Ruby Jewel
Jung spoke of oracle cards as being in a relationship of synchronicity with the archetypes of the major arcana. I'm wondering if anyone out there has any clarifying information on this phenomenon. Thanks.
He defined synchronicity as an 'acausal connecting principle'. I have understood that to mean two things that happen at the same time but with no way to prove that they're connected on the physical plane. So in this case I would guess that he means That the oracle cards are reflecting an archetypal reality.
I suppose that's another way of saying that the oracle cards work for us, in the sense that they reflect the reality around us.
Jung never mentioned Tarot, with the exception of:Jung spoke of oracle cards as being in a relationship of synchronicity with the archetypes of the major arcana. I'm wondering if anyone out there has any clarifying information on this phenomenon. Thanks.
(CW stands for Jung's Collected Works.) In contrast, Jung did speak fairly extensively about the Yijing (aka the I Ching), which I would consider to be the spiritual ancestor, so to speak, of Tarot. In fact, he wrote an introduction to Richard Wilhelm's translation of the Yijing, The I Ching or Book of Changes, which is (arguably) the de facto standard translation of the Yijing. In addition, Jung co-authored Richard Wilhelm's translation of the book, The Secret of the Golden Flower - A Chinese book of Life, which is a book I would highly recommend to anyone regardless of their interest in Tarot, the Yijing or Jung's concepts.C. G. Jung said:If one wants to form a picture of the symbolic process, the series of pictures found in alchemy are good examples, though the symbols they contain are for the most part traditional despite their often obscure origin and significance. An excellent Eastern example is the Tantric chakra system, or the mystical nerve system of Chinese yoga. It also seems as if the set of pictures in the Tarot cards were distantly descended from the archetypes of transformation, a view that has been confirmed for me in a very enlightening lecture by Professor Bernoulli.
Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, CW vol 9 (I), par. 81
Too many mystics try to co-opt scientific theories or principles in an attempt to justify absurd metaphysical speculations. I use the word absurd because this methodology always distorts the science as well as often distorting the mysticism as well.
This is typical of a mystic that has acquired some knowledge of the generally accepted interpretation given to a particular scientific theory or principle, but the mystic does not have a working understanding of the underlying science that they are attempting to co-opt. As a consequence, a distortion of the underlying theory or principle is inevitable, which then simply serves to prove the (obvious) ignorance of the mystic.
I will use Einstein's theory of relativity as an example of the type of distortions that arise. The uneducated (or uninitiated) often interpret the theory of relativity to imply that each of us perceives the world differently and our perceptions are all "true" and thus "everything is relative". But this is actually the exact opposite of what the scientific theory actually implies. The distortion arises because of the colloquial definition of the word relative. Einstein's theory, the scientific theory of relatively, does not preclude an absolute objective, deterministic world. The scientific theory simply asserts that our perceptions (or observations or measurements) of "the world" are relative in the sense that a person may perceive two events as occurring simultaneously and another person may perceive those same two events as occurring in sequence (i.e. not simultaneously). As a result, a mathematical transformation must then be applied to "harmonize" (for lack of a better characterization) the two events; a transformation that explicitly considers the relativity of the perceptions of the two events.
That is certainly a drastic oversimplification, but all that is required for my purposes is that it be understood that the scientific theory of relatively, does not preclude an absolute objective, deterministic world. As a matter of fact, up to his death Einstein persistently refused to accept quantum theory because quantum theory explicitly adopts a fundamental indeterminism, due to Heisenberg's uncertainly principle, and Einstein stubbornly refused to believe that "the world" was not ultimately deterministic. That is the source of Einstein's famous quote that "God does not play dice!"
Even though Einstein was eventually forced to acknowledge that quantum theory "worked" and that he could not come up with a better theory, he continued to assert that, at best, quantum theory should only be considered to be a provisional theory. This is because he thought that the search for a better theory should never be abandoned. According to Einstein, a better theory would obviously be a theory that does not accept the systemic indeterminism that is inherent to quantum theory.
Originally Posted by C. G. Jung
If one wants to form a picture of the symbolic process, the series of pictures found in alchemy are good examples, though the symbols they contain are for the most part traditional despite their often obscure origin and significance. An excellent Eastern example is the Tantric chakra system, or the mystical nerve system of Chinese yoga. It also seems as if the set of pictures in the Tarot cards were distantly descended from the archetypes of transformation, a view that has been confirmed for me in a very enlightening lecture by Professor Bernoulli.
Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, CW vol 9 (I), par. 81
Thanks to JSNYC for these in-depth clarifications. The subject warrants further study.
As with many of the more interesting French articles on the subject, Bernoulli's lecture - later published in 1934 - remains completely ignored, even by those who take a Jungian approach to the study and practice of Tarot. And there is more: the handful of early (1940s) English-language articles dealing with same are also sadly neglected, if they have even been published.
Is there anyone seriously interested in this topic, with access to a good (psychological) library, and willing to engage in some further research and exchanges? Feel free to chime in or contact me via PM, thanks.