As we understand it, Jung's attitude to relationship with the unconscious was not that it was an adjunct to every day life. Rather, that relationship was central to his every day life. That is, a 'normal' life would be one oriented to the unconscious as a central factor which must be included and honoured in order for external life to be truly meaningful - this is what Jung referred to as livning the "Symbolic Life". In such a life the unconscious is pivotal rather than merely a means by which to keep outer life running better than it would otherwise. This of course is a central view in alchemy and in indigenous world views where the unconscious is experienced as it is met in matterand the natural world respectively. It is also central to the "religious life'' in all the great traditions.

Thus for us to be `Jungian' is a lifestyle, a matter of experience and not merely an intellectual or conceptual matter. It is a lifestyle which demands continual `submission to the irrational facts of experience' as Jung described the central premise of a religious life. Here we are mindful of the fact that experience includes the immaterial and irrational factors which are exclude in our culture's dominant rational materialist world view.  Jung actually said:

As 'Jungians' we hold our experience of life, both inner and outer, as central to the formulation of world views and conceptual frameworks which we see as merely works in progress, necessarily open to continual revision as experience demands. As 'Jngians" we are also very aware of Jung's comment; "I don't want anybody to be a Jungian, I want people to be themselves." In the light of that comment we suspect that what Jung may have wanted even less would be for people to be "post Jungians". Amongst commentators on Jung's work we find the works of Edward Edinger most helpful and in our view most in keeping with the "Spirit of Jung". For anyone who finds Jung hard to read we recommend Edinger's commentarires as illuminating and insightful.

We also hold, not withstanding Jung's own protests, that his work outlines a distinct metaphysical perspective and even has a mystical quality. (See Quotes page and in particular quotes on Love and Guru Relationship and "the Self".). In this we know that Jung's work presents a philosophical problem for the post Modern viewpoint which has insinuated so much of modern life, including much of what goes under the title "post Jungian". The dilemma is, of course, that to accept Jung's views fully one may stand accused of "essentialism", the proposition that their may be fundamental values or qualities of being beyond the relativity of everyday appearances.

We are aware of Jung's eschewal of the mystic tag and understand that this was necessary because it was used in a dismissive and perjorative way. For Jung as an introverted intuitive thinking type his inner experience was always subjected to objective scrutiny in what he called the empirical approach. The word empirical means "known from experience" and not physically measurable, as we are sure Jung knew. His use of the word empirical was to demonstrate that his propositions about the psyche were based on his experience of it. That his experience was of an introverted nature means it had a subjective quality alongside the objective scrutiny to which his thinking side subjected it.

As intuitive feeling types we understand the mystical in a particular fashion which may be different from Jung's intuitive thinking orientation. Feeling types have a more subjective orientation. We make no apology for this. Jung held that his work was one man's opinion and that we understand. Nonetheless it was a considerable opinion and our experiences lead us to hold it in high regard. It was the opinion of an 'epochal man', to borrow Edward Edinger's phrase, some one who could conceive of things in a way which transcended mundane conceptions based on the obvious and rational viewpoints . We seek not to assert a final interpretation of Jung's work but to elucidate what it has meant to us and how it has enriched and continues to enrich our lives.

We are aware that we emphasise what strikes deep chords in our own psyches and life experiences. We are both deeply involved with dreams and dreamwork and with a broadly spiritual approach to life, including a deep feeling for the natural world and indigenous cultures and the search for our own indigenous roots. We feel that this is the orientation Jung expressed when he said:

This is an unusual view in our time, the view that the approach of the archetypal or divine world is the real therapy. It is a view more in accord with indigenous cultures, and held alive for the world by indigenous people struggling to preserve and renew their lifestyles, than with scientific rationalism or post modernism.

Thus the views expressed here are a hybrid which has grown out of the meeting of two peoples' living relationships to the unconscious. It involves our life experiences, the experience of working as a Jungian psychotherapist and astrologer for 18 years, out of teaching about Jung and the value of his work as it applies to many areas of collective life, of a deep experience of the mystical aspect of Christian teaching and the Seth Material of Jane Roberts, and the dialogues which have grown out of the two of us attempting to bring our differing experiences into a coherent meeting. It has also been profoundly influenced by the experience of rescuing and rehabilitating wild creatures, mainly birds, which has changed our lives profoundly by bringing us to a better understanding of the nature of creaturehood and the indigenous within ourselves.

All of this has been increasingly influenced by our synthesis of the work of Jung with the Seth Material, various indigenous world views, Tibetan Buddhism and the influence of various mystical perspectives, particularly that of St Julian of Norwich - a project which has engaged us over many years and involved unravelling considerable semantic differences. It has been well worth the effort. We recommend to anyone interested in Jung from a metaphysical perspective the book, "Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, and any books on the work of St Julian of Norwich and Sogyal Rinpoche's "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying". A Tibetan friend and Rinpoche once said to us that there is only one spiritual practice worth concerning one's self with, "mindfulness", and we equate this with conscious psychological self engagement.

For those whose interest in the development of consciousness is more inclined to the arts than psychology, religion or science we recommend the books of Doris Lessing, in particular the "Canopus in Argos: Archives" series, Ursula Le Guin, Barbara Kingsolver, and those of early 'science fiction' writer Olaf Stapeldon; and for those to whom indigenous perspectives speak loudly the books of Linda Hogan, a Chicasaw poet whose writing is of great beauty and depth, amongst many others. If an inclination to a more socio-political viewpoint it strong the autobiography of Nelson Mandela is profoundly instructive.

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