As understanding deepens, the further removed it becomes from knowledge.
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Medical psychology, on the other hand, is very far from being in this more or less enviable position.
Here the object puts the question and not the experimenter.
The analyst is confronted with facts which are not of his choosing and which he probably never would choose if he were a free agent.
It is the sickness or the patient himself that puts the crucial questions—in other words,
Nature experiments with the doctor in expecting an answer from him.
The uniqueness of the individual and of his situation stares the analyst in the face and demands an answer.
His duty as a physician forces him to cope with a situation swarming with uncertainty factors.
At first he will apply principles based on general experience, but he will soon realize that principles of this kind do not adequately express the facts and fail to meet the nature of the case.
The deeper his understanding penetrates, the more the general principles lose their meaning.
But these principles are the foundation of objective knowledge and the yardstick by which it is measured.
With the growth of what both patient and doctor feel to be “understanding,” the situation becomes increasingly subjectivized.
What was an advantage to begin with threatens to turn into a dangerous disadvantage.
Subjectivation (in technical terms, transference and countertransference) creates isolation from the environment, a social limitation which neither party wishes for but which invariably sets in when understanding predominates and is no longer balanced by knowledge.
As understanding deepens, the further removed it becomes from knowledge.
An ideal understanding would ultimately result in each party’s unthinkingly going along with the other’s experience—a state of uncritical
passivity coupled with the most complete subjectivity and lack of social responsibility.
Understanding carried to such lengths is in any case impossible, for it would require the virtual identification of two different individuals.
Sooner or later the relationship reaches a point where one partner feels he is being forced to sacrifice his own individuality so that it may be assimilated by that of the other.
This inevitable consequence breaks the understanding, for understanding also presupposes the integral preservation of the individuality of both partners.
It is therefore advisable to carry understanding only to the point where the balance between understanding and knowledge is reached, for understanding at all costs is injurious to both partners. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 532
Absolute Knowledge Anthology
Man’s consciousness is receptive to what Jung called ‘absolute knowledge’ a cosmic principle or quasi intelligence outside the psyche.
All thinking which takes place in the ego obscures this ‘knowledge”.
A quieting of the ego is required before one can approach it. Marie Louise von Franz, Aurora Consurgens, (Page number needed)
The meaning that unites these inner and outer happenings consists of knowledge unmediated by the sense or- gans.
This quality of knowledge is what Jung calls ’absolute knowledge,’ since it seems to be detached from our consciousness. [CW 8, par. 148] Marie Louise Von Franz, Number and Time, Page 35.
The ’absolute knowledge’ which is characteristic of synchronistic phenomena, a knowledge not mediated by the sense organs, supports the hypothesis of a selfsubsistent meaning, or even expresses its existence. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449
The lowering of consciousness means on the other hand an approach to the unconscious, and because the unconscious seems to have access to this “absolute knowledge,” information can be mediated which can no longer be explained rationally and causally. Carl Jung letter to S. Wieser, 6July151
The unconscious has a kind of absolute knowledge, but we cannot prove it is an absolute knowledge, because the Absolute, the Eternal, is transcendental. Carl Jung, Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, Pages 375-391.
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