Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1875-1961) claimed the individual follows a path that is “defined by his knowledge of the laws that are peculiar to himself” and must stay true to this path “otherwise he will get lost in the arbitrary opinions of the conscious mind”.1 This means, individuals need to be aware of their personal values and act accordingly to maintain healthy conscious thoughts. It is also a helpful insight for when we communicate with others as we need to understand that another’s personal values may be different from our own, affecting the opinions (judgements) formed as two people communicate with each other. My goal as a researcher and writer is to become consciously aware of the personal values of the individuals I interact with. One important part of an individual’s health and well-being is understanding their own relationship to the reality that they are living with. Recognizing that reality is a lived reality will be critical when I consider the development of research techniques such as performing ethical interviews and studying individual patterns of spiritually related behaviours. To understand an individual’s experience means that one must learn to effectively, and without judgement, listen to what the other person is expressing about their values and how those values affect their thoughts about any situation.
William James (1842-1910) was a psychologist and theorist who wrote about an approach to studying human nature which valued the individual’s perception of their reality as evidence toward validating their experiences within their reality. James believed in applying the scientific method to the study of the mind and evaluated the complexity of the individual experience as a valid, sensory experience which emphasizes the event as real, because it is real for the person. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, James emphasized that conscious thoughts about one’s experience are a reaction between personal values (objects of the mind) and a sensory or thought experience:
“All our attitudes, moral, practical, or emotional, as well as religious, are due to the “objects” of our consciousness, the things which we believe to exist, whether really or ideally, along with ourselves. Such objects may be present to our senses, or they may be present only to our thought. In either case they elicit from us a REACTION; and the reaction due to things of thought is notoriously in many cases as strong as that due to sensible presences.”2
To demonstrate this idea, James studied paranormal phenomena as something of a relationship between the mind and the event. We may denounce the idea of the paranormal as a figment of the imagination, but if our minds see these abstract events as based in reality, then what does it matter if other people do not live that same reality? James tells us that what is abstract is both “polarizing and magnetizing” in emotionally critical ways. “[W]e seek them, hold them, hate them, bless them, just as if they were so many concrete beings. And beings they are, beings as real in the realm which they inhabit as the changing things of sense are in the realm of space.”3 As such, events we may perceive as impossible (like telepathy, or perceiving that one has seen a ghost), are real to the person because their sensory experience evaluates it as both possible and real.
The diversity of our responses to phenomenon provides a feedback loop to the interviewer about an individual’s personal values. It is possible to first see the reaction to an object of thought, and then question what kind of personal values may contribute to having this type of reaction. Does the individual seek phenomenon, hold onto it, despise it, and so on? But Jung cautions us to remember the individual holds a unique experience, one that cannot be categorized. He tells us, “I must lay aside all scientific knowledge of the average man and discard all theories in order to adopt a completely new and unprejudiced attitude.”4 This attitude of non-judgement is consistent with my own personal values of diversity and reflects an awareness that there is not just one reality humanity subscribes to, but rather, a diversity of realities.
An alternative to James’ notion that the individual experiences a reaction from the object-self that determines reality is one that considers the evaluation of self against the norms of society. Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) discusses an individual’s lived experience through using dialogical theory that pre-supposes we are two characters of self – one that thinks of ourselves as a fixed character, and one that considers ourselves as having a flexible and changing character.5 It is as though Ricoeur has considered the individual human experience as a formula for an individual that applies multiple dimensions of one’s identity to secure an ethical (or paradoxically, immoral) response to an experience (notice how this response can also be polarizing and magnetizing). While Ricoeur provides terminology expressing the idea of a character identity as narrative identity, he also claims this narrative pursues an ethical experience, where “the self evaluates its actions in light of the norms of its tradition.”6 This perspective does more than what Jung anticipated because, while Jung seemed to have denied the implications of enculturation, Ricoeur considers social norms as part of the individual’s experience of reality and, “[W]hen there is no norm that guide unambiguously, the self critically returns to its ethical aim in order to choose its course of action.”7 The individual goes through a process of deliberation, where one’s personal values are assessed against social norms, and as long as those norms are clearly understood, then there is opportunity for their values to properly align with conscious thoughts, creating a healthy individual experience.
Applying the ideas of James, Jung and Ricoeur, I feel as though I can prepare myself for a method of study where my own personal values and ethics are integrated into the experience of fully conceptualizing Everyday Spirituality. James affirms my belief that an individual’s experience of the spiritual needs to be assessed based on their own perception of reality in their everyday lived experience. Jung provides a careful, therapeutic approach where personal values are adequately articulated and understood. Ricoeur draws on the awareness of social and cultural norms in forming an approach to evaluating how one’s spiritual identity is impacted by the process of self-evaluation. I look forward to seeing this research project evolve, and connecting to a diversity of individual experiences.
Footnotes:
- Jung, Carl G., Gerhard Adler, and R. F.C. Hull. Collected Works of C.G. Jung. Volume 16, Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 16 ; Practice of Psychotherapy. Course Book., 2014, 11.
- James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience A Study In Human Nature. S.l.: The Floating Press, 2009, 78.
- Ibid., 83.
- Jung, C. G., R. F.C. Hull, and Sonu Shamdasani. The Undiscovered Self : with Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams. With a New foreword by Sonu Shamdasani., 2010, 6.
- Ellis, Basia D., and Henderikus J. Stam. “Addressing the Other in Dialogue: Ricoeur and the Ethical Dimensions of the Dialogical Self.” Theory & Psychology 20, no. 3 (2010): 420–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354310364280, 428.
- Ibid., 430.
- Ibid., 430
Image: early Sumerian pictograph of lú = ‘human being’
**See post The Sophistication of Sumerian Culture for source
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