“Memories, Dreams and Reflections” by C.G.Jung

A Fascinating and Unique Autobiography

Jung explores many fields that are both familiar and strange, such as astrology, alchemy, philosophy, psychology and religion. For someone with limited knowledge and experience, Jung is quite understandable, as he conveys his ideas and feelings very well despite the broad scope and  complexities of the subjects. He has a truly synthesizing mind.

It’s a unique autobiography, because, instead of a record of events in Jung’s life, it’s an account mainly of his inner experiences, his dreams, fantasies and reflections. Life is viewed as a process of transformation, namely, transformation of the psyche to achieve “wholeness” or “total consciousness”. Jung also reflects on his relationships and encounters with people who have influenced him, most notably Freud. It’s surprising, however, that he seldom mentions his wife, though he speaks volumes about his parents.

Jung identifies himself strongly with Goethe’s Faust, who gave his soul in exchange for knowledge. He asserts that there are opposites in everything and is particularly obsessed with the dark secrets. The book documents his fascination with corpses and graves, his experiments and experiences with  the unconscious, spirits and multiple personalities. If not for his social support, he would perhaps have gone over the edge like Nietzsche.

Answer Comes From Within

“Inner experiences also set their seal on the outward events that came my way and assumed importance for me in youth or later on. I early arrived at the insight that when no answer comes from within to the problems and complexities of life, they ultimately mean very little. Outward circumstances are no substitute for inner experience. … I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life, and with these my autobiography deals.”

A Diabolical Mixture of the Sublime and the Ridiculous

“From the beginning I had conceived my voluntary confrontation with the unconscious as a scientific experiment which I myself was conducting and in whose outcome I was vitally interested. Today I might equally well say that it was an experiment which was being conducted on me. One of the greatest difficulties for me lay in dealing with my negative feelings. I was voluntarily submitting myself to emotions of which I could not really approve, and I was writing down fantasies which often struck me as nonsense, and toward which I had strong resistances. For as long as we do not understand their meaning, such fantasies are a diabolical mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous. It cost me a great deal to undergo them, but I had been challenged by fate. Only by extreme effort was I finally able to escape from the labyrinth.”

“I was afraid of losing command of myself and becoming a prey to the fantasies and as a psychiatrist I realized only too well what that meant. After prolonged hesitation, however, I saw that there was no other way out. I had to take the chance, had to try to gain power over them; for I realized that if I did not do so, I ran the risk of their gaining power over me. A cogent motive for my making the attempt was the conviction that I could not expect of my patients something I did not dare to do myself. … This idea that I was committing myself to a dangerous enterprise not for myself alone, but also for the sake of my patients helped me over several critical phases.”

The Process of Individuation

“As I worked with my fantasies, I became aware that the unconscious
undergoes or produces change. Only after I had familiarized myself with alchemy did I realize that the unconscious is a process, and that the psyche is transformed or developed by the relationship of the ego to the contents of the unconscious. In individual cases that transformation can be read from dreams and fantasies. In collective life it has left its deposit principally in the various religious systems and their changing symbols. Through the study of these collective transformation processes and through understanding of alchemical symbolism I arrived at the central concept of my psychology: the process of individuation.”

“Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde” by Oscar Wilde

A compilation of nine fairy tales from “The Happy Prince and Other Tales”

The Happy Prince
The Nightingale and the Rose
The Selfish Giant
The Devoted Friend
The Remarkable Rocket

and “A House of Pomegranates”

The Young King
The Birthday of the Infanta
The Fisherman and His Soul
The Star-Child

I remember reading “The Happy Prince”and “The Selfish Giant” when I was a child. Sad but beautiful stories about miseries in the world and the fragility and beauty of love. “The Remarkable Rocket” reads like a political satire of the idle and pompous; “The Young King” decries the cruelty of wealth and power.

I don’t quite appreciate “The Nightingale and the Rose” and “The Birthday of the Infanta”. One character died giving her heart’s blood to make a beautiful red rose, another died from shame of his own ugliness. IMO, their lives were sacrificed needlessly in the name of love, or rather, on the altar of beauty.

“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl

“I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. … I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, … At that moment, I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.”

Under the dire circumstances of the concentration camps, Frankl became fully convinced that if life is to have meaning, there must be meaning in death and sufferings also, and that every day, every moment, in every situation, no matter how dreadful and seemingly hopeless, a human being still can live with dignity and meaning, he always has the freedom to choose to be responsible for his life, to love, to experience life in its fullness even through sufferings.

“The Youngest Science” by Lewis Thomas

Medicine Watcher

Dr. Thomas gives a fascinating personal account of the development of medicine in the last three-quarters of a century. He grew up watching his parents practice medicine (his father was a physician, and his mother a nurse), became a physician himself, also a professor and dean of the medical school of NYU, served on the New York Board of Health overseeing public health policy and later headed a cancer center. He also experienced being a patient, receiving surgeries and hospital care.

Neurology, Immunology and Olfaction

Thomas intrigues the readers with many interesting problems in immunology and related fields. His sense of wonder and curiosity are very contagious. In particular, I find his notion that “neurology and immunology may be on the verge of converging” fascinating, and will pursue further readings on the subject.

Dogs and mice can track individuals by their smell and separate people with cancer from those who are normal by the smell of their urine samples. These experiments suggest that differences in genetic makeup are expressed in smell (molecular makeup), and each person has a unique smell that can be used as a unique identifier, like fingerprints. These markers of self may have a mechanism similar to those in immune response, where foreign cells are detected presumably by molecular interactions on the cell membrane.

Memory (both immune memory and long-term memory in the brain) involves molecular interactions (at the synapses) and the synthesis of new molecules (proteins, etc). Vaccines work similarly to sensitization, i.e., they facilitate and strengthen existing pathways and even create new ones.

“Republic” by Plato

One of the best books I’ve ever read. I wish I had read it twenty years ago, but perhaps I would not have appreciated it then as much as I do now. Although this is one of the most influential books in history, I put off reading it due to a lack of interest in political science. Ironically, another influential book on the subject, “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli, drove me to this, to seek refuge from the cynical argument that injustice is more powerful and profitable than justice.

In the beginning of this book, Socrates’ associates challenge him to prove that justice is indeed superior to injustice. In response, Socrates discourses on the nature of justice and the attributes of a just state and a just person. He also examines the presence or absence of justice in four types of states –namely, timocracy (rule-by-honor), oligarchy (rule-by-wealth), democracy and tyranny, and  four types of people corresponding to the types of states, i.e., lovers of honor, lovers of wealth, the democratic man, and the tyrant.

Because Plato adroitly employs a variety of analogies, parables and stories from Homer and Greek mythology in his dialogue, his arguments are not only coherent and compelling but also easy and enjoyable to follow from beginning to finish.

What is Justice

Justice is “the having and doing what is a man’s own”.

Plato’s definition of justice is, to me, the most profound statement in the book, and it’s the foundation that all the other arguments are built on. I always thought that justice was something administered externally. Plato defines it instead as an inherent state of being that is inseparable from order and harmony. In other words, justice is not a means to an end, but it is both the means and the end.

Justice in a Man

There are three principles working in man, namely, reason, passion and desire. A just man is one in whom the three principles are given their proper precedence, with reason ruling over passion and desire.

Justice is  concerned “not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others,–he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals–when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance.”

Justice in a State

The principles that apply to a person also apply to a state. People differ by nature, therefore there should be a division of labor. There should be a natural order in the governing of a state, i.e., the wise and courageous men who are the minority should be the rulers, and the artisans and merchants the subjects. Injustice arises when the lower class usurp power from the upper class.

Democracy vs. Justice

Plato argues that democracy is not a just state, in that it allows passion and desire to overrun reason and order. Authority should not be given to the classes of people who are not fit to exercise it, even though they may be the majority.

Art and Justice

Plato states that art should be censored based on their influence on the soul of man. Only those works of art that are in accord with justice (i.e., give proper precedence to reason over passion and desire) should be allowed.

Quotes:

“Virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice the disease and weakness and deformity of the same.”

“Phaedrus” by Plato

Plato discourses on the nature of beauty and love. He bases his argument on the belief that the  soul is immortal and originates from the presence of god.

He likens the soul to “a pair of winged horses and a charioteer.” The good steed is a lover of honour and modesty and temperance, and the bad steed a mate of insolence and pride. The wing lifts the soul to the upper world where the divine abides. “The divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness, and the like; and by these the wing of the soul is nourished, and grows apace; but when fed upon evil and foulness and the opposite of good, wastes and falls away.” The soul, weighed down by forgetfulness, vice and corruption, falls to the earth.

Wisdom Is the Recollection of the Divine

For a man must have intelligence of universals, and be able to proceed from the many particulars of sense to one conception of reason;–this is the recollection of those things which our soul once saw while following God–when regardless of that which we now call being she raised her head up towards the true being. And therefore the mind of the philosopher alone has wings; and this is just, for he is always, according to the measure of his abilities, clinging in recollection to those things in which God abides, and in beholding which He is what He is. And he who employs aright these memories is ever being initiated into perfect mysteries and alone becomes truly perfect. But, as he forgets earthly interests and is rapt in the divine, the vulgar deem him mad, and rebuke him; they do not see that he is inspired.

Divine Madness

Love is a madness. And of madness there were two kinds; one produced by human infirmity, the other was a divine release of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention. The divine madness was subdivided into four kinds, prophetic, initiatory, poetic, erotic, having four gods presiding over them; the first was the inspiration of Apollo, the second that of Dionysus, the third that of the Muses, the fourth that of Aphrodite and Eros.

Beauty Is an Image of the Divine

But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her there shining in company with the celestial forms; and coming to earth we find her here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense. For sight is the most piercing of our bodily senses; though not by that is wisdom seen; her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a visible image of her, and the other ideas, if they had visible counterparts, would be equally lovely. But this is the privilege of beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight. Now he who is not newly initiated or who has become corrupted, does not easily rise out of this world to the sight of true beauty in the other; he looks only at her earthly namesake, and instead of being awed at the sight of her, he is given over to pleasure

Love of Beauty, Love of Divine

But he whose initiation is recent, and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other world, is amazed when he sees any one having a godlike face or form, which is the expression of divine beauty; and at first a shudder runs through him, and again the old awe steals over him; then looking upon the face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a god; then while he gazes on him there is a sort of reaction, and the shudder passes into an unusual heat and perspiration; for, as he receives the effluence of beauty through the eyes, the wing moistens and he warms.

And they have the less difficulty in finding the nature of their own god in themselves, because they have been compelled to gaze intensely on him; their recollection clings to him, and they become possessed of him, and receive from him their character and disposition, so far as man can participate in God. The qualities of their god they attribute to the beloved, wherefore they love him all the more, and if, like the Bacchic Nymphs, they draw inspiration from Zeus, they pour out their own fountain upon him, wanting to make him as like as possible to their own god;… for no feelings of envy or jealousy are entertained by them towards their beloved, but they do their utmost to create in him the greatest likeness of themselves and of the god whom they honour. Thus fair and blissful to the beloved is the desire of the inspired lover, and the initiation of which I speak into the mysteries of true love, if he be captured by the lover and their purpose is effected.

Lover and the Beloved

For fate which has ordained that there shall be no friendship among the evil has also ordained that there shall ever be friendship among the good.

The fountain of that stream, which Zeus when he was in love with Ganymede named Desire, overflows upon the lover, and some enters into his soul, and some when he is filled flows out again; and as a breeze or an echo rebounds from the smooth rocks and returns whence it came, so does the stream of beauty, passing through the eyes which are the windows of the soul, come back to the beautiful one; there arriving and quickening the passages of the wings, watering them and inclining them to grow, and filling the soul of the beloved also with love. And thus he loves, but he knows not what; he does not understand and cannot explain his own state; he appears to have caught the infection of blindness from another; the lover is his mirror in whom he is beholding himself, but he is not aware of this. When he is with the lover, both cease from their pain, but when he is away then he longs as he is longed for, and has love’s image, love for love (Anteros) lodging in his breast

The Art of Speaking and Writing

A man knows the truth of the several particulars of which he is writing or speaking, and is able to define them as they are, and having defined them again to divide them until they can be no longer divided, and until in like manner he is able to discern the nature of the soul, and discover the different modes of discourse which are adapted to different natures, … the simple form of speech may be addressed to the simpler nature, and the complex and composite to the more complex nature.

Neither poetry nor prose, spoken or written, is of any great value, if …they are only recited in order to be believed, and not with any view to criticism or instruction; …The best of writings are but a reminiscence of what we know, and that only in principles of justice and goodness and nobility taught and communicated … for the sake of instruction and graven in the soul, which is the true way of writing.

“The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli

A fascinating, thought-provoking and disturbing read.

Machiavelli based his arguments on the premise (or rather observation) that men are inherently evil unless compelled by necessity to do good. If a man follows moral principles, he would be at a disadvantage to the majority who don’t. Therefore, for a man to obtain power, it is necessary for him to resort to deceit, false promises, hypocrisy, cruelty and other immoral devices. (“Men should be either pampered or annihilated”, since the annihilated can not avenge themselves)

I’m reminded of a joke about a man who robbed a bank and used his booty to buy a diamond necklace for his girlfriend but later found out that the necklace was a fake. What good end can one achieve by unjust means?

Morals aside, however, Machiavelli made poignant observations of human nature and the power struggles among principalities. For instance, it is better to send settlers or establish friendly local governments than to deploy troops to stabilize and control newly conquered territories; Support the weak neighboring nations, but weaken the strong ones; A highly-centralized, uniform state power is harder to conquer but easier to hold, whereas a decentralized, heterogeneous state power is easier to overturn but harder to control; Political and social disorders, like human diseases, are better dealt with as early as possible before they become incurable, therefore wars are not to be avoided or deferred; Injuries, if necessary, should be inflicted swiftly in one fell swoop,  so that they may be more easily forgotten, and benefits should be bestowed gradually, “so that the flavor of them may last longer”.

“The Trial and Death of Socrates” by Plato

AKA: “The Last Days of Socrates”

This book is a collection of four Dialogues by Plato that provide an account of the trial and death of Socrates, “Euthyphro”, “Apology”, “Crito” and “Phaedo”. Of the four, Apology and Phaedo are the most dramatic, intellectually stimulating and emotionally moving.

Socrates, falsely accused of impiety and corrupting the Athenian youths, was condemned to death by poison. In “Euthyphro”, he tore apart the covering of a man who professed to know all about piety. In “Crito”, he refused his friend Crito’s urging to escape prison and save his own life, stating that it would be unjust to break the laws of Athens.

“Phaedo” gives a  fascinating and moving account of the last day of Socrates. There he was, facing impending death, and yet his sleep was sound and deep, and his speeches calm and penetrating as usual. He spent his last hours discussing the very thing he had pursued all his life, wisdom and the purification of  the soul. Here he  made philosophy come alive in a most powerful manner. Because to him, the immortality of the soul was not merely a matter of speculation, but literally  a matter of life and death. If the soul was not immortal, then all his life’s travail would have been in vain. He would be the most pitiable of all men. Therefore, there are plenty of drama, suspense and wonder as the reader follows the greatest debate of Socrates’ life.

It may sound strange, but I’ve never admired and wished to converse with  a hero in a book  like Socrates.

“Lysis” by Plato

Socrates questioned two young friends about the nature of friendship, but didn’t reach any conclusion at the end. The arguments he made were: the good can not be friends, because they are self-sufficient and have no need of others, and the evil can not be friends of the evil, because the evil are never at unity with one another or with themselves, likes can not be friends because they would have no need of each other.

“Protagoras and Meno” by Plato

About Virtue

Meno asks Socrates whether virtue is natural or acquired, and Socrates, claiming that nobody knows what virtue is, challenges Meno to provide a definition of virtue. When Meno fails to do so, Socrates states provisionally that virtue is neither natural nor acquired, but a gift of god. If it can be taught, why aren’t the sons of wise men any more virtuous than the rest? However, because Socrates doesn’t define what virtue is, it’s hard to pinpoint the arguments.

Protagoras claims that he is wiser above all men and can teach others to be better at a charge. To examine his claims, Socrates engages him in a dialogue about the nature of virtue, good and evil. One of the probing questions asked: Is pleasure good and pain evil? Would you be content if you could live a pleasant and pain-free life? Although Protagoras is more skilled in debates than most other men, he is still no match for Socrates, who breaks down his opponent with precise arguments and deliciously sarcastic comments.