BEHIND OPAQUE WALLS

Jung admonishes us to see behind opaque walls.  The last chapter of Carl Jung’s book, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, includes this passage:

“…for me the “dividing walls” are transparent. That is my peculiarity. Others find these walls so opaque that they see nothing behind them and therefore think nothing is there. To some extent I perceive the processes going on in the background and that gives me an inner certainty.”

Jung established an inner certainty as he perceived behind opaque walls.  Jung removed opacity, and then saw what others did not.  He observed with transparency.

Of course, what he is saying is that the unconscious is the processes that is taking place behind what he terms opaque walls.  He was able to revolutionize science with analytic psychology by perceiving where others thought that there was nothing there.

We must also see what is going on behind opaque walls! In a way, what we are drawing transparently is equivalent to Jung’s unconscious. Jung could not develop functional model without knowing the background functions.  That is to say, he did not think in terms of Representational Spacetime.  Just as we cannot develop a holistic understanding of how things work without drawing so as to reveal the hidden.

1.  Jung, Carl. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Pantheon Books; New York. 1961.