indians(1). These people were, he demonstrates, murdered by British state policy.

 

http://www.monbiot.com/2005/12/27/how-britain-denies-its-holocausts/

 

Yeah that's a lot of people murdered by British colonialism in India - and you can read the details at that link or the original source.

 

So let's just say this male is clueless.

 

And for those who say - oh but we need "male" input also - guess what? Western males are not real males because they are not initiated into the trance pineal gland spiritual healing.

 

India had that trance tradition from the Dravidians and the oldest influence in Western Asia also -

 

Anyway that trance tradition teaches the males how to control their lower bodies so they don't need to be afraid of females.

 

thanks for sharing.

[Nungali]

Western males are not real males ?  

[Daeluin]

In my OP I’ve characterised this conflict between the conscious and the unconscious as between the masculine and feminine forces within us all. As Wu Ming Jen notes in his comment above, it could also be framed in terms of yang and yin.  

 

I once attended a lecture series with a shaman. He would talk non-stop for hours. But we were instructed to not listen with our minds, but with our hearts. The mind can think and analyze the transmission, but the heart is where the transmission finds its home, and it does not need to be understood to find this home - it needs to be received. 

 

So perhaps Wilhelm indeed received this transmission, into his heart. And then worked hard to understand the transmission with his mind. Thomas Clear has some criticism of Jung's understanding of The Secret of the Golden Flower text. I imagine the essence here may have been much more subtle than that of the yijing, but in trying to only understand this text intellectually, without allowing it's transmission to reach the heart first, true understanding could not be found.

 

The yijing explores a full spectrum of change. It is math. But circular math. It approaches a scientific level of change that examines the heart of balance from every possible perspective at the layer in which it operates. Thus, it cannot be fully understood without developing the capacity to see existence from all existing perspectives.

 

I've mentioned before that I feel women are naturally more centered and connected to circular cycles of life, while men tend to be more goal oriented and use more linear approaches.

 

To achieve true balance, one cannot attach to a single perspective but must be able to adapt, to change, to revolve, and to learn to embody the dynamic of the circle. It is easy to fear that which can easily adapt to you and encircle one, but this fear come from an expectation that the world should meet one always in the way one expects.

[voidisyinyang]

Western males are not real males ?  

 

Yeah it was called Tshoma by the Bushmen, the original human culture - so males at puberty do a month long trance dancing fasting with the spiritual masters - all only males away from the females.

 

This spread around the world - I give more details here - this is a post I made 10 years ago.

 

http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=205&start=0&view=print

 

Actually there was an Australian book that said the same thing - something about 7 years separation between males and females - that was the focus of the whole book.

 

Here I wrote an article on this 7 years ago.

 

http://forum.mind-energy.net/forum/alternative-medicine/qigong-yoga-meditation/393-matrifocal-music-healing

 

Matrifocal Music Healing

April 18th, 2008, 02:05 PM

 

The Mind Possessed: Secrets of Matrifocal Music Healing

 

Someone posted my research here also http://redpill.dailygrail.com/wiki/Natural_resonance_revolution

 

.

 

Pythagoras, in contrast, represents the last vestiges of the matrilineal shamanic tradition before the establishment of Western science.

 

 

and another even older source:

 

 

Anyway The NUM turns into electro-magnetic or Chi that

 

Frees the Black-Eye (Taoist Tubs of Tar) so that they're RELEASED FROM THE PODS

 

and Can Be CARRIED AWAY BY THE GREEN MAN UP THE COSMIC BEAN-STALK.

 

The author of the 1930's Cultural Anthropology textbook called this

 

DEMOCRATIC SHAMANISM because EVERYONE practiced it among the Northern Woodland Peoples.

 

The Aborigines -- 80% of the kids with Glaucoma -- call is CLEVER WAYS. (flying through

the air, healing, etc.)

 

No longer are people "CLEVER."

http://sustainedreaction.yuku.com/topic/3804/Castaneda-Documentary-Update?page=11#.VnJWLlJjcxI

Edited December 17, 2015 by conspirachi

[ilumairen]

An interesting video here .....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP7OXDWof30&feature=youtu.be

 

I've been watching fear of the feminine play out in this way my whole life. One thing piles upon another and eventually there is an avalanche of emotion that is incomprehensible to many of the women who experience it. What's really sad is the men whose emotions become the avalanche are often just as confused.

[Nikolai1]

In my OP I’ve characterised this conflict between the conscious and the unconscious as between the masculine and feminine forces within us all. As Wu Ming Jen notes in his comment above, it could also be framed in terms of yang and yin.

When I look around me, particularly when I mix with those interested in spiritual cultivation, fear of the other (whether it be the feminine, the masculine or something else) is not the main problem.  I see woman displaying rationality, linearity and I see men being affectionate and intuitive.  We are a reflective bunch who have often learnt not to live according to stereotyped rules and genderings.

 

The problem is not fear of encountering the other, it is failure to integrate it.  We still let ourselves live in compartments.  By day we go to work and live with the mindset of the team, by night we meditate and read esoteric books and engage in strange practices. 

 

We have different sets of friends.  We have friends and colleaugues who we hide from and we do not share what we share on this site.  We have not found the words to relate to them and we feel embarrassed to reveal our true beliefs.

 

Some of us cannot even speak to our spouses.  They ask us what we are reading and we hardly know how to explain.  

 

We do not like our parents to see the kind of books that are on our shelves.

 

Like Wilhelm we are divided souls.  We accept both sides of our psyche, but never at the same time.

[Daeluin]

When I look around me, particularly when I mix with those interested in spiritual cultivation, fear of the other (whether it be the feminine, the masculine or something else) is not the main problem.  I see woman displaying rationality, linearity and I see men being affectionate and intuitive.  We are a reflective bunch who have often learnt not to live according to stereotyped rules and genderings.

 

The problem is not fear of encountering the other, it is failure to integrate it.  We still let ourselves live in compartments.  By day we go to work and live with the mindset of the team, by night we meditate and read esoteric books and engage in strange practices. 

 

We have different sets of friends.  We have friends and colleaugues who we hide from and we do not share what we share on this site.  We have not found the words to relate to them and we feel embarrassed to reveal our true beliefs.

 

Some of us cannot even speak to our spouses.  They ask us what we are reading and we hardly know how to explain.  

 

We do not like our parents to see the kind of books that are on our shelves.

 

Like Wilhelm we are divided souls.  We accept both sides of our psyche, but never at the same time.

 

Thank you for this.

 

I see some answers in the daoist study of the five phase interactions, the yijing, and yin and yang.

 

With five element interactions, when one element creates another, this is historically called the mother-son relationship. And when one element controls the other, this is historically called the husband-wife relationship. There is this historical idea that it is the husband's role to direct the actions of the wife.

 

Now as we are coming out of a patriarchal age, it is easy to get caught up on this. However there are reasons for this, and if we look deeper I feel we can discover much wisdom here.

 

First, each of the five phases contains a yin side and a yang side. This yields 10 distinct phases of change that can interact with each other. Next, we can see that it is historically common for men to be set upon the yang side of the scale, and women to be set on the yin side of the scale, even though both yin and yang are contained by both.

 

Actually, on that front, I was reading in a book on the Eight Extraordinary vessels and discovered a fascinating distinction described between how the Qiao vessels function differently in men and women. It described the yin qiao vessel in men as a network, and the yang qiao vessel in men as a channel. And the opposite for women. I think of this as the difference between a blood vessel and a network of capillaries. It is much easier for the network to get clogged up, and for the channel to have a strong flow. The yin qiao vessel flows down the inside of the legs, up the front of the body to meet at the cleft in the throat, then up the chin either side of the mouth to the inside corner of the eyes. The yang qiao flows from the outsides of the heels up the outside of the legs, coming in around the outside of the shoulders down to just above mid-clavical, then up either side of the throat to the outside corner of the eyes.

 

In pondering on this, I can see how it would be easier for women to keep the more strongly flowing yin qiao channel clear, and how this could be discerned as a great strength of receptivity. While in men, it is easy for this network to get clogged up, and often in cultivation work one of the first things emphasized is to clear this channel and regain one's root. While in the yang qiao, in men if this is a channel, perhaps this can explain why men seem able to exert more force of strength in their actions, as a channel would perhaps allow more of a function like a pillar of strength, while as a network of yang, I would imaging this manifesting more with a spring like quality that limits the same type of use of force. No idea, but perhaps this yang vessel functioning more as a network in women can explain the increase of body fat retention. Anyway, just speculation, and I imagine there are many more components at play, but I was pleased to discover some differences between the genders that weren't only based on the reproductive systems.

 

So we have our 10 phases: Yang Wood, Yin Wood, Yang Fire, Yin Fire, Yang Earth, Yin Earth, Yang Metal, Yin Metal, Yang Water, Yin Water.

 

Now we can see that the so called mother-son relationship is a yin-yang relationship. From this we can deduce that yin-creating-yang, or yang-creating-yin, is different from yang-creating-yang and yin-creating-yin. In other words, it is easier for one polarity to engender something of the opposite polarity.

 

Chinese astrology confirms this: Say a person identifies as a Yang Wood phase as central to their personality. Wood creates Fire. And Yang Wood can create both Yang Fire and Yin Fire. The rule of thumb in interpreting this in BaZi, is, that when Yang Wood creates Yin Fire - a yang-to-yin change - this is seen in how the person expresses and performs. And when Yang Wood creates Yang Fire - a yang-to-yang change - this is seen in how the person applies themselves in work. In other words, the path that changes polarity is more natural, there is an ease, and it is more natural for someone to express themselves without thinking about it very much. However for the same polarity creation, work must be applied, and this is like crafting something, creating something, doing something that requires deliberate action.

 

And we see this same yin-yang polarity difference as related to the so called controlling relationship, with husband-wife. The controlling cycle is very important in maintaining balance in a system. Otherwise one phase could go to excesses and imbalance the entire system.

 

In Chinese astrology (BaZi), Wood would be controlled by Metal. Yang Wood is controlled by both Yang Metal and Yin Metal. And again, the yin-controlling-yang (different polarity) relationship is going to be more natural, while the yang-controlling-yang (same polarity) relationship is going to be more forced. So when Yang Metal attempts to control Yang Wood, it is rather like hacking and slashing away at a problem - using force to control another.  And when Yin Metal attempts to control Yang Wood, it is more like one's conscience at work, and this is a very beneficial thing.

 

So we can start to see and understand how the interactions of the controlling and creating cycles within a whole system can be used to either create greater balance or to take things out of balance. I've heard that in acupuncture, it is not wise to attempt to control an element that is too strong, as this can cause trauma. It is better to nourish the strength of that which is weak.

 

Putting this all together, we can study the effects of what happens when two human beings are interacting. First, if these two people are of different polarities, it is more easy for different polarities to be drawn to each other, and that they are naturally drawn to nurture and advise one another. However, typically men also embody an inherent external strength that may not be balanced to their own internal receptivity, while women tend to embody an inherent internal receptivity that may not be balanced to their own external strength. These imbalances within each individual, may cause them to seek out balancing with another. And, if the male's external strength is too imbalanced to match the woman's capacity and desire for receiving that strength, the natural nurturing and advising balances cannot be met, and as perhaps the female's receptivity changes to obstruction - yin changes to yang, then the dynamic of advising of the man to the woman can become one of forcefully controlling. Meanwhile the opposite must be true - that if the woman's desire for receiving the man's strength does not match the man's capacity for strength, this is like the man turning from yang to yin, and the stronger yin of the woman controlling the man through demands the man is not comfortable with and does not have the capacity to achieve. And of course the yang or yin is largely irrelevant - it is the differences in polarity and strengths of those polarities and how they change that is most important.

 

This is all complicated, but essentially, I feel that when we cultivate and regulate our own internal balances, we are less likely to depend upon others to balance them for us, and consequently less likely to end up in situations where those balances are sought - from either gender - in a controlling dynamic.

 

Too, the more we cultivate our own internal balances, the more we cultivate our own wholeness. And the more we disconnect from the web of dependency we used to nurture through all of our connections to others. This can feel like we are divided souls, but my sense is that we have healed ourselves, yet are still sensitive to the needs of others, and feel guilty if we do not give them what they want from us. However, what they want from us is often to leak out their energy in some way, often through emotional communication, and then for us to replenish the energy they have expended from them. We are made to feel guilty if we do not comply - guilty because they gave us a gift of energy that we did not return. However it would be better for them to recognize that it was their gift, and that gifts should not be given with expectations.

 

The more we become whole, perhaps the more we feel isolated in some ways - and yet the more capacity for refining our energy we have, and the more we do this the more we are able to slip past the clearly defined needs and wants of others, our energy refined to a level where it reaches all. And as we begin to feel this, we might not feel isolated any longer.

[CrunchyChocolate555]

Can you comment more on Jung's commentary on Wilhelm in regards to the I-Ching? Where can I read more on this?

 

 

I wonder if we have to call this 'fear of the feminine' - I think fear of the 'other' is what this is about.

 

In the times when the British were in India, the two cultures - East and West - were nowhere near as integrated as the are now.  When the westerner encounted the east, and was psychologically open to it, he became aware of a reality and an approach to reality that was radically alien.

 

Only the very strongest managed any kind of integration.  More commonly there had to be extremely strict defences put in place in order to stay western - afternoon tea, croquet, cocktails at six.  Or, there was a whole scale abandonment of the west in favour of the eastern - 'going native' as it was called.

 

Actually, these two responses are still very obvious in people today, despite the greater integration of east and west.  I know people who have become incapable of just taking an interest in Zen Buddhism.  They have had to change their name to a Japanese name, start wearing Japanese clothes and even taken up a Japanese pastime - calligraphy.  This person is a prominent Zen Buddhist in America.  He has not been able to integrate east and west, and appears as a bit of a clown at times.

 

For the thinking westerner, studying a text like the I Ching is a profoundly disorientating experience.  The approach to reality is diametrically opposed to western science.  It takes considerable effort to even understand how the I Ching might be valid.  There is a strong temptation to simply accept one method and dismiss the other as illusion.  To hold them both and endorse them both is difficult, scary and painful.  Richard Wilhelm, who made the first authoritative translation of the I Ching, was thought by Jung to have been killed by the intellectual efforts he had to make.  But the sacrifices he made has made it easier for subsequent generations.

Edited December 17, 2015 by CrunchyChocolate555

[Geof Nanto]

I think it is a problem when one tries to introduce a new consciousness into his world without being aware of himself as a whole.

Wilhelm' should have done a lot of inner work but how? He was not probably aware of the necessity of that.

 

Agreed. However it's worth reading the whole of Jung's essay on Wilhelm to understand more fully why his situation made this impossible. It's not lengthy and it's available online here.....

 

 http://www.schoolofwisdom.com/history/teachers/richard-wilhelm/carl-jung-on-richar-wilhelm/

 

Wilheim, of course, was not introducing new consciousness to the world, rather he was a bridge between ancient Chinese knowledge and modern Western thinking.  He served as a medium for transmission. It could be said his life is a classic example of the Dao treating us as straw dogs.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Yueya

[Nikolai1]

Can you comment more on Jung's commentary on Wilhelm in regards to the I-Ching? Where can I read more on this?

Hi there,

 

http://www.bahaistudies.net/asma/the_secret_of_the_golden_flower.pdf

 

This is a good document because it contains Jung's fascinating preface the to Wilhem's translation.  This explains a lot about how Jung understood the text and gives great insight into Jung's own psychology.  Jung's eulogy to Wilhelm is included as an appendix.  As It was a eulogy, he isn't being fully open about his views on Wilhem and is he is more candid in his own autobiography: Memories, Dream and Reflections.  The relevant passage is:

 

I first met Richard Wilhelm at Count Keyserling's during a meeting of the "School of Wisdom" in Darmstadt. That was in the early twenties. In 1923 we invited him to Zurich and he spoke on the I Ching (or Yi Jing) at the Psychology Club.

Even before meeting him I had been interested in Oriental philosophy, and around 1920 had begun experimenting with the I Ching. One summer in Bollingen I resolved to make an all-out attack on the riddle of this book. Instead of traditional stalks of yarrow required by the classical method, I cut myself a bunch of reeds. I would sit for hours on the ground beneath the hundred-year-old pear tree, the I Ching beside me, practicing the technique by referring the resultant oracles to one another in an interplay of questions and answers. All sorts of undeniably remarkable results emerged-meaningful connections with my own thought processes which I could not explain to myself.

The only subjective intervention in this experiment consists in the experimenter's arbitrarily - that is, without counting-dividing up the bundle of forty-nine stalks at a single swoop. He does not know how many stalks are contained in each bundle, and yet the result depends upon their numerical relationship. All other manipulations proceed mechanically and leave no room for interference by the will. If a psychic causal connection is present at all, it can only consist in the chance division of the bundle (or, in the other method, the chance fall of the coins).

During the whole of those summer holidays I was preoccupied with the question: Are the I Ching's answers meaningful or not? If they are, how does the connection between the psychic and the physical sequence of events come about? Time and again I encountered amazing coincidences which seemed to suggest the idea of an acausal parallelism (a synchronicity, as I later called it). So fascinated was I by these experiments that I altogether forgot to take notes, which I afterward greatly regretted. Later, however, when I often used to carry out the experiment with my patients, it became quite clear that a significant number of answers did indeed hit the mark. I remember, for example, the case of a young man with a strong mother complex. He wanted to marry, and had made the acquaintance of a seemingly suitable girl. However, he felt uncertain, fearing that under the influence of his complex he might once more find himself in the power of an overwhelming mother. I conducted the experiment with him. The text of his hexagram read: "The maiden is powerful. One should not marry such a maiden."

In the mid-thirties I met the Chinese philosopher Hu Shi. I asked him his opinion of the I Ching, and received the reply: "Oh, that's nothing but an old collection of magic spells, without significance." He had had no experience with it - or so he said. Only once, he remembered, had the come across it in practice. One day on a walk with a friend, the friend had told him about his unhappy love affair. They were just passing by a Taoist temple. As a joke, he had said to his friend: "Here you can consult the oracle!" No sooner said than done. They went into the temple together and asked the priest for an I Ching oracle. But he had not the slightest faith in this nonsense.

I asked him whether the oracle had been correct. Whereupon he replied reluctantly, "Oh yes, it was, of course..." Remembering the well-known story of the "good friend" who does everything one does not wish to do oneself, I cautiously asked him whether he had not profited by this opportunity. "Yes," he replied, "as a joke I asked a question too."

"And did the oracle give you a sensible answer?" I asked.

He hesitated. "Oh well, yes, if you wish to put it that way." The subject obviously made him uncomfortable.

A few years after my first experiments with the reeds, the I Ching was published with Wilhelm's commentary. I instantly obtained the book, and found to my gratification that Wilhelm took much the same view of the meaningful connections as I had. But he knew the entire literature and could therefore fill in the gaps which had been outside my competence. When Wilhelm came to Zurich, I had the opportunity to discuss the matter with him at length, and we talked a great deal about Chinese philosophy and religion. What he told me, out of his wealth of knowledge of the Chinese mentality, clarified some of the most difficult problems that the European unconscious had posed for me. On the other hand, what I had to tell him about the results of my investigations of the unconscious caused him no little surprise; for he recognized in them things he had considered to be the exclusive possession of the Chinese philosophical tradition.

As a young man Wilhelm had gone to China in the service of a Christian mission, and there the mental world of the Orient had opened its doors wide to him. Wilhelm was a truly religious spirit, with an unclouded and farsighted view of things. He had the gift of being able to listen without bias to the revelations of a foreign mentality, and to accomplish that miracle of empathy which enabled him to make the intellectual treasures of China accessible to Europe. He was deeply influenced by Chinese culture, and once said to me, "It is a great satisfaction to me that I never baptized a single Chinese!" In spite of his Christian background, he could not help recognizing the logic and clarity of Chinese thought. "Influenced" is not quite the word to describe its effect upon him; it had overwhelmed and assimilated him. His Christian views receded into the background, but did not vanish entirely; they formed a kind of mental reservation, a moral proviso that was later to have fateful consequences.

In China he had the good fortune to meet a sage of the old school whom the revolution had driven out of the interior. This sage, Lau Nai Suan, introduced him to Chinese yoga philosophy and the psychology of the I Ching. To the collaboration of these two men we owe the edition of the I Ching with its excellent commentary. For the first time this profoundest work of the Orient was introduced to the West in a living and comprehensible fashion. I consider this publication Wilhelm's most important work. Clear and unmistakably Western as his mentality was, in his I Ching commentary he manifested a degree of adaptation to Chinese psychology which is altogether unmatched.

When the last page of the translation was finished and the first printer's proofs were coming in, the old master Lau Nai Suan died. It was as if his work were completed and he had delivered the last message of the old, dying China to Europe. And Wilhelm had been the perfect disciple, a fulfillment of the wish-dream of the sage.

Wilhelm, when I met him, seemed completely Chinese, in outward manner as much as in his way of writing and speaking. The Oriental point of view and ancient Chinese culture had penetrated him through and though. Upon his arrival in Europe, he entered the faculty of the China Institute in Frankfurt am Main. Both in his teaching work and in his lectures to laymen, however, he seemed to feel the pressure of the European spirit. Christian views and forms of thought moved steadily into the foreground. I went to hear some lectures of his and they turned out to be scarcely any different from conventional sermons.

This reversion to the past seemed tome somewhat unreflective and therefore dangerous. I saw it as a reassimilation to the West, and felt that as a result of it Wilhelm must come into conflict with himself. Since it was, so I thought, a passive assimilation, that is to say, a succumbing to the influence of the environment, there was the danger of a relatively unconscious conflict, a clash between his Western and Eastern psyche. If, as I assumed, the Christian attitude had originally given way to the influence of China, the reverse might well be talking place now: the European element might be gaining the upper hand over the Orient once again. If such a process takes place without a strong, conscious attempt to come to terms with it, the unconscious conflict can seriously affect the physical state of health.

After attending the lectures, I attempted to call his attention to the danger threatening him. My words to him were: "My dear Wilhelm, please do not take this amiss, but I have the feeling that the West is taking possession of you again, and that you are becoming unfaithful to your mission of transmitting the East to the West."

He replied, "I think you are right - something here is overpowering me. But what can be done?"

A few years later Wilhelm was staying as a guest in my house, and came down with an attack of amoebic dysentery. It was a disease he had had twenty years before. His condition grew worse during the following months, and then I heard that Wilhelm was in the hospital. I went to Frankfurt to visit him, and found a very sick man. The doctors had not yet given up hope, and Wilhelm, too, spoke of plans he wished to carry out when he got well. I shared his hopes, but had my forebodings. What he confided to me at the time confirmed my conjectures. In his dreams, he revisited the endless stretches of desolate Asiatic steppes - the China he had left behind. He was groping his way back to the problem which China had set before him, the answer to which had been blocked for him by the West. By now he was conscious of this question, but had been unable to find a solution. His illness dragged on for months.

A few weeks before his death, when I had had no news from his for a considerable time, I was awakened, just as I was on the point of falling asleep, by a vision. At my bed stood a Chinese in a dark blue gown, hands crossed in the sleeves. He bowed low before me, as if he wished to give me a message. I knew what it signified. The vision was extraordinarily vivid. Not only did I see every wrinkle in the man's face, but every thread in the fabric of his gown.

Wilhelm's problem might also be regarded as a conflict between consciousness and the unconscious, which in his case took the form of a clash between West and East. I believed I understood his situation, since I myself had the same problem as he and knew what it meant to be involved in this conflict. It is true that even at our last meeting Wilhelm did not speak plainly. Though he was intensely interested when I introduced the psychological point of view, his interest lasted only so long as my remarks concerned objective matters such as meditation or questions posed by the psychology of religion. So far, so good. But whenever I attempted to touch the actual problem of his inner conflict, I immediately sensed a drawing back, an inward shutting himself off - because such matters went straight to the bone. This is a phenomenon I have observed in many men of importance. There is, as Goethe puts it in Faust, an "untrodden, untreadable" region whose precincts cannot and should not be entered by force; a destiny which will brook no human intervention.

Another must read on this subject is Jung's preface to Wilhelm's I Ching, where he explains the I  Ching operating through synchronicity...so the hexagram is the appearance of a psychically meaningful moment in the flow of reality. Link here:

 

http://www.iging.com/intro/foreword.htm