The Individuation Process and the Journey Home

[Dover]

What is Ego, Shadow, Animus and Anima, Persona...? All parts of the Psyche that require integration toward unity and consciousness, and which is what alchemy and astrology and many other practices teach us.

That integration process is called "Individuation" in Jungian terminology...an essential step toward uniting oneself with the Divine within. Carl Jung describes it this way:

Individuation ...................................

Individuation means that one becomes a person, an individual, a totally integrated personality. It is a process of self realization during which one integrates those contents of the psyche that have the ability to become conscious. It is a search for totality. It is an experience that could be formulated as the discovery of the divine in yourself, or the discovery of the totality of your Self. This does not always happen without pain, but it is necessary to accept many things that normally we would shy away from. Once a person has accepted the contents of his unconsciousness and has reached the goal of the individuation process, he is conscious of his relationships with everything that lives, with the entire cosmos.

Individuation is a natural, inherent process in man. It cannot be stimulated by something external, but it grows from the inside. Just as the body can become deformed or sick by lack of nutrition or movement, the personality can be deformed by lack of experience or education. Jung stresses that our modern world does not give enough opportunity to experience the archetype of the Shadow. When a child expresses his animal instincts, generally it is punished by its parents. Punishment does not lead to the extinction of the Shadow (repressed tendencies, more about this later on), which is impossible, but it leads to the suppression of this archetype. The Shadow retreats to an unconscious state, primitive and undifferentiated. Then, when the Shadow breaks through the repressive barrier, and this does happen once in a while, it manifests itself in a sinister, pathological way.


The Individuation Process


The individuation process begins with becoming conscious of the Persona, the mask we take on in our every day life. After this we become conscious of the Shadow, the repressed characteristics of the ego. Then we become conscious of the Anima, the inner woman in each man, or the Animus, the inner man in each woman. Then the image of the old wise man, or the old wise mother appears, after which the experience of the Self happens.

These phases are not necessarily chronological in order or separated from each other. They can overlap each other or run parallel.


Transcendence

The first step of integration is individuation of all aspects of the personality, which is called the individuation process.

There is a second phase that Jung called the transcendental function. This function has the capacity to unify the opposite tendencies of the personality. The goal of transcendence is the realization of all aspects of the personality as they were originally concealed in the one’s center, and the development of the potential unity. The transcendence is the means to realize the unity of the archetype of the Self.

...snip...


The Experience of the Self

The process of individuation is not easy for Western man because he has difficulty with the concept of paradoxes. Nevertheless it is necessary to accept both the superior and the inferior, the rational and the irrational, the order and the chaos, light and darkness, yin and yang.

The Self, according to Jung, is not a kind of universal consciousness. It is rather an awareness of our unique nature and our intimate connection with all life. This life is not only human but also animal, with plants and minerals, and even the entire cosmos. It gives us a sense of ‘unity’ and acceptance of life as it is, and not as we might think we want it to be.

The Self is symbolized in the form a child, Christ, Buddha, and so on. In dreams it can sprout forth from an animal or an egg. The hermaphrodite, an often used alchemical image, is another symbol, it joins the opposites of male and female. Other images are the difficult to obtain treasure, a jewel, a flower, a golden egg or golden ball, a chalice like the Grail, and all fourfold images like mandalas.

CONT'D - http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/individuationprocess.htm




Some related and interesting sites:

MYTHS, DREAMS, SYMBOLS
http://www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/shadow.html

INDIVIDUATION
AND THE BIBLICAL CONCEPT OF WHOLENESS
http://www.ldolphin.org/individ.html

NON-DUALISM AND THE DIVINE DOMAIN
http://www.transpersonalstudies.org/ImagesRepository/ijts/Downloads/Nondualism%20and%20the%20Divine%20Domain.pdf

And Jung's Book: Modern Man In Search Of A Soul
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[Matariki]

1. Fantastic post Dover. Thanks.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. to accept the totality

what is perceived as shadow as well as that which is perceived as light...the best way I've found to do this is to listen to inner guidance and to have my eyes open to lessons that come my way--and to sense when my spirit guide is smiling over my shoulder when I get those lessons.

[Why Syzygy]

3. Very nice!

This is something I've never learned enough about. Thanks for putting this all together here!

I'll spend time looking through all the references. I LOVE the top picture.
Things like this make me long for the unity of humanity so we can all have our place on the Wheel.