Descent From Antiquity
GRAVE DIGGING
Looking Backward: Those Who Came Before
"Man brings with him at birth the ground-plan of his nature..."
-- Carl Jung, CW4: 728
“The first step to the knowledge of the highest divine symbol of the wonder and mystery of life is in the recognition of the monstrous nature of life and its glory in that character: the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think—and their name is legion—that they know how the universe could have been better than it is, how it would have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without life, are unfit for illumination. Or those who think—as do many—“Let me first correct society, then get around to myself” are barred from even the outer gate of the mansion of God’s peace. All societies are evil, sorrowful, inequitable; and so they will always be. So if you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not himself learned how to live in it in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is.”
--Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By: "The Confrontation of East and West in Religion"
Dr Hillman you once commented that "The first community are the dead, the ancestors, the community of souls.' And this I felt very strongly in Egypt, with its more than 5000 year old necropolises.
I think the whole question of commemorating the dead may actually have something to do with our trying not to lose the love of the departed...Why is it, for instance that the beginning of culture is the making of things to put the dead in- clay vessels, sarcophagi, canopic jars, coffins? Maybe we need to understand that the reason why culture is built on the dead -- who may be the ground of love, an underworld ground -- has something to do with feeling. In Ancient Egypt relatives of the dead used to bring offerings of food and drink for the Ka.
Our dead are dead, but I don't think that the Ancient Egyptian dead were dead - and that's why they still ate and had to have their cosmetic boxes and servant statues and so on. Their souls weren't dead. Moreover you don't find that idea of 'I live alone, I die alone'- that whole ego view. In ancient Egypt you get the sense of you joining the community of the dead who are already there, like presences waiting for you.
http://www.mentalhealthforum.net/forum/thread11786.html
Council of Ancestors
The "Dead" Come Back as Ancestors
Knowing who our ancestors are, we live an unbroken continuity with the past. Our ancestors also symbolize the emotional contents of the unconscious. They help us perceive the greater whole.
What the ancients did for their dead! You seem to believe that you can absolve yourself from the care of the dead, and from the work that they so greatly demand, since what is dead is past. You excuse yourself with your disbelief in the immortality of the soul. Do you think that the dead do not exist because you have' devised the impossibility of immortality? You believe in your idols of words. The dead produce effects, that is sufficient. In the inner world there is no explaining away, as little as you can explain away the sea in the outer world. You must finally understand your purpose in explaining away, namely to seek protection.
~Carl Jung; Red Book.
GRAVE DIGGING
Looking Backward: Those Who Came Before
"Man brings with him at birth the ground-plan of his nature..."
-- Carl Jung, CW4: 728
“The first step to the knowledge of the highest divine symbol of the wonder and mystery of life is in the recognition of the monstrous nature of life and its glory in that character: the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think—and their name is legion—that they know how the universe could have been better than it is, how it would have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without life, are unfit for illumination. Or those who think—as do many—“Let me first correct society, then get around to myself” are barred from even the outer gate of the mansion of God’s peace. All societies are evil, sorrowful, inequitable; and so they will always be. So if you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not himself learned how to live in it in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is.”
--Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By: "The Confrontation of East and West in Religion"
Dr Hillman you once commented that "The first community are the dead, the ancestors, the community of souls.' And this I felt very strongly in Egypt, with its more than 5000 year old necropolises.
I think the whole question of commemorating the dead may actually have something to do with our trying not to lose the love of the departed...Why is it, for instance that the beginning of culture is the making of things to put the dead in- clay vessels, sarcophagi, canopic jars, coffins? Maybe we need to understand that the reason why culture is built on the dead -- who may be the ground of love, an underworld ground -- has something to do with feeling. In Ancient Egypt relatives of the dead used to bring offerings of food and drink for the Ka.
Our dead are dead, but I don't think that the Ancient Egyptian dead were dead - and that's why they still ate and had to have their cosmetic boxes and servant statues and so on. Their souls weren't dead. Moreover you don't find that idea of 'I live alone, I die alone'- that whole ego view. In ancient Egypt you get the sense of you joining the community of the dead who are already there, like presences waiting for you.
http://www.mentalhealthforum.net/forum/thread11786.html
Council of Ancestors
The "Dead" Come Back as Ancestors
Knowing who our ancestors are, we live an unbroken continuity with the past. Our ancestors also symbolize the emotional contents of the unconscious. They help us perceive the greater whole.
What the ancients did for their dead! You seem to believe that you can absolve yourself from the care of the dead, and from the work that they so greatly demand, since what is dead is past. You excuse yourself with your disbelief in the immortality of the soul. Do you think that the dead do not exist because you have' devised the impossibility of immortality? You believe in your idols of words. The dead produce effects, that is sufficient. In the inner world there is no explaining away, as little as you can explain away the sea in the outer world. You must finally understand your purpose in explaining away, namely to seek protection.
~Carl Jung; Red Book.