How Bruce Duensing Thinks

[Burnt State]

The single biggest influence on my thinking about UFO's this past year has been Bruce. There is a very unrestricted vision there, open to exploring new ideas and really gives a new vision to the other half of the UFO paradigm, the witness. His blogs are dynamic, creative essays filled with unbridled wisdom and the intersection of a number of unique perspectives and critical arenas. Psychology, chemistry, personal history and consciousness all swirl together to create new modalities.

Here he is commenting elsewhere online this past Autumn:

There are many parallels in the term “spectrum disorders” for a large variety of biochemically induced hybridisation of symptoms leading to critical thinking disorders beyond simple behavioral performance problems.

I think the only way to discern one from the other is on a case by case basis rather than use reductionism as the basis for a global theory as one size fits all cases although I have to say I am skeptical of my own suspicions and don’t posses any ideological belief system, although at times, I would appreciate one.

My interest in the perception of ghost phenomenon includes the UFO in a reclassification or rethinking of the issues that go beyond surface appearances as a means of dividing one perceived form from another that lead to faux terms and self referential conclusions such as EVP’s are messages from the dead or that UFO’s represent extraterrestrials.

In this I agree that modality, anticipation and even desire play a role in the relationship between the observer and the observed in organising perceptions but this goes much deeper than simple hallucination or misinterpretations. I suspect there is a natural yet unknown aspect of nature that operates as an intermediary transience in some cases. Beyond this, both UFO and other ghost phenomenon share common chief characteristics which the UFO community at large finds abhorrent as if I were spreading occultism into their unworkable beliefs. Many a natural phenomenon was thought at one time to be supernatural and many a scientific theory like spontaneous generation was later found to be based on appearances alone. All I am suggesting is we need a wider net and one that does not put the cart before the horse.

By Bruce Duensing, at Wednesday, September 17, 2014

BTW..some of the similarities between UFO and other categories of "ghost" images

1. Caricatures painted in the sky as impossible flying craft or at ground level, the dead portrayed as being alive.
2. Electromagnetic effects
3. Physical evidence via a strange psychokinesis of physicality
4. Extreme transience
5. Semi-solid materiality
6. Nonsensical behaviorism
7. Mimicry
8. Creates burns, scars, illnesses
9. Ability to transit solid materials at will
10. Manifests in wave forms of probability
11. Prefers manifesting in remote or isolated localities
12. Can synthesize vocalizations
13. The presence of magnesium and \ or sulfurous residue
14. Physiological and somatic effects, the sensation of freezing and \ or burning
15. The accompaniment of vivid dreams

By Bruce Duensing, at Thursday, September 18, 2014

Further writing of his can be found here:
A TRANSIT OF CONTINGENCIES

From his last post, "Voyages of the Dead."

In every fiction there is an element of truth and the same could be said by reading that statement in reverse order, and so this writer thinks on poetics as a series of observations that indirectly point to a reality not directly manifested in their sentences.

The same may apply to us.

 

[Burnt State]

This first blog I ran into over a decade ago when I first returned to paranormal and UFO forays. Running into this was epic.

Here's his latest appearance on Radio Misterioso:
Scroll to the bottom to find his show...Radio Misterioso | In-depth conversations on the paranormal alternating with weird music. Live on Sundays 8-10 PM PST @ killradio.org

 

[Heidi Lemmer]

The single biggest influence on my thinking about UFO's this past year has been Bruce. There is a very unrestricted vision there, open to exploring new ideas and really gives a new vision to the other half of the UFO paradigm, the witness. His blogs are dynamic, creative essays filled with unbridled wisdom and the intersection of a number of unique perspectives and critical arenas. Psychology, chemistry, personal history and consciousness all swirl together to create new modalities.

Here he is commenting elsewhere online this past Autumn:

There are many parallels in the term “spectrum disorders” for a large variety of biochemically induced hybridisation of symptoms leading to critical thinking disorders beyond simple behavioral performance problems.
I think the only way to discern one from the other is on a case by case basis rather than use reductionism as the basis for a global theory as one size fits all cases although I have to say I am skeptical of my own suspicions and don’t posses any ideological belief system, although at times, I would appreciate one.
My interest in the perception of ghost phenomenon includes the UFO in a reclassification or rethinking of the issues that go beyond surface appearances as a means of dividing one perceived form from another that lead to faux terms and self referential conclusions such as EVP’s are messages from the dead or that UFO’s represent extraterrestrials.
In this I agree that modality, anticipation and even desire play a role in the relationship between the observer and the observed in organising perceptions but this goes much deeper than simple hallucination or misinterpretations. I suspect there is a natural yet unknown aspect of nature that operates as an intermediary transience in some cases. Beyond this, both UFO and other ghost phenomenon share common chief characteristics which the UFO community at large finds abhorrent as if I were spreading occultism into their unworkable beliefs. Many a natural phenomenon was thought at one time to be supernatural and many a scientific theory like spontaneous generation was later found to be based on appearances alone. All I am suggesting is we need a wider net and one that does not put the cart before the horse.
By Bruce Duensing, at Wednesday, September 17, 2014

BTW..some of the similarities between UFO and other categories of "ghost" images

1. Caricatures painted in the sky as impossible flying craft or at ground level, the dead portrayed as being alive.
2. Electromagnetic effects
3. Physical evidence via a strange psychokinesis of physicality
4. Extreme transience
5. Semi-solid materiality
6. Nonsensical behaviorism
7. Mimicry
8. Creates burns, scars, illnesses
9. Ability to transit solid materials at will
10. Manifests in wave forms of probability
11. Prefers manifesting in remote or isolated localities
12. Can synthesize vocalizations
13. The presence of magnesium and \ or sulfurous residue
14. Physiological and somatic effects, the sensation of freezing and \ or burning
15. The accompaniment of vivid dreams

By Bruce Duensing, at Thursday, September 18, 2014

Further writing of his can be found here:
A TRANSIT OF CONTINGENCIES

From his last post, "Voyages of the Dead."

In every fiction there is an element of truth and the same could be said by reading that statement in reverse order, and so this writer thinks on poetics as a series of observations that indirectly point to a reality not directly manifested in their sentences.

The same may apply to us.

Sorry to hear of his passing Burnt.

 

[Burnt State]

Sorry to hear of his passing Burnt.

mortality is all around us. but when a big mind with big ideas goes there's a wider sense of absence. his was a vital voice, uncaring of opinions and very innovative and confident in his own unique analysis. in an age of mostly stagnant UFO research he was cracking open new veins to explore, a real pioneer of thought. people should read more of his work as it challenges the familiar and what was accepted as "truth" by finding new comparisons and ways of thinking about the phenomenon that no one else has. he was a great synthesizer of ideas and a systems analyst. there are fewer and fewer of those innovative thinkers around to push the UFO stone a little further up the hill.

 

[SRL+]

Duensing reminded me of Bernardo Kastrup in as much as these out of the box thinkers are able to weave various aspects of the disciplines in the attempt of making sense of something that makes little sense if at all. I was reading some of his posts just a couple of weeks ago, seems sudden.., at sixty four, untimely indeed.

 

[Burnt State]

Duensing reminded me of Bernardo Kastrup in as much as these out of the box thinkers are able to weave various aspects of the disciplines in the attempt of making sense of something that makes little sense if at all. I was reading some of his posts just a couple of weeks ago, seems sudden.., at sixty four, untimely indeed.

64 is way too young. But in an arena of the unknowable I find his work to cause you to stretch your brain quite a bit as I try to work through his frequent use of making metaphors for other metaphors. But when you do read his work you can see a rather consistent development of a persistent set of ideas. Even while he brings in quantum reality and explores alternatives to the binary of the physical vs. the energy wave there is a constant examination of triangulation in his work. This is one of his favorite themes. The UFO represents an optional expression of reality, something we have yet to consider or know: "the mask that has no mask."

He explains how while two lines can never enclose a space only the triangle can do this and create a plane. And from there he moves from the defined two dimensional plane, to the use of three dimensions to create a solid, expressions of our understanding of reality through threes. For example: the father, son, and holy ghost, or as he coined this triumvirate, the negative, the positive and the reconciliation of these charges. So not just physical reality, but religion is also born in threes. Similarly he placed specific emphasis on the UFO this way: there is the image, and the imagination that experiences it internally and then there is the reconciliation of these two that produces our understanding of what the UFO is.

He constantly makes reference in his blog, A Transit of Contingencies, to André Breton, the father of surrealism, and the man who penned the surrealist manifesto. And what is reality and anomalous events inside of reality but an experience of surrealism? Again, the image, the imagined and a constructed superimposition upon the unknown object, the unidentified object with what we think it is. It is a mask that has no mask.

Within his work there are always wheels within wheels that prompt us to consider a third option, an alternative to the binary, a third man factor, or as written elsewhere on this forum, a third bank to the river. From his blog a quote from Breton, “It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.” Death , as the great unknown, death as the UFO - a ghost of what we once were, and living as an imaginary event, a mostly internal experience, expressed as brief moments of consciousness, living as transience, contingent on other contingencies. So what does it mean to exist, asks Bruce repeatedly, perennial philosopher while ruminating on anomalous experiences.

His journey, like this digital entry I type being beamed wirelessly through the air, a Teslan dream of information transcoded and perhaps transcending previous understandings of how that information might be transferred, continues unabated. I wonder if he's receiving this description right now to create a feedback loop of my own making, like a spontaneous sperhical ball of light appearing right in front of me as a confirmation of this message being sent and previously received already, despite what must be many errors of interpretation on my part.

 

[Burnt State]

 

[Burnt State]

This is the image that accompanies the Breton quote about seeking existence elsewhere, other than the imaginary landscapes of the living and the dead. The image itself, while contemplative, is quasi suicidal, semi-reverent, expressing a kind of sad love for humanity at the same time.

In Duensing's blog rendering of the above image from Wim Wenders' startlingly beautiful film, Wings of Desire, about Berlin, the divided city, the angel's wings are so translucent so as not to be visible. He does become a fallen angel, giving up his wings, and forfeiting his divine position as persistent, invisible observer of humanity. He becomes flesh, transforms from that of a divine, invisible being, the spirit made flesh who becomes human and falls in love. There is a separated reality here, the world of angels and the world of humanity. What jangly windswept sounds would create a unity, a reconciliation between such divided lands?

In Bruce's look for possibilities, the anomalous event is always "maybe this, maybe that," perhaps an impossible tool or measuring device created by another intelligence, maybe an afterlife feedback loop, a bright burst of the physical transformed into light. It makes the noise we make in awe of the unreal image, a sound bridge to a place we can never visit but may be always listening.

And we, spectators always, everywhere,
looking at, never out of, everything!
—Rilke, “The Eighth Elegy”

 

[Waller]

Interesting. thanks for the entries.

"My interest in the perception of ghost phenomenon includes the UFO in a reclassification or rethinking of the issues that go beyond surface appearances as a means of dividing one perceived form from another that lead to faux terms and self referential conclusions such as EVP’s are messages from the dead or that UFO’s represent extraterrestrials."

If I read this correctly, Duensing is implying that the EVP, let's say the Type A, is not evidential to afterlife/spirit world and the UFO is not (ever) and ET ship or contrivance. Is that accurate?

 

[Burnt State]

Interesting. thanks for the entries.

"My interest in the perception of ghost phenomenon includes the UFO in a reclassification or rethinking of the issues that go beyond surface appearances as a means of dividing one perceived form from another that lead to faux terms and self referential conclusions such as EVP’s are messages from the dead or that UFO’s represent extraterrestrials."

If I read this correctly, Duensing is implying that the EVP, let's say the Type A, is not evidential to afterlife/spirit world and the UFO is not (ever) and ET ship or contrivance. Is that accurate?

i would say that his conclusions are that these definitions are conclusions created by the perceiver, by someone caught up in the semiotics of their age and so the rather rapid superimposition of a ghost concept or a ufo concept on top of an unknown stimulus says more about the witness than it does anything about the unknown stimulus at all. evidence is just another word humans beings use to confirm what's already been locked in their imagination and processed by the linguistic signifiers and known narratives that a witness is comprised of. the idea of ghost, ufo as ET ship, are just signifiers tied to our imaginations. what they really are is existing at an unknown interspatial location as far as Bruce is concerned and he spent his time trying to describe that unknown space a little better by noting the specific processes witnesses use to get there and noting parallels and similarities along the way, including his comparison of the UFO to the Ghost.

It's interesting to note how hostile respective voices in these communities can be to unexpected thinking or assertions outside of the accepted paradigm for that group. It seems that both the UFO and Spirit/Afterlife communities just do not believe that they could be possible dealing with something that has a common point of origin.

 

[SRL+]

64 is way too young. But in an arena of the unknowable I find his work to cause you to stretch your brain quite a bit as I try to work through his frequent use of making metaphors for other metaphors. But when you do read his work you can see a rather consistent development of a persistent set of ideas. Even while he brings in quantum reality and explores alternatives to the binary of the physical vs. the energy wave there is a constant examination of triangulation in his work. This is one of his favorite themes. The UFO represents an optional expression of reality, something we have yet to consider or know: "the mask that has no mask."

He explains how while two lines can never enclose a space only the triangle can do this and create a plane. And from there he moves from the defined two dimensional plane, to the use of three dimensions to create a solid, expressions of our understanding of reality through threes. For example: the father, son, and holy ghost, or as he coined this triumvirate, the negative, the positive and the reconciliation of these charges. So not just physical reality, but religion is also born in threes. Similarly he placed specific emphasis on the UFO this way: there is the image, and the imagination that experiences it internally and then there is the reconciliation of these two that produces our understanding of what the UFO is.

He constantly makes reference in his blog, A Transit of Contingencies, to André Breton, the father of surrealism, and the man who penned the surrealist manifesto. And what is reality and anomalous events inside of reality but an experience of surrealism? Again, the image, the imagined and a constructed superimposition upon the unknown object, the unidentified object with what we think it is. It is a mask that has no mask.

Within his work there are always wheels within wheels that prompt us to consider a third option, an alternative to the binary, a third man factor, or as written elsewhere on this forum, a third bank to the river. From his blog a quote from Breton, “It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.” Death , as the great unknown, death as the UFO - a ghost of what we once were, and living as an imaginary event, a mostly internal experience, expressed as brief moments of consciousness, living as transience, contingent on other contingencies. So what does it mean to exist, asks Bruce repeatedly, perennial philosopher while ruminating on anomalous experiences.

His journey, like this digital entry I type being beamed wirelessly through the air, a Teslan dream of information transcoded and perhaps transcending previous understandings of how that information might be transferred, continues unabated. I wonder if he's receiving this description right now to create a feedback loop of my own making, like a spontaneous sperhical ball of light appearing right in front of me as a confirmation of this message being sent and previously received already, despite what must be many errors of interpretation on my part.

André Breton was instrumental in the transitioning from Dadaism to surrealism in the founding of the Bureau of Surrealist Research in 1924. In 1916 André Breton discovered the theories of Sigmund Freud and met Guillaume Apollinaire. Here lies a connection between Andres’ Breton, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung, as Brenton apparently in agreement utilized some of their observations.

“Two separate forms of expression in Surrealism arose through different conceptual theories which derived from specific formations such as Dadaism and the theories of Breton, Freud and Jung. Through the clarification of the founding and influences on Surrealism, the research question: "Surrealism art and the comparisons of the two formations of Automatism and Veristic Surrealism" will be responded.”

“During the war Andre Breton trained in medicine and psychiatry where he used psychoanalytic methods of Sigmund Freud, with the aim of trying to expand the potential of the mind by reconciling the opposing states of dream and reality.2 Freud was able to develop techniques allowing individuals to release their imagination through his exertion of work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious, which ultimately became of great importance to the Surrealists. Their accomplishments and investigations will be discussed further to form a basis of knowledge of the founding of Surrealism in order to be able to understand and compare Veristic Surrealism and Automatism to the fullest.”

“Breton and his companions tried to place themselves in a hallucinatory state, in which they thought they were able to perfectly obtain their subconscious minds and extract pure thoughts, uncontaminated by the conscious mind and its rational restrictions.”

One of Jung’s outstanding quotes is; “When you observe the world within you see moving images, a world of images generally known as fantasies “.

I noticed this here, where you wrote about Bruce’s thoughts; “And what is reality and anomalous events inside of reality but an experience of surrealism? Again, the image, the imagined and a constructed superimposition upon the unknown object, the unidentified object with what we think it is”

..and what you wrote here; “The UFO represents an optional expression of reality, something we have yet to consider or know: "the mask that has no mask."

These thoughts of Mr. Duensing may be loosely considered as Jungian in nature fueled by the research of Mr. Breton, and Freud.

 

[Burnt State]

André Breton was instrumental in the transitioning from Dadaism to surrealism in the founding of the Bureau of Surrealist Research in 1924. In 1916 André Breton discovered the theories of Sigmund Freud and met Guillaume Apollinaire. Here lies a connection between Andres’ Breton, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung, as Brenton apparently in agreement utilized some of their observations.

“Two separate forms of expression in Surrealism arose through different conceptual theories which derived from specific formations such as Dadaism and the theories of Breton, Freud and Jung. Through the clarification of the founding and influences on Surrealism, the research question: "Surrealism art and the comparisons of the two formations of Automatism and Veristic Surrealism" will be responded.”

“During the war Andre Breton trained in medicine and psychiatry where he used psychoanalytic methods of Sigmund Freud, with the aim of trying to expand the potential of the mind by reconciling the opposing states of dream and reality.2 Freud was able to develop techniques allowing individuals to release their imagination through his exertion of work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious, which ultimately became of great importance to the Surrealists. Their accomplishments and investigations will be discussed further to form a basis of knowledge of the founding of Surrealism in order to be able to understand and compare Veristic Surrealism and Automatism to the fullest.”

“Breton and his companions tried to place themselves in a hallucinatory state, in which they thought they were able to perfectly obtain their subconscious minds and extract pure thoughts, uncontaminated by the conscious mind and its rational restrictions.”

One of Jung’s outstanding quotes is; “When you observe the world within you see moving images, a world of images generally known as fantasies “.

I noticed this here, where you wrote about Bruce’s thoughts; “And what is reality and anomalous events inside of reality but an experience of surrealism? Again, the image, the imagined and a constructed superimposition upon the unknown object, the unidentified object with what we think it is”

..and what you wrote here; “The UFO represents an optional expression of reality, something we have yet to consider or know: "the mask that has no mask."

These thoughts of Mr. Duesning may be loosely considered as Jungian in nature fueled by the research of Mr. Breton, and Freud.

I wish I had checked in here to read that before I went on to Radio Misterioso tonight with RPJ to commemorate Bruce's ideas as these would have made some nice additions compared to my struggles for coherent statements.

 

[Waller]

i would say that his conclusions are that these definitions are conclusions created by the perceiver, by someone caught up in the semiotics of their age and so the rather rapid superimposition of a ghost concept or a ufo concept on top of and unknown stimulus says more about the witness than it does anything about the unknown stimulus at all. evidence is just another word humans beings use to confirm what's already been locked in their imagination and processed by the linguistic signifiers and known narratives that a witness is comprised of. the idea of ghost, ufo as ET ship, are just signifiers tied to our imaginations. what they really are is existing at an unknown interspatial location as far as Bruce is concerned and he spent his time trying to describe that unknown space a little better by noting the specific processes witnesses use to get there and noting parallels and similarities along the way, including his comparison of the UFO to the Ghost.

This and that would be my response. He has hit on something, the concept of the creation (manifestation) by thought of our physical reality, that is spot on. However, it is not the end-all as there are dense, physical ships that are from dense locations (stars, places in the universe we might call skies) that are manned by beings that are dense or can be dense if they so chose.

It's interesting to note how hostile respective voices in these communities can be to unexpected thinking or assertions outside of the accepted paradigm for that group. It seems that both the UFO and Spirit/Afterlife communities just do not believe that they could be possible dealing with something that has a common point of origin.

Tell me about it. It's about boxes. I wrongly expected that the afterlife community to be open minded, consciousness driven thinkers. Their box is just larger than most as it does contain the knowlewdge of the spirit world, its existence, interactions with us. Then most simply regroup their box around new perimeters. When challenged, they become fearful that this new spirit knowledge isn't the control system that they believed they had acquired.

 

[Burnt State]

..and what you wrote here; “The UFO represents an optional expression of reality, something we have yet to consider or know: "the mask that has no mask."

These thoughts of Mr. Duensing may be loosely considered as Jungian in nature fueled by the research of Mr. Breton, and Freud.

While I can't speak for him, from the reading I've done of a good chunk of his work, I would have to consider that he might take issue with being pegged as a Jungian, even loosely. He would consider that land of archetypes merely an architecture invented by humans to continue to socialize each other and maintain predictability in human culture, in our story telling and in what we can expect during our lives seen as quest. Not that he wasn't aware of these elements, or didn't use them, for I notice in reading his work there's a renaissance thing happening there. He manages to pull together all the familiar threads across various artistic and scientific disciplines, not to mention the various eclectic speculators and experimenters across various fields, and he uses those familiar touchstones to help express new ideas.

In one of his more popular metaphors or writing themes, he would see that all these ingredients, these cultural architectures, are merely options with which to cook an interpretation of a life. With known ingredients and familiar narratives you can build a predictable life. He seemed to be very interested though in looking to see what was behind these structures, if anything at all, to see how they might be used in his collage and cut up process of his ideas expressed in blog writing. I think he still retains some Dadaist elements in his work. For him, the mask that has no mask seems to be about deconstructing reality and seeing the UAP phenomenon as a deconstructive invitation, or provocation for those who are witnesses.

What's also interesting to note, though not particular to, or perhaps very particular to, these figures (Jung, Freud, Breton) is that the witness Bruce made note of in interviews was the witness who was already experiencing some deconstructive experiences in their life. The UAP or ghost being just another step in their deconstructive journey.

 

[Burnt State]

This and that would be my response. He has hit on something, the concept of the creation (manifestation) by thought of our physical reality, that is spot on. However, it is not the end-all as there are dense, physical ships that are from dense locations (stars, places in the universe we might call skies) that are manned by beings that are dense or can be dense if they so chose.

Those densities are definitely there, and in some cases it seems that the pilots of such objects appear to be quite dense themselves in the absolutely ridiculous airplanes and missteps they engage in see Broken Bow incident. It's possible that they could be visiting us from their dense spaces though that seems rather unlikely on the face of it, but perhaps there are other methodologies of transit and different purposes that we have yet to imagine ourselves. In fact they could be all around us.

Tell me about it. It's about boxes. I wrongly expected that the afterlife community to be open minded, consciousness driven thinkers. Their box is just larger than most as it does contain the knowlewdge of the spirit world, its existence, interactions with us. Then most simply regroup their box around new perimeters. When challenged, they become fearful that this new spirit knowledge isn't the control system that they believed they had acquired.

That's where I have to say I greatly admire Bruce Duensing's approach. His mind is wide open to possibilities and is frequently inventing them as other potential considerations for what could be derived from studying this phenomenon and its impact on witnesses. You will find here people stuck in their boxes of belief and denial, and you will also find very open minded folk open to possibilities.

We all define different walls and lines in the sand. It's probably better to draw lines in the sand though, as wind and water can alter those easily, and in a pinch you can always make a new art piece with sand. Walls take so much longer to build and tear down.

 

[SRL+]

He would consider that land of archetypes merely an architecture invented by humans to continue to socialize each other and maintain predictability in human culture, in our story telling and in what we can expect during our lives seen as quest.

As current understanding, archetypes defined are; “archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct.[1] They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on interaction with the outside world.[2] They are autonomous and hidden forms which are transformed once they enter consciousness and are given particular expression by individuals and their cultures.”

I would have to consider that he might take issue with being pegged as a Jungian, even loosely.

Perhaps he would have, however, I'm fairly certain the man would have been pleased in knowing that we've taken the time in discussing his work.

 

[Burnt State]

As current understanding, archetypes defined are; “archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct.[1] They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on interaction with the outside world.[2] They are autonomous and hidden forms which are transformed once they enter consciousness and are given particular expression by individuals and their cultures.”

Perhaps he would have, however, I'm fairly certain the man would have been pleased in knowing that we've taken the time in discussing his work.

I agree that the engagement in his ideas are what's to be celebrated. He's not an easy character to work through, but then interesting work of value is often dense and requires a lot more thinking and digesting time in order to process.

I have thoroughly enjoyed your definitions as there is a vitality there that I abandoned after having taught archetypes and archetypal interpretations for literature for soooo looong. Instead of dynamic living patters all I was seeing in some of the writing and their resulting flat interpretations was a forcing of the pattern as opposed to autonomous or hidden forms. Expressions in culture appear by rote, and in doing so become trite as well and lose all vitality. Where are the new archetypes of the time? Is life in the modern era about "the melancholic" one professor asked once. In that post existential nihilism are art forms and humanity as a whole settling into a period of decay, an ongoing warlike disappointment with what it means to be civilized, technologized, and consumerist? Communications systems amongst peoples are now reduced to tweets; there is a growing sense that even the old patterns are dwindling down; genuine emotions are being replaced by ennui and mild momentary consumer bliss spikes from lusting briefly after instant images that once digitally perused dissolve into a similar image, all life a simulacrum in the west and now in the wealthy east as well.

The idea of the living pattern, as sought by Eurocentric interpretations, enshrined in bound Golden Boughs, may in fact be superimpostions of our own design, made more lofty by our penchant for categorization. In this way Jung saw the UFO as a sky mandala, a new living myth. But are these vital or are they closed boxes like the rest of language where woman can only be "whore," "virgin," or "crone" and man is so much more because he controls the language, and so he can be "magus," "sacrifice," "hermit," "hero," "king," "hanged man," and most often, "the fool."

 

[SRL+]

Traveling down to SoCal a year or so ago, I spent the evening with a group of educated folks. Unlike yours truly, one held a degree in psychiatry, his spouse just received her psychology degree, and yet another held a degree in general medicine. I noticed Jung’s Red Book on the couple’s coffee table. In mentioning the manuscript, the psychologist told me that upon graduation she decided to purchase Jung’s work. During the course of that evening we attempted to plumb the depths of what may be considered as each others own particular synchronicities and coincidences. The point I’m attempting to make here is that in Western civilization Jung is widely accepted by academia. I seriously doubt these highly educated men and women would view Jung’s work as; “Eurocentric interpretations, enshrined in bound Golden Boughs”, rather, musings from an insightful, and brilliant witch doctor.

If you ever have the opportunity, try grokking “Man and his Symbols”. Although written for the layman, I found it to be like trying to chew through a steel cable with rubber teeth.

Hopefully, one day you may regain your vitality Robert.

 

[Burnt State]

S.R.L., I've read a good chunk of Jung in my time, including Man and His Symbols. While I admire Jung's zeal for his subject matter and the expansive thought process, I despise the reduction of literature and other narrative aspects of culture to common archetypes, especially when they are further narrowed into expectant boxes. So perhaps it's not Jung I find limiting so much as the constraints imposed upon art and culture by a persistent need to categorize events, actions and peoples into 'types.'

While he may get revered as the brilliant witch doctor, he's not. That would be a loose interpretation. His original writing is quite dynamic and I still refer to his Trickster essay whenever Hansen rolls on through the Paracast doors, as Jung's original work is far from limiting, and much more open ended in his approach.

But I do find much to be vital, as real life is happening all the time, sometimes too much of it. What I'm thankful for though is that somewhere along the way I removed that archetypal lens that was imprinted upon my brain by university to free perception and interpretation up a bit.

Sometimes I think that Coyote did First Woman a big favor when he scattered all the stars from her blanket into the night sky, disrupting the patterns she was carefully documenting. If we live by the story then we die by the story. Perhaps it's better not to have these delineated expectations and walk into life more open to possibilities instead of seeking patterns? Bruce seemed to suggest that this was one effect of what the paranormal/UFO offers us. So no disrespect to the Aca-ca-cademy nor to Jung, but it seems to me that the patterns are in need of disruption.

 

[SRL+]

Of course we’re all entitled to our own opinions, and I thank you for yours.