Beware the Tory wounded beast

The wounded Tory party is cornered. The monster is at its most vicious now, it's fear and hatred is sharpened now and it will strike out at the left and use anything to cling to power. It's monstrous brood the Mail, the Sun and the Express stand around the demonic Queen fighting for their lives...beware we all now to quote Gerard Keegan are about to experience institutional bullying ...beware it's going to be a tough battle for these last 8 days....how they fear the day of reckoning

 ...

For your basic humanity and dignity vote for the Left on June 8th...

For your basic humanity and dignity vote for the Left on June 8th...

In the end when you look at the faces of Jeremy Corbyn Caroline Lucas, and Leanne Wood you see kindness, analysis and respect for the broken and damaged in our society. In the end you see that the solutions they offer are inclusive, welcoming and strong. You see the pinched faces of the Blue-kip Tories with their hard eyes and the sneer across their faces so apt;y seen in the face of Karen Bradley as supreme Tory spin doctor in Monday's leader debate.
In the end it comes down to who you are really deep inside. Its the emotion for me of seeing my son, seeing my lover. It comes down to reaching outwards, it's about knowing the history, literature and culture of Europe. It's about experiences of traveling, knowing the smell of the air in the countries of Europe, it's about smiling about our own odd little ways and theirs. Its about knowing what we share together and not what keeps us apart. Its about coping with the fear of change within ourselves and not about denying it and projecting it on to the other. Its about how the Soul of man under Socialism is more alive , more expansive and more aware.



It's knowing that there is more than one book, that there is no us and them. It's about knowing that Tom Paine prior to his pamphlet “Common Sense” reminded the English that they were always part of Europe, its about knowing that Europeans want equal access to knowledge and education. It's about knowing that the French think one way, the Germans another, it's about knowing that the Magna Carta was imposed by French Knights, and the Glorious Revolution by a Dutch Army, that Christmas Trees were a Victorian tradition tradition that came from Germany. Its about knowing that a ruling elite never surrenders it rule easily or gently. Its about how we walk with the broken and the abandoned. Its about having fun, laughing and being kind. Its about knowing that you find prejudice everywhere but you also find empathy.
It's about knowing that even if you have been wrong or broken the law , your argument is still as important and emotional and uplifting. It's about knowing that we are all immigrants, that we all came out of Africa, that our ancestors were all economic migrants, that Aaron banks that great saint of the kippers refused has no real loyalty to anything other than his pocket. It about knowing that the conspiracy of conservatism is simply about hanging on to privilege. That conservatism to quote Mill is empiricism tempered by prejudice. Its about knowing that in the words of Henry James that you can never say the last word on anybodies heart.

It's about knowing and feeling in your heart, tolerance, understanding for the refugee, the victim of domestic abuse, the broken and the outcast. It's about daring to think in new ways it's about crossing over to new solutions and new perspectives. It's about not liking self assurance, those who are blaming the other, the little Englander and the simplistic Tory analysis or the Daily Mail.
It's about seeing how Shakespeare was influenced by those European ideas stretching back to the Greeks. It's about seeing how the latest Edition of Big Brother shows how important the works of Freud and Darwin were. It's about celebrating both popular and high culture and. It's about appreciating that Nietzsche was not a Nazi and that Margaret Thatcher was no friend of the Welsh. It's about seeing situations with new lenses and new filters. It's about understanding that we make new wines in both new and old vessels. It's about seeing the Mediterranean Sea and smelling the air. And finally its about possibilities, hope and respect. That is why I am voting Labour in Brecon and Radnor and urge you all to vote Green, Labour and Plaid appropriately and with your heart.
Its about the symbolism of voting for a Green left view, what it will lead to, how it will be interpreted. Its about how by looking at the threat of Isis, we forget the evil and poison of the far right. Its about what will come next if the Tories win big.. Its about the fact that the right-wingers worship the “free market” and the privatization of the NHS .I look at Theresa May, Karen Bradley and Boris Johnson and I feel a revulsion deep down in my soul, in my mind and see them as abominations to all I have ever learnt, read, or felt. I would rather be a rebel than a slave. Its that important on June 8th

The true meaning of Jihad for Kippers and Bluekippers everywhere.......

Excerpted n from "The Beliefnet Guide to Islam," published by Three Leaves Press/Doubleday.

 

 

The term jihad has taken on a very charged meaning in popular  culture, especially after September 11 and Manchester last week. . Jihad is most often translated as “holy war,” a term drawn from our Western Christian vocabulary. In fact, the term “holy war” does not exist in the Islamic lexicon. Some claim jihad is the perpetual war to convert the “abode of war” (i.e. non-Muslim areas) to the “abode of Islam.” There are some Muslims who believe this as well, and there was a period in Islamic history when this was the official policy of the Muslim state, particularly during the Umayyad dynasty (680-750 C.E.) Yet some scholars suggest that the Ummayads put this policy in place in order to deflect attention away from their oppressive social policies and corrupt administration. In fact the most famous Umayyad leader, Umar ibn Abd Al Aziz, put a stop to this policy because he knew it was unsustainable. That jihad means a perpetual war against non-Muslims is supported neither by the Qur’an nor the hadith.
Jihad literally means “struggle,” or “striving.” It is not, as some have claimed, the “sixth pillar” of Islam. Jihad is a very broad concept in Islam; it is an activist principle: the struggle to do good on earth for the sake of God. In the Qur’an it is a word that is distinct from qital, which means armed conflict. In some instances, as a last resort, jihad can and does encompass armed conflict. Yet armed jihad has very strict rules and regulations, as we discussed earlier. When used in the Qur’an, jihad is very general in nature, while the verses that speak about qital are very specific and have a number of qualifiers. For example, verse 2:190, of which we spoke earlier in detail, has very specific parameters: fighting is allowed only against those who fight the Muslims. Jihad, on the other hand, is much more broad:

“O you who have attained to faith! Shall I point to you a bargain that will save you from grievous suffering [in this world and in the life to come]? You are to believe in God and His Apostle, and to strivehard in God’s cause with your possessions and your lives: this is for your own good—if you but knew it!
[If you do so,] He will forgive you your sins, and will admit you into gardens through which running waters flow, and into goodly mansions in [those] gardens of perpetual bliss: that [will be] the triumph supreme!
And [withal, He will grant you] yet another thing that you dearly love: succour from God [in this world], and a victory soon to come: and [thereof, O Prophet,] give you a  glad tiding to all who believe." (61:11-13)

So, what is jihad really? Is it a tangible process that can be grasped every single day? Absolutely.
One day, during the time when the early Muslim community was struggling for its very existence, the Prophet and his Companions had just returned from a particularly difficult battle. As they were beginning to relax, he turned to his beloved Companions and said, “We have just returned from the lesser jihad, but now we are entering the greater jihad.”

“Oh Prophet of God, what do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said, “that the greater jihad is the struggle with our own egos.” At the heart of Islamic teaching is the idea that there is an aspect of ourselves, the nafs, which can be translated variously as ego, self, or soul, that must be brought into line with our highest understanding and intention. If this is not done, it will enslave us and lead us away from the greater good. If we follow our selfish egoism, if we are enslaved to a myriad of personal likes and dislikes, the reality of the Divine Presence will slip further and further from our consciousness. The practices of Islam, the five daily prayers and the annual fast, as well as all the exhortations to moral and altruistic behavior that are the main message of the Qur’an, are there to free us from this slavery to the ego. It’s not that the human self must kill every desire in order to be spiritual. In fact, the good things of life are explicitly permitted, as long as we keep them within certain lawful bounds and do not exploit others to attain them. What Islam calls for is a healthy discipline and the surrender of the self to the remembrance of God. To live this way is for most of us a constant struggle with our egoism, but this commitment to struggle is what gradually purifies the heart so that doing the good, beyond personal self-interest, becomes second nature, our spontaneous choice.
The fast of Ramadan teaches us to look beyond our immediate cravings. The times of prayer require us to disengage from the incessant, compulsive activity of our lives. The giving charity teaches us that our wealth is not entirely our own and that generosity is actually a key to prosperity. Above all, keeping the remembrance of God in the center of our consciousness changes our perception of the meaning of life. It enables us to make greater efforts without being attached to the outcome of those efforts. “Trust in Allah, but tether your camel first,” said Muhammad. Trust in God is never an excuse for becoming passive. Struggle, effort, and a humble determination are the attributes of faith

For your souls sake vote for the Left on June 8th...

 In the end when you look at the faces of  Jeremy Corbyn Caroline Lucas, and Leanne Wood you see kindness, analysis and respect for the broken and damaged in our society. In the end you see that the solutions they offer are inclusive, welcoming and strong. You see the pinched faces of the Blue-kip Tories with their hard eyes and the sneer across their faces so apt;y seen in the face of Karen Bradley as supreme Tory spin doctor in  Monday's leader debate.

In the end it comes down to who you are really deep inside. Its the emotion for me of seeing my son, seeing my lover. It comes down to reaching outwards, it's about knowing the history, literature and culture of Europe. It's about experiences of traveling, knowing the smell of the air in the countries of Europe, it's about smiling about our own odd little ways and theirs. Its about knowing what we share together and not what keeps us apart. Its about coping with the fear of change within ourselves and not about denying it and projecting it on to the other. Its about how the Soul of man under Socialism is more alive , more expansive and more aware.

It's knowing that there is more than one book, that there is no us and them. It's about knowing that Tom Paine prior to his pamphlet “Common Sense” reminded the English that they were always part of Europe, its about knowing that Europeans want equal access to knowledge and education. It's about knowing that the French think one way, the Germans another, it's about knowing that the Magna Carta was imposed by French Knights, and the Glorious Revolution by a Dutch Army, that Christmas Trees were a Victorian tradition tradition that came from Germany. Its about knowing that a ruling elite never surrenders it rule easily or gently. Its about how we walk with the broken and the abandoned. Its about having fun, laughing and being kind. Its about knowing that you find prejudice everywhere but you also find empathy.

It's about knowing that even if you have been wrong or broken the law , your argument is still as important and emotional and uplifting. It's about knowing that we are all immigrants, that we all came out of Africa, that our ancestors were all economic migrants, that Aaron banks that great saint of the kippers refused has no real loyalty to anything other than his pocket. It about knowing that the conspiracy of conservatism is simply about hanging on to privilege. That conservatism to quote Mill is empiricism tempered by prejudice. Its about knowing that in the words of Henry James that you can never say the last word on anybodies heart.   

It's about knowing and feeling in your heart, tolerance, understanding for the refugee, the victim of domestic abuse, the broken and the outcast. It's about daring to think in new ways it's about crossing over to new solutions and new perspectives. It's about not liking self assurance, those who are blaming the other, the little Englander and the simplistic Tory analysis or the Daily Mail.

It's about seeing how Shakespeare was influenced by those European ideas stretching back to the Greeks. It's about seeing how the latest Edition of Big Brother shows how important the works of Freud and Darwin were. It's about celebrating both popular and high culture and. It's about appreciating that Nietzsche was not a Nazi and that Margaret Thatcher was no friend of the Welsh. It's about seeing situations with new lenses and new filters. It's about understanding that we make new wines in both new and old vessels. It's about seeing the Mediterranean Sea and smelling the. And finally its about possibilities, hope and respect. That is why I am voting Labour in Brecon and Radnor and urge you all to vote Green, Labour and Plaid appropriately and with your heart.

Its about the symbolism of voting for a Green left view, what it will lead to, how it will be interpreted. Its about how by looking at the threat of Isis, we forget the evil and poison of the far right. Its about what will come next if the Tories win big.. Its about the fact that the right-wingers  worship the “free market” and the privatization of the NHS.I look at Theresa May, Karen Bradley and Boris Johnson and I feel a revulsion deep down in my soul, in my mind and see them as abominations to all I have ever learnt, read, or felt. I would rather be a rebel than a slave. Its that important on June 8^th...it really is.......

and if we really do understand just who is strong and stable....

It's clear now that there will be no Tory landslide .it's unclear though quite what will happen. We have seen mistakes by the Tories and a clear view of their arrogance and assumption of their right to rule. The local government elections seem now a poor guide to the result to come. It feels like a large section of the electorate has woken up to Tory policy. It's as if The Brexit card has not been all it promised....and it may be that both the Liberal Democrats and UKIP have an important role in determining the final permutations on June 8th. And it also seems that the the combined vote of the two main parties will be significantly higher that for many elections. With 9 days to go people are now unsure as to what happens next. I think many possibilities could occur but one thing I am sure of is that the Corbynistas are firmly in control of the Labour Party and that win or lose Corbyn will not be going away. There is now a real chance of a the emergence of a Green Left and of a new political paradigm. We live in interesting times and I look forward with excitement to the next 9 days and the years and months ahead. We have seen the Tories for what they hard the image of Karen Bradley as a unfeeling , brutal and arrogant spin doctor with her hard eyes and souless face said it all. Who would have thought we would be here at this time...life and possibilities have made possible many outcomes. The choice to us all is which one we take and do we have the courage....and if we really do understand just who is strong and stable....

Political reflections 13 days from June 8

I Iwas thinking about John Nash,. He was the Mathematician who was killed last year in a car crash in the USA. He was suffering from a paranoid psychosis when he produced his contribution to Games Theory. it was this branch of Games Theory that contributed most to America`s outlook during the Cold War and has probably in turn added to the nature of globalisation in the last 30 years. Is it not interesting that an academic suffering from a paranoid psychosis ( Watch Russell Crowe in the film A Beautiful Mind ). And that this branch of mathematics created in paranoia serves a superpower in the state of collective psychosis.and paranoia. Does our sense of how the world works reflect our inner psychological state Watching leanne Wood of Plaid last night I was mostly impressed. However I know of Leanne`s long connection to the anti war movement. I was very dissapointed that she did not mention once the arms trade . I feel sure that Jeremy Corbyn will mention this today in his speech. The more that the leaders of the main parties do this the more likely it will be that a real discussion on the causes of terrorism and violence will happen

On many issues that the r political right give bland and simple solutioms we find the following.The truth is in at least 2 out of 3 cases we always find that those people who dismiss these simple solutionsare better educated, more tolerant, more perceptive, deeper thinking, younger more aware of paradox and of not knowing within themselves, and are more tentative and less sure. They are less easily fooled, see through scapegoating, reflect more on their life experiences and have travelled more and know more about other cultures and less likely to have a narrowoutlook. of course there are exceptions but ......the truth is that our outlook is shaped by both our psychology and our experience and also by the ability to reflect, change ones mind and to have the capacity to change our ways of thinking........and to be politically more progressive.

I saw the lynch mob mentality of the UKIP MEPs and activists at their Manifesto launch.They hate the media, the progressive view and the outlook of speculation and of thinking deeply. They were presided over by the archetypal skinhead like Nuttal, . Who were they.? Well I can tell you, Male, bitter and late middle aged. I saw the sneer on Neil Hamilton`s face in the audience debate last night in Wales. He seemed old, out of touch and I heard the baying and bullying form his short cropped hair, bullying male compatriots in the audience. Our mind, our psychology and our attitudes reveal how we would rule and treat the vulnerable. I shuddered last night as I looked into the maw of UKIP.

Nietzsche, Daybreak. 1881 and the party member.......

Only if mankind possessed a universally recognised goal would it be possible to propose ‘thus and thus is the right course of action’: for the present there exists no such goal. It is thus irrational and trivial to impose the demands of morality upon mankind. – To recommend a goal to mankind is something quite different: the goal is then thought of as something which lies in our discretion; supposing the recommendation appealed to mankind, it could in pursuit of it also impose upon itself a moral law …. Up to now the moral law has been supposed to stand above our own likes and dislikes: one did not want actually to impose this law upon oneself, have it commanded to one from somewhere.

Nietzsche, Daybreak. 1881

Nietzsche’s far-reaching critique of metaphysics, of philosophy’s claim to provide access to a realm of objective truth and universal values, has placed him at the centre of debates on the nature of the postmodern turn in Western thought. It is only recently, however, that any attempt has been made to examine the significance of his deconstruction of the philosophical tradition for political theory. An impasse on the question of Nietzsche’s status as a political thinker was reached by commentators adopting the practice of reading his overt neo-conservative politics back into his philosophy of power in an effort to discredit the philosophical site on which he had constructed his political edifice. Yet for anyone aware of the pivotal role that Nietzsche’s writings have come to play in contemporary debates in critical theory, poststructuralism and deconstruction, his status as a political thinker poses an enigma in need of explanation and enlightenment.

 The most dangerous party member. - In every party there is one who through his all too credulous avowal of the party's principles incites the others to apostasy.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Behind a man's actions there stands neither public opinion nor the moral code, but the personality of which he is still unconscious. Just as a man is what he always was, so he already is what he will become. The conscious mind does not embrace the totality of a man, for this totality consists only partly of his conscious contents, but for the other and far greater part, of his unconscious, which is of indefinite extent with no assignable limits. It is quite possible for the ego to be made into an object, that is to say, for a more compendious personality to emerge in the course of development and take the ego into its service. Since this growth of personality comes out of the unconscious, which is by
Jung- Psychology and reflection- CW11

Blog "All Too Human" hits 250,000 readers

Thanks everybody...only 19 m0nths to head a cool quarter of a million readers........

http://all-to-human.blogspot.co.uk/

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you better watch out,......There may be dogs about after June 8th

You better watch out,......There may be dogs about after June 8th

As we drove through Brecon and Radnor this on Saturdayfrom Trecastle back to Ystradgynlais, I could not help noticing the fields with Tory posters on the hedge rows. In the fields were the sheep waiting to be slaughter in wars to come, to have their wages depressed ,their jobs deskilled and their pens and fields outsourced as they learnt to be the proud and patriotic sheep being driven to the slaughter house.And as they went they repeated over and over again ," strong and stable, strong and stable...I am so glad those black sheep are not going to our slaughter house " ....an interesting metaphor for our time.....or is it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-oJt_5JvV4
Sheep (Waters) Pink Floyd 

Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away;
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air.
You better watch out,
There may be dogs about
I've looked over Jordan, and I have seen
Things are not what they seem.
What do you get for pretending the danger's not real.
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel.
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes.
Now things are really what they seem.
No, this is no bad dream.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by.
With bright knives He releaseth my soul.
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places.
He converteth me to lamb cutlets,
For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger.
When cometh the day we lowly ones,
Through quiet reflection, and great dedication
Master the art of karate,
Lo, we shall rise up,
And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water.
Bleating and babbling I fell on his neck with a scream.
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.
Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead!
You better stay home
And do as you're told.
Get out of the road if you want to grow old.

 On Monday I wrote a piece on the Manchester horror. It was nuanced and had my deep emotional sorrow contained within it. I was told to fuck off, that I was using politics and that I had been waiting fror such an event..so that I could write my bile,

The people who said these things were the same people who told me off for writing about Abervan, about suffering and about injustice. I have no pleasure in writing about the horrors of Manchester. And yet I canniot keep silent like the assholes, the conservative assholes who moan when you point out the obvious to them. They don’t want to see, they cant see, it disturbs them to think outside the box and to challenge their narrow views.

They are afraid to think and by condemning me for writing about these difficult topics they hide away and prevent a real dialogue, a real debate, a real education to millions about reality, power and confusion. When you read their comments the narrowness peeps through. Over my therapeutic career I have sat with people who have been imprisoned, blown up and tortured by totalitarian regiemes. I have friends and students who have sat outside military prisons not knowing where there loved ones are. Not knowing what is going on within the walls of that prison and unlike the conservative minds I meet they have imagination and empathy This is what katie Hopkins tweeted today...yes she use dthe nazi words "final solution"

The conservative mind is closed, they cannot  imagine  anything outside of their own prejudices.. I know what the parents of Manchester are suffering and experiencing and I will point out out the solutions and the realities. The emotions are raw but I wuill not be quiet because a few narrow minded bigots have a truncated  view of reality. So fuck you…….dont have the nerve to tell me what lies within my heart.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. —Thoreau

Never say you know the last word about any human heart.” Henry James

If you allow Manchester to make you vote Conservative you will wake up in a few years and you will discover that you have lost so many things. It would easy to do that, and so difficukt not to give in to hate. The dogs who will rip you to pieces come both from within us and within our system...dont get fooled again .

If there be gods

By psychologizing the gods, we have contributed to the ongoing disenchantment of the world which began with the Enlightenment. We have humanized the gods, but in doing so, we have sometimes lost the sense of the gods as gods.
In reaction, many Neopagans in search of communion with the numinous Other have rejected Jungian theory in favor of a radical polytheism which sees the gods as beings existing independent of the human psyche. This presents a challenge to Humanistic or Naturalistic Neopagans who cannot identify with this conception of the divine.
The disenchantment of the modern world is a common topic of Neopagan authors. The phrase “disenchantment of the world”, coined by Weber, derives from Friedrich Schiller, who wrote about die Entgotterung der Natur, the “de-godding of nature.” Neopagan myth and ritual is supposed to be a counter-movement to this disenchantment, a re-enchantment of the world or a “re-godding” of nature.
However, some of the pre-modern cultural forms which Neopaganism claims to reconstruct may actually be transformed in the process, so much so that the “enchantment” is lost in the translation. For example, Wouter Hanegraaff has argued that “occultist” magic has survived the disenchantment of the Enlightenment by becoming itself disenchanted. Hanegraaff explains how part of process of the disenchantment of magic was its psychologization.

In contemporary Neopaganism, we see the process of psychologization present not only in discussions of magic, but also in explanations of the gods. This often takes the forms of describing the Neopagan gods as Jungian archetypes. In the 1960s and 1970s, as the claims to historical continuity with an ideal Pagan past began to come under attack, Neopagans turned to Jungian psychology as a means for legitimating Neopagan practice. Unfortunately, the Jungian interpretation of Neopagan gods came to be oversimplified as it was popularized.
Neopagans often describe the gods as archetypes, but sometimes we lose the sense of how the archetypes are gods. In other words, the numinous quality of the archetype is lost.
The gods may be a part of us, but we must remember that they are also other than us, if by “us” we mean our conscious mind or ego-self. It is not without reason that Jung called the archetypes gods. He wrote:

“They are the ruling powers, the gods, images of the dominant laws and principles, and of typical, regularly occurring events in the soul’s cycle of experience.”
We experience the archetypes as gods, because they are beyond our conscious control and because they have the power to transform our lives. A true encounter with the gods is not only an experience of re-enchantment (what Rudolf Otto calls mysterium fascinans), but also an experience which shakes us to our core (which Otto calls mysterium tremendum).
While the gods are part of the human psyche, we should always keep in mind that the Greek term psyche is better translated as “soul” than as “mind”. Too often, in discussions of the psychological nature of Neopagan gods, the modifier “just” is inserted immediately preceding the word “psychological”, as in “So the Neopagan gods are just psychological?”
It is as if to say “So they are figments of your imagination?” Not only is this a profound misunderstanding of Jung’s theory of the psyche, but it contributes to the disenchantment of the Neopagan concept of divinity.In effect, the Neopagan discourse has de-godded the archetype.

Re-godding the gods
This in turn led to a backlash against Jungian theory in Neopaganism. David Waldron writes how, in the 1980s, the Jungian approach to Noepaganism came under fire from a number of sources. Feminists like Naomi Goldenberg criticized Jungianism as being Eurocentric and patriarchal, while queer scholars criticized Jung’s male-female polarization of the psyche. As a consequence, Jungian psychology was gradually displaced as the dominant Neopagan interpretative paradigm.
Since the 1990’s, radical polytheistic theory has entered the foreground of Neopagan discourse. Neopagans’ gods came to be described less as Jungian archetypes and more as literal beings that exist independent of the human psyche. Radical (or “hard”) polytheistic discourse in Neopaganism can be seen as a reaction to this disenchantment of the Neopagan gods. It is an attempt, if you will, to put the “god” back into the gods.
The de-godding of the archetype in Neopaganism is a consequence of a fundamental misunderstanding of Jung’s theory, namely a confusion of symbol with archetype. Waldron explains:
“It is one thing to acknowledge that symbols and archetypal images have a deep impact on the human psyche through religious experience. It is a profoundly different thing to believe that one can consciously and arbitrarily create and ascribe meaning to symbols, based upon that which is seen to be suited to consciously designated psychic needs.”
One of the most conspicuous examples of this is the practice of “using gods” in Neopagan magic, also sometimes referred to as “plug-and-play” gods.
Jung clearly differentiated between consciously constructed symbols and numinous archetypes. According to Jung, symbols refer to, but are not identical with, the archetypes located deep in the unconscious. While symbols have a conscious and known meaning, an archetype is always necessarily unknown. Thus, the archetype retains a numinous quality.
The apprehension of an archetype by consciousness is always necessarily partial, never total. The meaning of the unconscious archetype is inexhaustible.
The claim that any one symbol exhausts the archetype is the substance of what John Dourley calls “psychic idolatory”. If a symbol can be totally explained or rationalized by the conscious mind, then it ceases to be an archetype. While a symbol may masquerade as an archetype, it actually is a representation of the ego-self and becomes, in Waldron’s words, “a collaborator in the suppression of the shadow.”

Neo-Jungian James Hillman writes:

“Just as we do not create our dreams, but they happen to us, so we do not invent the persons of myth and religion [i.e., the gods]; they, too, happen to us.” (emphasis Hillman’s)
It is no coincidence that historically and cross-culturally, the gods have spoken to mortals in dreams. As Neopagans came to consciously construct and “plug-and-play” their gods, we lost the sense of the gods as something that happens to us. It may be said that we overemphasized the immanence of the gods and lost the sense of their transcendence.


The modern hubris In ancient Greek tragedy, heroes who were guilty of the sin of hubris, disregarding the existential gulf between themselves and the gods, were invariably punished for it. In contemporary Neopaganism, hubris takes the form of conflating the creations of the conscious mind with the numinous aspects of the unconscious.

On the one hand, this modern form of hubris results in the loss of our experience of the gods, a further disenchantment or de-godding of our world. But on the other hand, it invites the retribution of gods, who may be repressed in the unconscious, but will not be ignored. If they are not given their due honor, the gods will make themselves known forcibly and often with disastrous results in our lives.
In A History of Ancient Greek Literature, Gilbert Murray writes:
“Reason is great, but it is not everything. There are in the world things not of reason, but both below and above it; causes of emotion, which we cannot express, which we tend to worship, which we feel, perhaps, to be the precious elements in life. These things are Gods or forms of God: not fabulous immortal men, but ‘Things which Are,’ things utterly non-human and non-moral, which bring man bliss or tear his life to shreds without a break in their own serenity.”
To confuse Murray’s “things not of reason” with the conscious creations of our own mind is hubris, and we do so at our own peril. The gods may be archetypes, but we must also always remember that the archetypes are gods.

As Neopagan discourse moves increasingly in the direction of radical polytheism, those Humanistic or Naturalistic Neopagans who find this position rationally untenable may find themselves (more) marginalized in the Neopagan community. The pendulum which previously swung to the humanistic extreme by reducing the gods to symbols is now swinging to the other extreme of transcendental theism, denying that the gods are part of the human psyche.
Jung’s theory of archetypes offers us an opportunity to create a golden mean between these two extremes, one which may simultaneously satisfy the humanist or naturalist who sees the gods as products of the human psyche, while also satisfying the mystical longing for contact with a numimous Other which is greater than any creation of our conscious mind.Sources

Dourley, John P. The Goddess, Mother of the Trinity (1990)
Hanegraaf, Wouter. “How Magic Survived the Disenchantment of the World”, Religion, vol. 33 (2003).
Hillman, James. Re-visioning Psychology (1975)
Jung, Carl. The Collected Works: The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious
Waldron, David. The Sign of the Witch: Modernity and the Pagan Revival (2008)
[1] By “numinous”, I refer to an experience of that which transcends or is other than our conscious ego-selves, but is not necessarily supernatura