Jung and Freud on the Psychology of Possession
The name ‘analytical psychology’ was adopted by Jung to differentiate his theory of psychological development from Freudian ‘psychoanalysis’.
Jung’s model departs considerably from Freud’s in several respects.
Arguably the most notable disagreement between the two concerns the nature of the unconscious; and it is this disagreement that underlies their different
interpretations of spirit possession.
The spirit of the unconscious: a derivative of personal conflict or an autonomous source of personal enrichment?
Freud and Jung generally agree that human experience comprises several different aspects of the mind in dynamic interplay, and that mental health depends on the degree to which these aspects communicate to each other.
In addition to intrapersonal dialogue between ego-consciousness and the unconscious, a person will inevitably encounter interpersonal dialogue between himself or herself and the people, society and world around him or her.
Simply put, for both Freud and Jung, a mentally healthy personality is one that develops through the cultivation of these dialogues.
A healthy relationship at the intrapersonal level will lead a person to feel appropriately integrated within his or her environment and to experience positive
interpersonal relations, and these in turn will reflect back to the person an
affirming acknowledgement of self.
By contrast, a mentally unstable personality is one that splits off aspects of the mind and isolates these parts from each other, thereby preventing their creative dialogue and disabling the development of personality as a whole.
The disagreement between Freud and Jung concerns the dynamic nature of intrapersonal dialogue, and their respective interpretations of this are themselves informed by their different conceptions of the unconscious.
Thus, according to Jung, the unconscious has an autonomous nature.
That is to say, for Jung, unconscious processes express self-awareness and a sense of identity that is experienced by the ego as separate to its own.
In this respect the unconscious is said to have its own agenda, as it behaves as if it
were a second consciousness within the personality (which is commonly referred to as an ‘alter ego’).
Freud, by contrast, denies the unconscious its autonomy, regarding it instead as material of the ego that has been forgotten or repressed (1915, p. 148).
Although the ego in Freud’s model may experience communications of the unconscious as uncanny and unfamiliar – as ‘a cauldron full of seething excitations’ (Freud 1933, p. 73) – they are nevertheless aspects that were once known and owned by the ego, and can again be known and owned.
In Jung’s model, however, the communications of the autonomous unconscious have never been known by the ego and remain resolutely unknowable.
In this respect, the ego is the recipient of new material from a source outside it.
Arguably, the ego assumes a more central role in Freud’s model than it does in Jung’s.
For Freud the ego determines the extent of its own capacity (to contain and assimilate its emotional experiences) and that of the unconscious, which it cultivates as a store-room for its more troublesome and unwanted experiences.
Unconscious material in this scenario is repressed by the ego as a defensive measure to protect itself from the traumatic feelings that would otherwise overwhelm it.
By defending against its unwanted material, the ego facilitates a split in the overall personality and rejects those aspects that are incompatible with its conscious requirements.
The unconscious will always seek to reintegrate the repressed material of the ego back into ego-consciousness in order to maintain a cohesive and un-fragmented personality.
But because the ego often does not want to engage in dialogue with it, the unconscious is forced to express its material to the ego in coded, symbolic language; for instance through neurotic disorders and symptoms (such as those Freud found in cases of hysteria
where repressed feelings are displaced on to the physical body).
In Freud’s model, intrapersonal dialogue is regressive in the sense that the unconscious contains and communicates to the ego those experiences the ego has failed to process.
The expression of unconscious material is likewise symptomatic of a disturbed instinctual life and even of ‘a diseased psyche’ as a colleague of Jung maintains (Jacobi 1959, p. 21).
Unlike Freud, Jung does not regard the unconscious as the mere ‘gathering
place of forgotten and repressed contents’ (Jung 1954a, par. 27).
For Jung the unconscious has two different aspects: it is both personal and
collective.
While the personal unconscious is similar to the unconscious postulated by Freud, Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious places his understanding of intrapersonal dialogue at variance with that of Freud.
Jung regarded Freud’s understanding of the unconscious as ‘unendurably narrow’ in its ‘reductive causalism’ (Jung 1950, p. xxiii); and he subsequently conceives the collective unconscious as a vast repository of (archetypal) material that transcends the realm of the personal, and impresses upon the ego’s universal patterns or constellations of human experience.
This unconscious material communicates itself to ego-consciousness through symbolic images that are often personified and always numinous in affect (Jung 1954b, par. 405; cf. par. 383).
The universal patterns themselves remain unconscious, but their images are made particular according to the ego-consciousness that perceives them.
For instance, the archetypal pattern or constellation of ‘spirit’ is universally applicable to every human being, but the ways in which ‘spirit’ is experienced and conceptualized are as different and as various as there are different intuitions, feelings, thoughts or sensations of ‘spiritedness’.
Thus, by entering into dialogue with the collective unconscious, the ego encounters a realm of experience infinitely larger and more archaic than the totality of its own limited perspective.
For Jung, intrapersonal dialogue is not a matter of recovering memories of
unprocessed personal experience as it was for Freud, but, rather, of discovering
the possibilities and potential of human experience.
Such discovery is achieved, Jung claims,
through unrestricted dialogue between the ego and the autonomous unconscious. Their healthy relationship or dialogue is characterized by Jung as compensatory. Thus, the more ego-consciousness is
promoted as the primary function within the personality, the more the
unconscious material strives for its realization, and vice versa (Jung 1954b,
par. 425; 1914, par. 465).
In this respect, the unconscious can be a helpful guide for the ego, as it redresses the ego’s one-sided prejudices, and reorientates the ego within the wider concerns of the personality as a whole.
Broadly speaking, Jung’s conception of the unconscious and its intrapersonal
dialogue with ego-consciousness is more optimistic than Freud’s.
While the Freudian model focuses on the ego’s failure to assimilate its experiences of past events, and construes the unconscious as an expression of this failure, the Jungian model focuses on the ego’s potential growth and its assimilation of new experiences acquired from an unconscious that is, in part, autonomous and collective.
In contrast to the Freudian model, Jung’s model allows for an unconscious realm free from the conflict and pathology of personal experience (see Jacobi 1959,
pp. 25–6).
Spirit possession: delusional or life-enhancing?
To be possessed by a spirit means that the ego has identified with the unconscious and has thereby dissociated itself from its normal conscious state.
The different conceptions of the unconscious formulated by Freud and Jung inevitably lead to different interpretations of spirit possession.
Thus, for Freud – who regards unconscious expression as symptomatic of a disturbed and traumatized ego – spirit possession is nothing more than a neurotic delusion.
Freud writes, ‘demons are bad and reprehensible wishes, derivates of instinctual impulses that have been repudiated and repressed’, and ‘possession is the suffering and phantasy of a sick man’ (1922, pp. 72, 100).
Just as Jung criticized Freud’s model of the unconscious for being too reductive with its focus on personal traumatic experience, Jung criticizes Freud’s diagnosis of spirit possession for reducing the otherness of the experience to a pathological experience of the ego’s making.
Jung protests against Freud’s attempt to reduce spiritual experience to the rational terms of the ego; or, in his words, to unmask as illusion what the ‘absurd superstition’ of the past took to be a devilish incubus, to whip away the disguises worn by the evil spirit and turn him back into a harmless poodle – in a word, reduce him to a ‘psychological formula’. (1939, par. 71)
Jung’s diagnosis of spirit possession is more ambiguous than that of Freud.
As we shall see, spirit possession for Jung facilitates the transformation of the ego-personality, and it is the condition of this new ego-personality – rather than the process that enabled it – that is considered healthy or unhealthy (Jung 1921, par. 383).
Furthermore, the condition of the new ego-personality will depend greatly on the condition of its previous incarnation. In this respect, possession is a state of potential, rather like pregnancy, which can give birth to a new form ‘or future personality’ that may be healthy or unhealthy (Jung 1902, par. 136).
Such a state [D]oes not necessarily indicate inferiority.
It only means that something incompatible, unassimilated, and conflicting exists – perhaps as an obstacle, but also as a stimulus to greater effort, and so, perhaps, as an opening to new possibilities of achievement. (Jung 1921, par. 925)
Spirit Possession by a Complex
It could be argued that Jung’s conception of the dynamics of spirit possession
shares greater affinity with the model of dissociation described by Freud’s early antagonist, Pierre Janet, than it does with that of Freud himself.
Indeed, Jung himself expresses his debt to ‘the French psychopathologists,
Pierre Janet in particular, for our knowledge today of the extreme dissociability of consciousness’ (1948a, par. 202).
Importantly, as we shall see, Jung’s labelling of Janet as a psychopathologist does not mean that he thought dissociation – the process Janet is thought, by some, to have discovered – is in itself pathological.
For Jung and Janet before him, the conscious personality is essentially multi-faceted, and it is able to splinter off into separate, autonomous parts.
Earlier in this chapter these parts were described as ‘streams of consciousness’ (by M. J. Field). Jung refers to them as complexes.
These fragments of personality have their own peculiar character, including their
own memories, and likes and dislikes; with some even developing their own
sense of identity or self-awareness.
These complexes are equivalent to the possessing spirit that invades the familiar personality.
Indeed, when Janet began to develop his theory of dissociation he made a connection between dissociated states and spirit possession.
Thus, he observed that his traumatized and hysterical patients, when under hypnosis, would often exhibit multiple personalities that were apparently aware of each other; and in some instances they would refer to themselves as ‘daimons’ (Janet 1889; 1894).9
According to Jung, complexes manifest themselves as autonomous personifications
of the split-off unconscious (1948a, par. 203).
He writes, The more the unconscious is split off, the more formidable the shape in
which it appears to the conscious mind – if not in divine form, then in the
more unfavourable form of obsessions and outbursts of affect. Gods are
personifications of unconscious contents. (Jung 1948b, par. 242; cf. 1921,
par. 204)
Thus, for Jung, the unconscious is unconscious by degree, so that its corresponding
material can be construed as either having or not having the potential for conscious integration.
The greater the autonomy of the unconscious complex, the more imposing and unfamiliar is the personified form of the ‘possessing spirit’.
Two possessing spirits: personal and collective
As we have already noted, Jung propounds two types of unconsciousness – the personal and the collective.
These two types comprise the different degrees of unconsciousness alluded to above.
The personal unconscious is closest to ego-consciousness and comprises material that has been repressed by the ego; and the collective unconscious comprises material that can never be known by the ego.
By referring to these two degrees of unconscious, we can postulate two different types of complex, and, subsequently, two different types of spirit possession.
Thus, Jung writes,
Certain complexes arise on account of painful or distressing experiences
in a person’s life . . . These produce unconscious complexes of a personal
nature . . . But there are others [autonomous complexes] that come from
quite a different source . . . At bottom they have to do with irrational
contents of which the individual has never been conscious before. (1948c,
par. 594; see also Jung 1938/1940, par. 22)
In other words, if a spirit possesses me I am either possessed by aspects of
myself that have been split off from my ego-consciousness, and which subsequently
appear outside of me and as having a disagreeable nature to me; or I am possessed by aspects that have never been part of my personality.
The latter type of possession is possession by an archetypal personification of
experience that pertains to the human race as a whole.
We might presume that those complexes or spirit possessions that originate
in the personal unconscious – that arise on account of painful or distressing
experience – are pathological (in the manner that Freud regarded them).
While those complexes or spirit possessions that originate outside personal
struggle – in the collective unconscious – evade pathological diagnosis on the basis that they are impervious to our rational scrutiny and to our diagnostic determinations generally.
These presumptions are supported by Jung’s colleague, Jolande Jacobi, who claims,
Material deriving from the collective unconscious is never ‘pathological’;
it can be pathological only if it comes from the personal unconscious,
where it undergoes a specific transformation and coloration by being
drawn into an area of individual conflict. (1959, pp. 25–6)
Jacobi consequently postulates morbid and healthy complexes, with the
former referring to material of the personal unconscious that has been
repressed by the ego, and the latter referring to material that has ‘grown out of’ the collective unconscious; material that ‘could never have been arbitrarily repressed’ (Jung 1938/1940, par. 22; cited in Jacobi 1959, p. 22).
In this instance, a spirit possession that originates in the personal unconscious
(which entails an encounter with those unwanted and previously repressed experiences that demand conscious expression) is considered unhealthy, while a spirit possession that originates in the collective unconscious (which is an encounter with universal, previously undiscovered material) is deemed healthy.
However, Jung himself provides ambiguous support for Jacobi’s hypothesis.
In support of Jacobi’s claims, Jung maintains that personal complexes are caused by traumatic experiences in a person’s life (under such unfavourable conditions as ‘distress’, ‘emotional shocks’ and ‘moral conflict’ (1948a, par. 204), ‘which leave lasting psychic wounds’ (1948c, par. 595).
Furthermore, with regard to complexes of a collective origin, he says that they can
alter the ego-orientation of a person and the communal attitude of whole groups of people ‘to redeeming effect’ (1948c, par. 594; my emphasis).
Yet, in contradistinction to Jacobi’s assertions, Jung asserts that those complexes
that originate in the personal unconscious are not in themselves unhealthy
because the traumatic feelings associated with them are not indicative of illness.
[T]he possession of complexes does not in itself signify neurosis . . . and the fact that they are painful is no proof of pathological disturbance. Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpole to happiness. (Jung 1946a, par. 179)
Likewise, he concedes that those complexes that originate in the collective
unconscious can lead to mental illness, and can be construed as ‘pathological
fantasies’ when they are found to replace an ego-attitude of a person
or group with one that is ‘unrealistic’.
That is to say, Jung maintains that complexes of a collective nature are detrimental to the overall personality when they overwhelm the ego completely, subsequently flooding it with archetypal material which dislocates the conscious personality from its grounding in reality (Jung 1948c, par. 595).
It is, therefore, inaccurate to presume both that the personal unconscious
yields only complexes of a morbid or pathological nature, and that
the collective unconscious proffers only non-pathological ones.
Moreover, it is surely erroneous to regard a complex as having originated in either the personal domain or that of the collective, for the personal and collective
unconscious cannot in themselves be so readily distinguished.
The fact that the individual partakes in the collective unconscious (so that the personal unconscious – or the shadow, as Jung referred to it – is itself an archetypal constellation of the collective unconscious) muddies the waters.
Indeed, Jacobi herself is unable to provide convincing clarification for their difference.
In distinguishing between a complex that originates in the collective
unconscious and one that originates in the personal unconscious, Jacobi
describes the latter simply as the former with personal material ‘superimposed
on it’ (1959, p. 25).
We cannot diagnose the complex according to its origin.
Instead, the
complex is more appropriately evaluated according to its effects on egoconsciousness.
Furthermore, as I shall argue, the disposition of the ego is
crucial for such determination.
In other words, spirit possession is not inherently ‘morbid’ or ‘healthy’, but it can facilitate illness or health in the possessed person depending on his or her capacity to endure and make sense of the experience (Jung 1948a, par. 209–10, 218).
Non-pathological complexes
Earlier we alluded to the capacity of the complex to possess egoconsciousness
in a variety of forms and degrees of intensity.
On this point Jung notes, ‘They may take the form of fluctuations in the general feeling of well-being, irrational changes of mood, unpredictable affects, a sudden
distaste for everything’ (1934, par. 287).
Jung elsewhere notes,
They slip just the wrong word into one’s mouth, they make one forget the name of the person one is about to introduce . . . they make the tiptoeing latecomer trip over a chair with a resounding crash. They bid us congratulate the mourners at a burial instead of condoling with them . . . [they have us say] ‘Our Father, who are not in heaven’. (1948a, par. 202)
Likewise, on their intensity Jacobi writes, ‘Some complexes rest peacefully,
embedded in the general fabric of the unconscious, and scarcely make
themselves noticed; others behave as real disturbers of the psychic “economy”’
(1959, p. 9).
Despite their noted variety, complexes describe the same dissociated ego-state.
Thus Jung claims, ‘there is in fact no difference in principle between a slip of the tongue caused by a complex and the wildest blasphemies’ (1948a, par. 204).
Through Jung’s notion of the complex we find that spirit possession is phenomenologically equivalent to the trivial parapraxes of everyday life.
Thus, Even the schizoid phenomena that correspond to primitive10 possession
can be observed in normal people. They, too, are not immune to the demon of passion; they, too, are liable to possession by infatuation, a vice, or a one-sided conviction. (Jung 1934, par. 287)
Spirit possessions as complexes affect us all, irrespective of our particular mental disposition or cultural bias (they are ‘the normal phenomena of life’, Jung 1948a, pars. 218, 210; 1921, par. 925).
Whatever form the possession or complex takes depends on the conscious disposition of the recipient.
That is to say, the manner in which the complex becomes manifest is determined
by the strength of its affect on the ego, and by the recipient’s particular
epistemological framework (his or her cultural, social or religious disposition).
The strength of the affect of the complex is itself determined by the degree to which it is split off from consciousness.
This refers both to the origins of the complex (in either the personal or collective unconscious), and to the propensity of the ego to allow the complex its expression.
We have already spoken at length about the implications of the unconscious
origin of the complex, and we have touched upon the compensatory relationship
of ego-consciousness and the unconscious.
This latter dynamic is key to understanding how the complex can grow in stature and acquire its formidable form on the basis of the ego’s resistance to it.
Jung writes,
All unconscious contents, once they . . . have made themselves felt possess as it were a specific energy which enables them to manifest themselves . . .But this energy is normally not sufficient to thrust the content into consciousness.
For that there must be a certain predisposition on the part of the conscious mind, namely a deficit in the form of a loss of energy. The energy so lost raises the psychic potency of certain compensating contents in the unconscious. (1946b, par. 372)
The ego inadvertently increases the momentum of the complex through the depletion of its own energy reserves when it attempts to exert itself in its
resistance to the complex.
For the more the ego tries to assert itself the more the unconscious will compensate the ego’s attempt to do so.
The intensity of the swing of psychic energy, as it is redirected away from the ego
and invests itself in the complex, is correlative to the intensity of the perceived
form of the spirit possession.
That is to say, the form of the possessing spirit will appear most formidable when both the complex originates in the collective unconscious and the ego musters all of its energy to resist the affect of the complex.
In this respect Jung writes, ‘any autonomous complex not subject to the conscious will exert a possessive effect on consciousness proportional to its strength and limits the latter’s freedom’ (1948b, par. 242 n.15; emphasis mine; see also Jung 1917/1926/1943, par. 111).
Interestingly, the anthropologist Erika Bourguignon alludes to a similar compensatory relationship in her study of Haitian Vodou:
The idea that human beings may resist possession by spirits . . . is considered
to be a dangerous thing to try, and when possession trance occurs in spite of such efforts, it appears to be more violent and exhausting than under other circumstances. This makes good psychological sense: going into possession trance means that one ‘lets go’ and submits to the cues of the drums. . . . Resisting means that an opposite pull exists so that there is conflict and ambivalence in the individual; if this conflict is resolved by overcoming the resistance, the result may well be stressful. (1976, p. 23)
According to this compensatory relationship between the ego and the
unconscious complex, the ego can reduce the powerful form of the complex if it is able to submit itself to the complex and not resist it.
In light of this seeming paradox, Jung says,
‘Everyone knows nowadays that people “have complexes”; what is not so well known . . . is that complexes can “have us” ’ (1948a, par. 200).
The myriad of ways in which a complex can have us – and indeed, whether we wish to call it a complex at all – are culturally determined.
The cultural bias of those who experience the possession will determine the name of the experience and its subsequent value.
Thus Jung notes,
Where the primitive speaks of ghosts, the European speaks of dreams and
fantasies and neurotic symptoms, and attributes less importance to them than the primitive does. (1948c, par. 573)
Also,
Possession, though old-fashioned, has by no means become obsolete; only the name has changed. Formerly they spoke of ‘evil spirits’, now we call them ‘neuroses’ or ‘unconscious complexes’. Here as everywhere the name makes no difference. (1945a, par. 1374)
And, perhaps the most cited passage in which Jung makes the point,
We are still as much possessed by autonomous contests as if they were Olympians. Today they are called phobias, obsessions, and so forth; in a word, neurotic symptoms. The gods have become diseases. (1929, par. 54)
It is my contention – and also, I claim, one of Jung’s – that spirit possession
should not be diagnosed as either healthy or unhealthy according to its presenting form, but rather according to the disposition of the person or community that experiences it.
In other words, spirit possession should not be evaluated according to the intensity of its presentation, but according to one’s capacity to endure it.
In this respect I do not diagnose supposedly ‘trivial’ manifestations of complexes – such as slips of tongue, falling over a chair, and other ‘accidents’ – as inherently healthy experiences; and neither do I diagnose supposed demonic possession as inherently unhealthy.
Rather, I contend that all spirit possessions or dissociative ego-states – across
the spectrum of mild to intense presentation – lead to healthy or unhealthy
conditions depending on the disposition of the person or people who encounter them.
Conclusion
The ego’s disposition to the possessing spirit
Thus far I have argued that the form and intensity of the complex or spirit possession is determined by the nature of its unconscious origin (as personal or collective) and by the disposition of the consciousness that encounters it.
I have concluded that while the complex itself and its unconscious origins are not accountable for the consequent mental health or illness of the possessed personality, the disposition of the conscious ego is. In this final part of the chapter I shall address the relationship between the disposition of ego-consciousness and the affect of the complex in order
to outline its various permutations, and to postulate those circumstances in which the ego’s response to its possession is likely to incite mental health or illness.
In the course of our discussion we shall see that even in those dissociative states that seem most perilous and intense – where the egopersonality seems to have lost all sense of reality – the end result can be a more enriched and enlivened state of ego-consciousness.
I shall take as my starting point two well-documented ways in which the ego can respond to its possession: where the ego is present during its possession and is conscious of the experience; and where the ego appears to be absent – subsumed within the invading unconscious, and subsequently unable to experience the possession.
These different scenarios represent two extreme dispositions of the ego – and their dichotomy is often adopted within anthropological and religious studies in order to classify spirit possession and varieties of ‘spiritual experience’ in general.
For instance, Bourguignon distinguishes between ‘possession belief’ and ‘possession trance’, where the former refers to a form of spirit possession that does not affect the cohesion of the ego-identity of the possessed person, and the latter to a form that does, in such a way that the person feels himself or herself to be – or socially defined to be – a completely different person (1976, pp. 7–8).
We could go as far as to argue that these two scenarios of ego-disposition provide a universal standard or classification that enables us to examine as one the different cultural or anthropological variations of spiritual experience on the basis of their phenomenological equivalence.
Thus, Bourguignon’s notion of ‘possession belief’ is phenomenologically equivalent
to T. K. Oesterreich’s concept of ‘lucid possession’ (1930), W. T. Stace’s extroverted form of mystical experience (1960), and to ‘spirit possession’ in spiritualist discourse (Peebles 1904).
Likewise, Bourguignon’s notion of
‘possession trance’ is phenomenologically equivalent to Oesterreich’s concept
of ‘somnambulist possession’ (1930), W. T. Stace’s introverted form of
mystical experience (1960), and to the spiritualist’s notion of ‘spirit obsession’
(Peebles 1904).
And I would stress here that psychological diagnoses of different degrees of dissociated ego-states are, similarly – and perhaps ‘merely’ – of equivalent phenomenological presentation.
Jung alludes to the two extreme ego-dispositions in the context of the dissociated state of what he calls, ‘demonism’:
Demonism (synonymous with daemonomania = possession) denotes a peculiar state of mind characterized by the fact that certain psychic contents, the so-called complexes, take over the control of the total personality in place of the ego, at least temporarily, to such a degree that the free will of the ego is suspended . . . in certain of these states egoconsciousness is present, in others it is eclipsed. (1945b, par. 1473–4)
So, how do each of these typical or representative ego-dispositions relate to mental health and illness?
The answer is not so straightforward.
It is certainly not the case that one represents a healthy response and the other an unhealthy one.
After all, those egos that are present during their respective possession experiences are not necessarily going to behave or respond to their experience in exactly the same way as each other (for instance, an ego may be conscious and unaware of its possession; see Ellenberger’s differentiation between overt and latent possession [1970, p. 14; cf. Jung 1954, par. 385]; and the same can be said for the ego that is
presumed to be absent during its possession).
Rather, I think it the case that
the two different categories of ego-disposition represent for Jung different
degrees of potential health and illness for the possessed personality.
Thus,
in the first scenario, where the ego is present and conscious of its possession,
the ego’s potential transformation is relatively minor.
The ego can become ill, but, generally, not critically ill (such as we find in Jung’s understanding of neurosis), or it can undergo a mild enrichment of personality
(such as a temporary state of, what we might call, ‘inspiration’).
In the second scenario, where the ego is absent and has lost all sense of reality in
its identification with the autonomous unconscious, the potential transformation
of the ego is considerable.
Here the ego can become severely ill and may never again find its grounding in reality (such as we find in Jung’s understanding of psychosis); or it may return renewed with a more affluent orientation to life (such as we find in descriptions of conversion experiences).
Earlier I described spirit possession as a state of potential similar to pregnancy,
and it is in the second scenario – with the full eclipse of the ego – that the greatest potential for the rebirth of personality occurs.
In such a scenario Jung describes the personality as entering an ‘incubation period’,
which occurs shortly after the complex’s ‘ “spontaneous” activation’ within
ego-consciousness and before the occurrence of a ‘sudden change of personality’ (1946b, par. 373). ‘
During the incubation period of such a change’, he says, ‘we can observe a loss of conscious energy’.
The change in personality finally occurs when it has ‘drawn’ from the ego enough energy to substantiate its manifestation.
An absent ego is one that has been drained of most, if not all, of its energy.
If the ego is absent during its possession, it may well be the case that the ego has become implicated within a change of personality of substantial proportion – a change that is either of significant benefit or detriment to the overall personality.
Thus, Jung maintains that the ‘lowering of energy [of ego-consciousness during
the incubation period] can be seen most clearly before the onset of certain
psychoses, and also in the empty stillness which precedes creative work’
(1946b, par. 373).
I shall conclude this chapter by placing these two different scenarios of ego-disposition within the context of Jung’s model of intrapersonal dialogue in order to clarify the extent to which spirit possession facilitates mental health or illness.
The resistant ego, refusing the unconscious its expression
If the ego is receptive to the vital communications of the unconscious, the
subsequent maturation and development of the whole personality is relatively
unproblematic and barely perceptible to the ego.
If, on the other hand, the ego refuses to engage in dialogue with the unconscious and assimilate its material, the personality becomes ‘stuck’ in its development.
The dynamic psyche postulated by Jung (and Freud) cannot function in this inert condition, and it therefore has in place mechanisms of self-care that ensure that, when such inactivity is threatened, the personality is ‘kickstarted’ back into life.
The uncompromising mechanism that it employs is possession of the conscious ego by the unconscious, which enforces an appropriate change in the ego-personality that encourages dialogue between the ego and the unconscious.
I have claimed throughout this chapter that spirit possession is not in itself pathological, but is both an expression of the dissociation of the ego from its vital dialogue with the unconscious needs of the personality, and also the mechanism that enables the restoration of this dialogue.
Possession of the ego by the autonomous complex is therefore crucial to the maintenance of mental health (Jung 1921, par. 925).
It is helpful to think of possession as a battle of wills, of ego and unconsciousness, each trying to dominate the personality with its own monologue.
Ideally, the battle ends with a reconciliation of the two, and the reinstallation of their creative dialogue.
If, however, the unconscious is temporarily in control of the personality – having drawn its energy from the now depleted ego – the ego is forced to relinquish its authority as the orientating perspective of the personality and allow the unconscious its expression.
Possession can therefore be regarded as a test of ego, in its capacity to tolerate the new, broader perspectives of the personality that it has yet to assimilate.
The sudden loss of control for the ego can be devastating.
The ego may experience the sudden invasion of the autonomous unconscious as an annihilation of self – a tremendous experience from which it might not recover.
Such an experience, Jung says, is often described as a loss of self or soul (1948c, par. 586; 1946b, par. 372).
In extreme instances ego-consciousness is completely eclipsed by the unconscious,
which means, phenomenologically speaking, there is no ego there to experience the possession
. In this situation the ego is totally subsumed within the autonomous unconscious and identifies with the unconscious complex.
If the complex is one that originates in the collective unconscious
the possessed person is inflated to grandiose proportion, for his
ego-personality is no longer grounded within personal reality, but in infinite
possibilities of human experience.
In this circumstance, the chance of psychosis or of a sustained loss of reality and ego-functioning is much greater than if the ego were present.
The key issue for a possessed person in this scenario is whether his or her ego can return to take charge of consciousness, or whether it remains eclipsed and unaware of itself and the world around it.
If the ego is present during its possession and is aware of itself and is able to experience its possession, then we may assume the ego has not identified with the unconscious, and has not been destroyed by it.
That is not to say, however, that the ego does not find its experience traumatic.
It may well do; in which case it may dissociate from its difficult feelings, and thereby provide the possessing complex with more emotional affect, which will
increase its charge and the likelihood of further possessions occurring in the future.
However, the possession experience in this scenario is unlikely to lead to psychosis because the ego remains grounded in reality.
The presence of the ego throughout its possession may also indicate that it has not yet been able to surrender itself to the unconscious demands of the personality, and has therefore forfeited the opportunity to acquire valuable new insights into the wider personality (and to the human race as a whole).
In this case, a neurotic disorder may result, which effectively means the ego is harassed by the demands of the personal unconscious, which wants the ego to reclaim the material it has repressed.
If the ego is unable to do so, the unconscious will continually find ways to encourage it to do so by enticing further dissociated-states (or through the manifestation of other symptoms).
During a possession the ego must find within itself the resources to endure the emotional affects of the complex.
The ego must tolerate the shattering of its prejudices if it is to accept the new insights revealed by the unconscious, and find itself again as an orientating force of the personality.
The ego, Jacobi notes, ‘requires courage, strength’ (1959, p. 18) if it is to affirm the content of the complex as part of the wider personality of which it is also part. And yet, Jacobi also notes that the ego must find within itself the ‘capacity to suffer’.
That is to say, the ego must humbly accept its limitations and receive the communications of the unconscious without resistance.
If it cannot do so, the energy employed by the ego in its resistance will compensate the invading complex, giving it a greater impetus and momentum in its possession of ego-consciousness.
The unconscious releases its grip on the conscious mind and ‘depossesses’ the ego (Jung 1948c, par. 591) if the ego is able to harness its resources and subsequently begin both to detach itself from its identification with the unconscious complex and to assimilate some of the emotional content of the complex.
When this happens the ego experiences a corresponding increase in power and finds itself again at the foreground of the personality, which has been – if all goes well – enriched and enlarged by the assimilation of hitherto unconscious material.
The process of possession and then ‘de-possession’ of the ego by the complex
Always results in a new distribution of psychic energy.
For the psychic energy that has been held fast in the complex can then flow off into new contents, and so bring about a new situation more propitious to psychic
balance. (Jacobi 1959, p. 12)
Because the unconscious communicates a deeper and fuller knowledge of the individual’s personality and – in terms of the collective unconscious – knowledge of the human race in general, to be possessed by the unconscious is to have immediate access to this wealth of information.
A vulnerable ego that is weakened by its experience of possession is not able
to digest this information; instead it becomes subsumed within it and identifies
with it.
By contrast, a strong ego (one that is able to reflect upon – and thus assimilate – its experience of possession) is enlightened and transformed as a result (Jung 1948c, par. 596).
The strong ego experiences a sudden growth and acquisition of wisdom and ‘new’ insights when it is reoriented away from its previous one-sided, prejudiced concerns, and towards the more objective concerns of the personality as a whole.
It is this reorientation or re-centring of the ego within the personality that may
explain why spirit possessions are often regarded as profound, transformative
and spiritually enlightening, and why the possessing spirit is thought to act with intelligence and purpose.
The process of possession and dispossession of the ego is not peculiar to the individual ego, but is, as we have noted, apparent in the collective ego or communal attitude of groups of people.
Thus, prejudiced or stagnant attitudes and belief-systems of communities are, Jung claims, vulnerable to possession by the collective unconscious.
Likewise, it is the response of the group that determines whether the possession leads either to the destruction or revitalization of their social cohesion and communal attitudes.
Jung writes,
[E]xperiences [of possession] occur either when something so devastating
happens to the individual that his whole previous attitude to life
breaks down, or when for some reason the contents of the collective
unconscious accumulate so much energy that they start influencing
the conscious mind. In my view this happens when the life of a large
social group or of a nation undergoes a profound change of a political,
social, or religious nature. Such a change always involves an alteration
of the psychological attitude . . . all those factors which are suppressed
by the prevailing views or attitudes in the life of a society gradually
accumulate in the collective unconscious and activate its contents. Certain
individuals gifted with particularly strong intuition then become aware
of the changes going on in it and translate these changes into communicable
ideas. The new ideas spread rapidly because parallel changes
have been taking place in the unconscious of other people. (1948c,
par. 595)
The intuitive individuals alluded to by Jung represent the capacity of the ego of the group to assimilate the communications of the unconscious.
We might refer to these intuitive individuals, who become aware of the seismic
shifts in the attitude of the communal ego, as seers, shaman, prophets and so on.
These people come before their time and are outside the social consensus.
To others they may be perceived as mad or deluded; that is, to those others who are resistant to the change in attitude (and who thus represent the ego in retaliation to the unconscious).
The madness or delusion that is projected on to those who are receptive to the unconscious by those who resist it represents the intrapersonal conflict (or ‘battle of wills’) of the possession experience.
In continuation of the above passage, Jung notes that the intuitive individuals
may feel threatened or at any rate disoriented, but the resultant state is not pathological, at least so far as the individual is concerned. Nevertheless, the mental state of the people as a whole might well be compared to a psychosis. (1948c, par. 595)
The internal conflict between the group ego and the collective unconscious
causes the personality or communal attitude to fragment.
It is only when material from the unconscious is translated into communicable language and canalized into conscious ideas that the possession of the group
ego can begin to have a ‘redeeming’ effect upon the communal attitude.
Jung cites the miracle of the Pentecost as ‘a well-known example’ of the
redeeming change in attitude caused by collective spirit possession.
From the point of view of the onlookers, the apostles were in a state of ecstatic intoxication . . . But it was just when they were in this state that they communicated the new teaching which gave expression to the unconscious expectations of the people and spread with astonishing rapidity through the whole Roman Empire. (1948c, par. 596)
In analytical psychology spirit possession, along with other presentations of dissociative ego-states, is not a pathological phenomenon. On the contrary,
it is indicative of the self-care system of the personality. It is not so
much a defence mechanism used by the ego to repress unwanted aspects of
the personality, as it is a catalyst for growth and a mechanism of the psyche
as a whole – which both restores mental stability and introduces new and
vital insights to an otherwise unstable and stagnant conscious attitude
(Jung 1921, par. 383; p. 112).
In this respect the dissociated ego-state of possession may well be healthier than the familiar conscious ego. ~Lucy Huskinson, Spirit Possession and Trance, Page 75-92
