Ancestors, Jung and Yates

I often think that the social nature and origin of our minds is particularly evident in how we become aware in time how much more our ancestors play in our thinking than we at first realize.

Jung wrote in several places about our minds having people playing in them who lived even centuries ago. Here is one from “The Significance of the Father in the Destiny of the Individual:”

The significance of the father in moulding the child's psyche may be discovered in quite another field – the study of the family. The latest investigations show the predominating influence of the father's character in a family, often lasting for centuries.

And one more, from The Red Book:

These figures are the dead, that is, all the images of the shapes you took in the past, which your ongoing life has left behind, but also the thronging of the dead of human history, the ghostly procession of the past, which is an ocean compared to the drops of your own life span. I see behind you, behind the mirror of your eyes, the crush of the dangerous shadows, the dead, who look greedily through the empty sockets of your eyes, who moan and hope to gather up through you all the loose ends of the ages, which sigh in them. Your cluelessness does not prove anything. Put your ear to that wall and you will hear the rustling of their procession.

Now you know why you lodged the simplest and most easily explained matters in just that spot, why you praised that peaceful seat as the most secure; so that no one, least of all yourself, would unearth the mystery there.

I think it cannot be denied, whatever one thinks of Jung, that he is correct in saying that our minds contain people who are still quite active, long before we realize it. This is important since, as I mentioned in my last post, the implications of our minds and individuality being built after, upon, our social experience are vast and quite contrary to what is commonly believed.

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Jung's writings, particularly on the interpretation of dreams and myths, have been important to me over the years and I keep coming back to them with profit.

I once asked Frances Amelia Yates about some comment Jung had made, and she quickly answered, “Jung is a fraud!” She said it vehemently, with disgust, so I didn't ask further. Her face told me all.

Frances was a highly-regarded historian whom I came to know because she was related to me through my mother. Frances was formidable. I hope to write a little about her in a future post, particularly because Jones' recent biography of her, in which I am discussed, has a couple serious flaws.