Everything You Need To Know

“This work sprang originally from my need to define the ways in which my outlook differed from Freud’s and Adler’s. In attempting to answer this question, I came across the problem of types; for it is one’s psychological type which from the outset determines and limits a person’s judgement. My book, therefore, was an effort to deal with the relationship of the individual to the world, to people and things. It discussed the various aspects of consciousness, the various attitudes the conscious mind might take toward the world, and thus constitutes a psychology of consciousness regarded from what might be called a clinical angle.”

- C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

Not everybody approaches the world in the same way. In fact, most people seem to differ from each other greatly – sometimes it seems like a miracle that we can even get along at all! In attempting to explore this problem, Jung devised a system of types that – although not as scientifically rigorous as modern personality inventories like the Big 5 or the MMPI – was simple, elegant, and deep. This should be repeated: Jung’s typology, although rooted in practical experience, is intuitive and symbolic in nature. It is meant firstly as a therapeutic tool and not as a strictly scientific theory.

Jung’s typology is made up of six elements. The first are two attitudes: IntroversionandExtroversion. These represent the direction of interest of the psyche and the movement of its energy, whether inwards or outwards. The others are four functions: Thinking,Feeling,SensationandIntuition. These are modes of operation that, between the four of them, roughly encompass your conscious experience. The shorthand goes like this: Sensation tells us that something is there; Thinking tells us what it is; Feeling tells us if it is agreeable or not; Intuition tells us from where it came and to where it might go.

Introversion is an inwards-turning of energy. It’s an orientation that expresses the supremacy of subjective part of life; one’s inner thoughts, feelings, personal experiences, and the deep unconscious*. This does not mean that introverts are always introspective – instead, their relation to the outside world is coloured by their subjective view in such a way that their perceptions and judgements hinge more on their private inner reality than on the shared reality of the objective world. Because their energy moves away from the object (and towards the subject), they tend to be relatively reserved, inscrutable, and shy.

*Footnote to Introversion: The “deep unconscious” here refers to the Collective Unconscious, which is covered in another article. To summarise, the subject isn’t only made up of personal experiences or memories. Just as we all have an inherited body that is only superficially different between individuals, so do we have an inherited psyche that has evolved over millions of years. Introversion relies particularly heavily on inherited, instinctual images and patterns of thought. Pushed to the extreme, these manifest as a mythological or religious quality of thought, since myths are just the collective expression of these inner archetypes through stories.

Extroversion is an outwards-turning of energy. Here the objective part of life is the most important. Extroverts think and act in a way that corresponds more directly to external conditions. They aren’t necessarily perfectly adjusted – extroversion is no guarantee of good social skills, and furthermore, neglecting their inner life often results in grief for the extrovert. However, they are constantly impelled to relate to the outer world in some way, and in turn to be affected by it, whether that means they’re on good terms with everybody, or that they pick fights with everybody. In general they are relatively open, sociable, jovial, or at least friendly and approachable.

The four functions are made up of two pairs of opposites. Sensation and Intuition make up the first pair. These are the “irrational” orperceiving functions. Sensation takes in impressions of the material world via the five senses, which often results in a pragmatic, grounded, or aesthetically-minded personality. Intuition is a subconscious or subliminal perception that, roughly speaking, presents the user with a whole where only a part is objectively visible. This often results in a speculative, flighty, or imaginative personality. Thinking and Feeling are the “rational” or judgingfunctions. Thinking takes a detached, mechanistic view of problems, and seeks to put the world in conceptual or at least logical terms. Feeling recognises and imparts subjective value onto things, deciding whether or not they are agreeable and good.

However, these functions are never developed and used in an individual to the same extent. As a rule, one becomes the person’s primary approach to life – thedominantfunction. Its incompatible opposite is partially repressed as a result. This becomes theinferiorfunction. The two other functions are in a middle-state of differentiation, and therefore are less harshly polarised. One is usually theauxiliaryfunction, which supports and counterbalances the dominant – a functional sidekick. This is not a hard rule, though: both could be auxiliaries, or both could be undifferentiated inferior functions. However, the most common arrangement consists of two conscious functions, the dominant and main auxiliary, and two unconscious inferior functions.

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Fig. 1 - A Thinking dominant, Feeling inferior arrangement. The two middle functions, Sensation and Intuition, are halfway between consciousness and unconsciousness. They can be developed auxiliaries or underdeveloped inferiors.

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These dominant-auxiliary combinations begin to paint familiar pictures – the practical problem-solver with Thinking and Sensation, the esoteric creative artist with Feeling and Intuition, etc. The inferior function also tends to be recognisable. We all know people who have terrible difficulties with Feeling, or for whom material reality is always a stumbling block thanks to inferior Sensation.

Finally, in any given function type, a certain attitude will also dominate. This attitude does not exist on its own, but applies to the dominant function, so that the Thinking of a Thinking type might actually be Introverted or Extroverted. The opposite attitude, however, is repressed and combines with the inferior function. The middle functions are again in a more mercurial middle state; they often have the capacity to shift either way. This results in a distinct set of types, which are described in my Jung Abridged series.

To recap: Two attitudes, Introversion and Extroversion. Four functions: two perceiving, that is Sensation and Intuition, and two judging, that is Thinking and Feeling. One is dominant and conscious; its opposite is inferior and unconscious. The other two functions can be either conscious auxiliaries or unconscious inferiors. The dominant function has a characteristic attitude; the inferior takes the opposite attitude. Those are the basics – from here you can check out any of my other articles, which deal with many aspects of this schematic in greater depth. Enjoy!

These articles are an attempt to condense Chapter X of Psychological Types into a more readable format. I’ve tried to stay as true to the original texts as possible. Enjoy!

Foreword

Introverted Intuition

Introverted Intuition is directed at the contents of the unconscious. However, just as our senses only give us an approximate image of the objective world, so does Ni give an approximate image or impression of the inner world and its contents. Although it may be triggered by an external stimulus, it doesn’t focus on the external possibilities, but on what images are released in the psyche. Unlike Si, these images don’t concern the course of sensations, but their underlying causes or hidden meanings. However, since the Ni type represses Sensation, he rarely manages to connect the resulting hunches to himself or his bodily existence, instead seeing them as if they had an objective existence of their own.

Just as Ne chases every possibility in the outer world, Ni chases every image that arises from the inner world, “the teeming womb of the unconscious”. Again, the Ni type doesn’t connect them to himself, and since he’s only concerned with perceiving them, he isn’t impelled to shape them into rational judgements like Ti or Fi. The latter are also only affected by the images subconsciously – by contrast, Ni seeks to explore every detail of them, with the same clarity that Se has with respect to the outer world.

Ni is the function which is most intimately connected with the collective unconscious. The archetypal patterns, which have evolved over millions of years to represent eternal patterns of life, are the main source of the insight which Ni often provides. Its tendency to project into the future is thanks to an almost direct consultation with these archetypes. If paired with Feeling, it has the potential to paint a more or less complete picture of another person’s psychology.

The Introverted Intuitive Type

This type is oriented by his inner vision, and the more intensely he relies on intuition, the more he is divorced from tangible reality. In exceptional cases he might be something like a seer, or an artist whose work is far-off and psychedelic – all at once beautiful and grotesque, since it represents the Janus-faced nature of the psyche. If he neglects to share or express his perceptions, he might become an eccentric or a crank, someone completely incomprehensible to his peers.

The pure type stops at the perception his vision, and perhaps the aesthetic shaping of it in art. He suppresses any attempt to make it into a moral problem. However, as soon as he differentiates an auxiliary Judging function, he begins to face certain questions. What does this image mean for me and for for others? What task or duty does it represent for me? He begins to dimly perceive that he is actually connected to his vision, and subsequently feels he has to actualise it somehow. However, since he’s more adapted to his inner world than present-day reality, he has great difficulties in bringing his vision to his society. His life becomes symbolic, with little relevance to any concrete reality. His arguments fall short, since his reasoning functions are secondary to his vision, and at a certain point he can only claim “I just know”.

This type is characterised by a risky tendency to suppress concrete reality. Even the normal type has trouble connecting his inner vision to his own life. He might becomes increasingly unaware of his bodily existence or its effect on others. If he becomes completely one-sided, his outer life hits him through Sensation in his unconscious, causing a neurotic, compulsive dependence on concrete reality. He begins to suffer from all kinds of hypochondrial symptoms, hypersensitivity to sensations, and exaggerated ties to certain objects and people.

theescapadeofwitchcraft:

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Extasy- Tuco Amalfi

Stop dedicating chapters to people
Who only deserve a paragraph

pureholistic:

Stop putting so much pressure on yourself

to be better

to change

Please stop and know that it will happen

you have time

Becoming is a process

making this its own post. context being op has maladaptive daydreaming and experiences paracosms and wanted discernment tips—though i have used these in the past for unreality and dissociation :)

outside of these examples, i will always advocate for recognizing where your paracosm begins and where it ends, as it will help you significantly in the long run. who are your recurring figures, what features have you experienced and can confidently attribute to the paracosm only—this is something that can be done alongside professional help, if you feel you cannot trust your own judgement.

these are exercises to be done in your own time to begin to trust yourself and your discerning abilities. these do not have to begin with spirits, but the end result can surely include them :)

1.tell yourself truths—i have x colour hair, i have x colour eyes—try to recognize how that feels to you. what is your train of thought, how do you receive that truth, does your mind falter and suggest otherwise, does it feel stable and sit within you as it is? as time goes on, you can expand on these truths—i am using social media, my shoes are white, the time is 9.30pm, and so on. the goal is to understand your body’s responses and the communication between your thoughts and any repeated sensations, as these would be your anchors for recognizing ‘truth’ from lie.

2.tell yourself lies—inverse to the above, tell yourself lies. if you have short hair, state it is long. wearing socks? absolutely not! play around with the length and complexity of the lie, feel how the body reacts. this is now your baseline for a ‘lie’ from a truth.

3.practice a level of controlled guessing—it sounds strange, but in your day-to-day life you can take a guess at any random occurrence with very little drawback. for example, what colour car will you see on the next street? will i see a dog during my walk today—simple things that are not so unlikely they’re impossible, but not so common that you’re guessing the sky has clouds while it’s overcast.

at any point, you can pair this with the first example. do you feel anything that would suggest truth, and is it something you can confirm? you feel you’ll see a red car on the next road over, and your body treats it like a truth—does that red car ever appear?

4.record these truths and events—find your rate of success, how each event feels and if there are any common reactions within the pool of successful predictions and guesses.

5.rely on other senses—in the case of paracosms, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to immediately discern spirit from thought without also understanding the boundaries of the paracosm itself, and that often takes time. for me, the mind is not the only way to hear and speak to a spirit. luckily, we have other systems of discernment that lie outside the realm of the mind, should it be untrustworthy in the moment.

one test i enjoy is feeling the movements within my face, namely the jaw—for many people, they’ll notice small movements that pair along their train of thought, almost as if the body is preparing itself to speak. over time, i’ve noticed that when i speak to myself in my own thoughts or am within my own paracosm, my mouth and tongue follow along in preparation. when speaking to a spirit and having it respond, my mouth does not move.

another way to look at this, if it applies, are there certain things you feel, taste, smell, or see during a paracosm that are wholly unique to it? say, the scent of a certain flower, the feeling of pins in your fingers? if yes, using these as indicators of your paracosm.

6.use physical tools alongside intuitive communication—i noticed [op] mentioned that tools are not a problem, so this is an excellent baseline to work with if you feel you cannot get a handle on the other forms described (assuming you have not tried already). if you already are in good relations with a deity, you’re free to reach out to them, or instead reach out to a local spirit. the goal is to communicate with something you recognize, or something simple.

however you would communicate intuitively—through normal conversation, question and answer setting, or other—check through that conversation with your tools. ask the deities or the spirit later on how true this conversation was as you experienced it, and compare. this works better if you record both aspects, the initial conversation and divination in part.

7. and while this was not included in the original post, which events matter, and why do they matter, if at all? purely in the context of signs and symbolism, much too often do we see something uncommon and immediately jump to the conclusion of “it’s a sign from the gods! the spirits are talking!” this is formed under the assumption that your gods or spirits want to speak to you first, rather than the other way around.

how often do you actually pay attention to your surroundings? have you recently discovered your spirituality and now look for it in every action—and in saying that, are you be prone to attributing the spirits to your symptoms?

migration season is upon us, you watch the birds fly overhead in steady formation, this is normal in this time of year. do those birds in particular feel strange, do you feel drawn into their pattern now for no reason? i am avid believer that your signs are attributed to already occurring events—that the spirits and gods do not bother to give you new situations, but rather whisper in-between the ones that already bleed into your life.

this last point is something that comes with time. eventually—innately—you will begin to understand how it feels to have their words flash before your eyes in the form of an animal, a strange cloud, a stranger.

if you don’t have it yet, don’t worry. we have plenty of time.