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The illustrious Angela C. (inside joke) has written a fascinating post at By Common Consent about a particular view of Joseph’s First Vision. It and the comment thread are extremely interesting, and I think many of you here will really appreciate it. The link is:
http://bycommonconsent.com/2014/05/13/a-jungian-interpretation-of-the-first-vision/ Feel free to quote from and discuss it here.
I wonder how “TBMs” view peter’s vision? He was on his rooftop and had a vision of animals on a blanket, floating in the air. If his neighbour was out, would he have seen it too? I would imagine most members would say no and would accept it as a type of supernatural vision. One that was in Peter’s mind or eyes only.
I’m willing to believe that at 14 Joseph had a significant experience that spiritually meaningful. If I had been behind a tree in the same grove I would imagine I would have only seen a boy lying passed out on the ground.
That doesn’t have to mean the source was not divine.
I really like this blog/article. First off, it clearly points out what any of us who have given it any thought at all realize – it’s not a fact that God and/or Jesus were actually physically present in the grove. Joseph Smith never intimates such in any of his descriptions of the event. That is something that seems pretty safe to gently and politely point out to more orthodox members, and I have done so with my own family and a few others without any resistance. Like mackay11, I do believe Joseph had a significant spiritual experience and I believe if I had also been there I probably would not have seen anything but an unconscious boy. I also appreciate the primer on Jung – it has been a long tome since I have had a psych class. I think it’s great that someone actually took the time to put this in terms of what may have actually been happening in psychological terms. I believe that in the end science and religion will be in agreement, that all of the things we don’t understand now will have an explanation which is part science and part religion (like evolution).
One of the things I like most is actually near the end in the “Discuss” section #2. “In other words the pursuit of goodness cannot lead to wholeness” (according to this Catholic criticism of Jung). This resonates as true with me – I think we cannot truly understand the good without knowing the bad. I don’t think our faith can be whole without experiencing doubt and questions.
Yes, I loved that Catholic criticism of Jung. I found myself on Jung’s side in reading it, and I couldn’t help but think of the NT phrase: “The whole have no need of a physician.” And yet, we are told “Be ye therefore perfect,” by which I assume he means whole. Psychology would say you have to face your demons, you have to deal with all of your stuff. Too frequently, religions (at least culturally through peer pressure) teach people to hide their flaws or doubts and to put on an outward appearance of goodness that is unrealistic. Religions create Pharisees, or maybe Pharisees create religions (or revise religions to suit themselves). This is great Ray, thank you. I didn’t really think I would see an article like this, at least from an LDS. At least I don’t feel so alone now to decipher it like Jung perspective. Yes I have found that the pursuit of goodness(ie.holyness) hadn’t led to fullness of soul(wholeness). I fact the more vigorously I pursued conforming and seeking someone worse path, the more empty and depressed I became. It didn’t feel like it because I was always running around and to bust to stop and pay attention to the inside, but when I did, despite all the busyness and accomplishments(milestones). Standing still got harder and harder as I became more and more empty the more listened from the outside in instead of the inside out. Reversing directions, I start to feel note whole and hopeful. I agree with jungs interpretation of that and I feel the Jung interpretation of the first vision and find more meaning in looking into oneself and being honest with what you see and where you want to go, confronting the demons(weaknesses and bad thoughts) and angels(strengthens and good thoughts) head on from the inside out.
Who potentially on earth, knows yourself better then yourself(if your willing to be honest with yourself and look within).
Indeed I relate to JS completely on that level. My connection is shared with him strongly in that level of empathy I share with that struggle. It shows(at least to me). A man who wrestled with self as he saw the dark and light within himself for the first vision and many other accounts. It shows JS as a complex person in that light and bit the simplistic person on either end of the black and white view).
Anyway thanks for sharing it, took me by surprise to see another LDS think about it in that light.
Really thought-provoking and interesting. My only point of contention is whether Jung’s work has been experimentally validated. Look, I know it’s hard to do this kind of behavioral testing, but much of what early psychoanalysts claimed as fact turned out to be better explained as neurobiology began get into behavioral studies.
Since I’ve studied epilepsy and many epileptic describe remarkably vivid “visions”, my materialistic, deterministic side says “this dude had a seizure, plain and simple”.
BUTthat doesn’t make it meaningless, nor does it make the Church pointless. Just like Joseph Smith was responsible for assigning the meaning he gave it, each of us are responsible for the meaning we give the universe as well as the consequences of those assignments. Just my two cents. “My only point of contention is whether Jung’s work has been experimentally validated.” I’m not sure what you mean by this or by what standard you would choose to judge it. Many of Freud’s theories have fallen out of favor. Likewise with Jung’s, although I find his view on individuation to be very compatible with both reality and Mormon views on human potential. As a psychologist, I think you can only evaluate his work by its fruits: did he help patients reach their potential? Did he further our insights into human behavior? His insights into behavior were behind the creation of AA to combat alcoholism, the idea that alcoholics needed to take spiritual action to recovery. What I like about him is that his approach was practical. As to his overall body of work, I question the validity of the collective unconscious, though, and I think his Red Book is pretty crazy stuff. I really enjoyed reading this and the comments. I hope you’ll write follow-ups. Thanks. Great job! I really enjoyed that. 😮 )hawkgrrrl wrote:I’m not sure what you mean by this or by what standard you would choose to judge it.
Actually I think this is
the problemI have with most of…non-quantitative evidence. I love the insights the so-called “soft sciences” bring to the empirical process. Given that there are bounds on our certainty, I cannot say I am satisfied either with my comprehension of Jung’s insights nor with the current inability to seamlessly translate from quarks to atoms to brains to behaviors. I am a neuroscientist, but tinkering with the brain’s cells and genes only provides so much insight. I have to defer to those of deeper understanding in the realm of cognition and behavior. Nevertheless, I tend to find some of the early fields of psychoanalysis (vs more modern iterations) to be very…”touchy feely”…not that that is necessarily “bad”. Just not my style is all. That being said, I really find the interpretation of Joseph’s vision to be somewhat ironic: wasn’t it the biblical Joseph who interpreted
other’sdreams? Quote:Actually I think this is the problem I have with most of…non-quantitative evidence. I love the insights the so-called “soft sciences” bring to the empirical process. Given that there are bounds on our certainty, I cannot say I am satisfied either with my comprehension of Jung’s insights nor with the current inability to seamlessly translate from quarks to atoms to brains to behaviors.
Yes, I think that’s a real issue. My reasons for liking Jung are very theoretical and subjective. But I also tend to think psychology has to be somewhat subjective in order to be practical. Thanks for the clarification.
This is a fantastic piece. One I could easily believe is applicable to Joseph’s life experience. As a person who has had visionary dreams, enough to be able to separate them from regular dreams, Jung’s theories hold true. I find it also true that those visions can have multiple interpretations from the envisioner as well as outside people extrapolating the information, i.e. if I explained my dream to you – either before it’s fulfillment or after. Neither of us may be wrong. I have also learned I can’t affect a dream. I can’t stop what is going to happen if it is a warning dream, I can’t change the events if it is a life circumstance. I can only live through it. (I know that sounds weird). In short my own dream experiences and their fulfillment and my maturity with them has allowed me to not worry about Joseph’s vision. Where I worry is the “what we have done with it.” Have we lived up to the fulfillment of them or have we morphed them and changed them into something they were not intended to be. And in so doing have we created a falsehood.
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