In Chapter 7, I will summarize and give concluding remarks based on the previous chapters of this research.

   McLean (1989) reflects my own view in the following:

The ancient mythologies, being derived in part from the mystery religions and initiation traditions, projected the inner structure of the psyche outward into the world; the Gods and Goddesses were pictured as being forces in the outer realm of Nature. One of the most important developments of this century is the unfolding of a "psychology" that recognizes the formative energies of such mythological pictures, and realizes that by contemplating the ancient mythologies we can, indeed, look at the fabric of our own souls. (p. 9)

The primary or original self of the infant is radically disrupted by birth in which the psyche-soma is flooded by stimuli which give rise to prototypic anxiety. Following this, a steady state re-establishes itself and the first clear sequence of disturbance followed by resting or steady states has been completed. The sequence repeats again and again during maturation and the motive forces behind them are called deintegrative and integrative. (p. 103)

   Fordham (1989), describing his earlier thoughts, states them most clearly in the following:

If the theory of the ego is unsatisfactory to account for the complexity of infant life, is there then a larger self present at birth? I thought that an infant could be looked upon as a self in Jung's sense; as an agency of the psyche that transcends the opposites. A fetus begins life from a condition of primary unity in which consciousness and the unconscious are not differentiated. I deduced that the primary state of an infant was as an integrated being, and that the integrator was the self and not the ego. (emphasis Fordham's, p. 64)

   I believe that the Paradise myths, Genesis as well as other myths of Paradise, support the idea that psychological experience begins in the womb with the function of intuition. Intuition is the function of the soul complex, which contains ego and soul as one. Sensation introduces the child to the world of opposites, beginning consciousness and unconsciousness, creating the infamous split in the superconsciousness of the Self. The human child is born with ego and soul, thereafter apparently divided, which is a description of the birth of consciousness and the birth of the unconscious, as the Self differentiates.

   The irrational functions of intuition and sensation are apparently opposed of necessity, allowing each function to be experienced sequentially in time, and allowing the experience of knowing two ways of being in the world, separateness and oneness, two opposites that can be re-experienced as unity. In this way intuition and sensation complement one another. Jung described the opposition of these two functions, but made no attempt to describe the point where they converge.

   The rational functions of feeling and thinking, described by Jung as opposites that are complementary, also have a point where they converge and can be seen as reflections of one another that accomplish the same purpose by a different means. I see feeling, among other things, as the phenomenological experience of the thought in its unmanifested form. Feeling is the function that makes value judgments, as Jung described. In addition, I see the function as more than that, and ultimately as the function where all value judgments are withdrawn, where all phenomenon is experienced as Being. From my understanding of the myths, feeling is the unconscious thought, just as thought is the unconscious feeling, each containing the same information in a different form.

   Von Franz (1972), in her discussion of creation myths and the fourfold division of the universe, states that

we can say that the number four, from our practical experience, always points to a totality and to a total conscious orientation, while the number three is a creative flow and four is the clear result of the flow when it become still, visible and ordered. (p. 168)

   In addition to the questions that I initially asked, what appears to me as significant possibilities seemed to offer themselves as answers to questions that I had not originally asked. Although I assumed that the ego, consciousness, and unconsciousness begin at birth, it did not occur to me how the myth might be describing this process by the use of the major archetypes, especially as personifications of the four psychological functions. Although I believed that the so-called split in consciousness was a universal and phenomenological experience of all people in all cultures, I did not see clearly what I believe to be the pristine truth and beauty of our own Western cosmological myth of Genesis, when viewed as a metaphor for the beginning of consciousness and unconsciousness as it differentiates.

   I initially did not think to ask if introversion or extraversion came first, but what appears now as a major possibility, began to unfold and present itself as I proceeded. Introversion or a subjective attitude appears to be the first one known by human infants, with extraversion introduced by the human mother. The Divine Child archetype is the transcendent symbol that connects and separates both. Divine love is the double-edged sword of ego and soul, consciousness and unconsciousness. The feeling and intuitive functions appear to be the least known in psychology, possibly because the transition into language always falls short of the experience, which is silent like the goddess. Campbell (1991b) says that "the psychological functions chiefly involved in the outward-turned, "objective" order of cognition, "common to all men," are sensation and thinking. Feeling and intuition, on the other hand, lead inward, to private spheres" (emphasis Campbell's, p. 649). These private spheres may be contained in the idea of the first transference, which is only briefly described in Chapter 2. This was also not an original question. I believe, however, that it has significance as material for future research, especially the archetypes of the Virgin Mary and Divine Child as the images depicting the first exchange of soul and ego between mother and child. Campbell (1990c), also says that "woman with her baby is the basic image of mythology" (p. 1). This basic mythological image often describes the experience of the first transference.

   Further conclusions are the following: Myths depicting a return to Paradise are describing what is necessary to reunite ego and soul or soul and body, allowing for the experience of oneness to be re-experienced in life, presumably to prepare (from the beginning) the individual for the experience of actual death and the knowledge that death is only a cycle of life. The human child experiences all functions in the first moments of birth, although there is an explicit order; the human child does not suffer in the womb; and the desire to return to the womb or Paradise is universal and describes a desire to return to the innocent state of Being that was experienced in the womb, and that can be experienced again on a conscious level, a state of Being that Jung referred to as the individuated Self. The archetypes are patterns of phenomenological experience, clearly expressed by Jung (1967/1929), who said "the figures of Christ and the devil are both based on archetypal patterns, and were never invented but rather experienced (emphasis Jung's, p. 246). It is the psyche of the human child that first experiences the archetypal patterns.

   Identifying general structures of significant archetypal energy patterns and their personifications in mythology seems to be an important step toward demonstrating that the cosmological archetypes are universal psychic energy patterns contained in every human psyche. Campbell (1993) describes this in his own approach to myth: "What I would suggest is that by comparing a number from different parts of the world and differing traditions, one might arrive at an understanding of their force, their source and possible sense" (p. 26). This has been my own approach to understanding various myths as universal psychic energy related to the four psychological functions.

   Marshall (1968) states the following:

A great work of science or art is great because it contrives to operate on several levels at once: it is general without having a host of exceptions, or it describes an individual case without being ephemeral. But in areas where such unifying works have not yet been accomplished, one has to operate with a combination of more general and more particular partial answers, modifying each as seems fitting. (p. 14)

   It was not possible to give a complete analysis of each of various myths mentioned as related to the four functions. For that reason I have attempted to show how and why the general symbols and archetypes of divergent myths and antecedent mythologies can be compared with the myth of Genesis, which I have attempted to describe in more detail. The large mythological categories can then be compared and identified as the same or similar archetypal energy patterns contained in the four psychological functions. Various cosmological archetypes can be seen as relevant to the four functions and developmental psychology. I have done this repeatedly to establish the validity of the hypothesis put forth here: An order to the functions can be seen and intuition (in the womb) is the first function used by human infants (represented in the Genesis mythology as the creating God), followed by the function of conscious sensation (represented in the Genesis mythology as the Serpent), which begins at birth.

   If the beginning connection can be established as a valid assumption, it is then possible to analyze the complete myth concerning its particulars, which may yield new insights that have previously gone unnoticed. It is not essential for other mythological archetypes to match those given in Genesis. The interpretation of Genesis as a representation of the functions could contain just as much validity or none at all, without other mythological themes that match. If, however, the myth of Genesis and the four functions describe universal experience, a link with even one other significant myth would strengthen and support the idea that cosmological mythology in general is describing the universal experience of beginning human life.

   I have stressed the idea of intuition as the function for containing the other functions in undifferentiated form (the three-in-one motif) because I believe this is an important key that must be used before patterns in the archetypes can be established as psychic energy. Montanaro (1991) describes intuition as "unconscious absorption" when she states:

Every act of learning occurs in a special way. Everything that comes from the environment is received, processed and stored in the brain cells with no effort using a form of unconscious absorption. This intense mental activity is always going on, even in prenatal life, and it characterizes "the absorbent mind." (p. 83)

   Lovin and Reynolds (1985) define cosmogony:

A cosmogony, as the etymology of the term suggests, is usually an account of the "generation or creation of the existing world order" Oxford English Dictionary 1971, 568). The term includes the connotation that this account has implications for understanding the present human condition, and so it applies well to those classical and biblical accounts of the origins of the physical world that seventeenth-and eighteenth-century English writers first classified together as "cosmogonia." (p. 5)

   There is no previous map given for this journey. No one, to my knowledge, has asked this specific question concerning the possibility of an order in the appearance of the functions in humans or attempted to link them with cosmological mythology. Therefore, the answers may be partial and, indeed, even contain error, but this appears to be the risk inherent in research that attempts to contribute anything new. Concerning the newly created idea, Jung (1971/1921) said:

Current collective values can certainly be measured by an objective criterion, but only a free and individual assessment--a matter of living feeling--can give the true measure of something newly created. It also needs a man who has a "soul" and not merely relations to objects. (p. 189)

   Research concerning the psychological function of intuition and its role in developmental psychology is just beginning to be explored. It is just beginning to be noticed that infants appear to know things they could not have acquired by learning (Stern, 1985, p. 51). Speaking of future science, the eminent physicist Francis Crick (1994) states: "We can hope to understand more precisely the mechanisms of such mental activities as intuition, creativity, and aesthetic pleasure, and in so doing grasp them more clearly and, it is to be hoped, enjoy them more" (p. 261). Obviously, our understanding of intuition as a psychological function is not precisely understood, which does not undermine its importance for the field of psychology. On the other hand, there are those who have (now, not in the future) a working definition of intuition, such as Zukav (1990), who describes the function of intuition as a "multisensory" system: "Our five senses, together, form a single sensory system that is designed to perceive physical reality. The perceptions of a multisensory human extend beyond physical reality to the larger dynamical systems of which our physical reality is a part" (p. 27).

   What Zukav is calling the "five-sensory" or "single sensory system" is what I am calling the ego complex; what Zukav is calling the "multisensory" system is what I am calling the soul complex. For Zukav, the multisensory system is what is used by the soul. We appear to be describing the same process, although Zukav (1990) believes soul consciousness, a term he also uses (p. 185), is evolving in the human race, while I would describe it as a consciousness that is present in the beginning of life and used continuously whether we have total ego consciousness of it or not. Archaic humans were probably no less intuitive than modern humans, if anything they probably used the function of intuition more, attributing their increase in knowledge to gods or angels or other, which Zukav is still doing. The question of who provides the answers when ego consciousness departs or the question of what is the initial force of life has many answers from A to Z, and the answers are the topics of religion, mythology, and even science in its search for the beginning cause of the universe. Does an unseen and not completely known Supreme Power, which we are a part of, support all life in the universe or, are we physiologically designed to experience "other," which is that power in us, as God? It is not my purpose to presume an answer to this question, since I believe it can only be known by individual and subjective experience, but to suggest that the function of intuition is essential for that individual experience, whatever it may be, to take place as a return to the Self. I think it also necessary for the field of psychology (at least Jungian psychology attempting to use the four functions as a frame of reference) to understand intuition as the source out of which the other functions flow and the one to which they return.

   Spence (1994) tells us that some American Indian tribes adopted the serpent as a symbol of time. "They reckoned by 'suns,' and as the outline of the sun, a circle, corresponds to nothing in nature so much as a serpent with its tail in its mouth, devouring itself. This may have been the origin of the symbol" (p. 111). This symbol was used by many divergent cultures, all expressing a similar and universal theme. The symbol of the Uroboros (see Neumann, 1993, p. 33), the image of the Birth of Vishnu as he bites his toe (see Neumann, 1993, frontispiece), or the Serpent Tokch'i eating an egg (see Figure 39), all appear to be describing what Freeman (1995) calls the "solipsistic brain" (p. 3). Freeman's (1995, p. 2) conclusion that the only thing we can "know" is what we ourselves create supports my position by scientific data. The creation myth describes how the human child experiences and creates the world, by a subjective and introverted consciousness that eventually learns the extraverted or objective method, which is never, as Jung so often described, totally objective.

   Crick (1994) in the preface of his book presents Stuart Sutherland's definition of consciousness (The International Dictionary of Psychology), which parallels my own:

Consciousness. The having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; awareness. The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible without a grasp of what consciousness means. Many fall into the trap of equating consciousness with self-consciousness--to be conscious it is only necessary to be aware of the external world. (quote in preface)

   Infants, indeed, appear to be aware and conscious of the external world. This idea, apparently, is only beginning to be accepted in developmental psychology, whereas cosmological mythology appears to describe, by the use of archetypes and symbols, how the actual event takes place. Art often anticipates science, and this appears to be the case in cosmological mythology, which attempts to describe origins of human life and the universe as they occur simultaneously.

   Edinger (1986a) states that "the process of division into four is a primordial cosmogonic image" (p. 15). I believe this cosmogonic image is described in the four major archetypes of Genesis, each of which can be seen as an archetype for the undifferentiated functions and the beginning of the individuation process as consciousness begins. I consider Jung's division of the four functions of consciousness to be an important representation of that primordial cosmogonic image. Even though the implications of the connection were not brought to completion by Jung, he appeared to know that his description of a four-fold structure of consciousness was related to primordial cosmological archetypes of the same nature.

   Baring and Cashford (1993) reflect my own conclusions concerning the cosmological myth of Genesis as an element of universal psychic energy:

A symbolic reading of the story may restore it to its rightful place at the beginning of our cultural tradition as a myth of the birth of consciousness. What is important is that an experience of a sacred dimension is found in all cultures whether their organization is simple or very complex. This suggests that the sacred is not a stage in the history of consciousness but an element in the structure of consciousness, belonging to all people at all times. It is therefore part of the character of the human race, perhaps the essential part. (pp. 8-9)

   Beebe (1988) often quotes Jung in his lectures on psychological types, particularizing Jung's analogy of a flower to symbolize consciousness, by referring to four petals as a symbol of the four psychological types:

Dr. Jung said: "Living consciously is our form of individuation. A plant that is meant to produce a flower is not individuated if it does not produce it--and the man who does not develop consciousness is not individuated, because consciousness is his flower--it--is his life" (Jung, 1976, "The Vision Seminars," pp. 296-297, Vol. 2, NY: Spring Publications.) If the human being individuates and goes on to produce the flower that Jung calls consciousness, then the psychological types are the four petals of the flower. (recorded lecture)

   The four psychological functions represent a circular and sacred pattern, like the hands of a divine and extraordinary clock going round and round in the moments of our everyday, ordinary life. Each function is designed to complement the other, and each contributes to the birth and death of the other, wired with an invisible and indestructible thread that connects us to the ground of our Being, which was always there and will always be there. Cognitive thinking is the result of the archetype, which would not come into being without the primal, instinctual energy of intuition, which contains it in potential. The instinct contains the archetype and the archetype contains the expressed instinct, just as the Father God contains the Serpent, Eve, and Adam in Paradise, and Adam is the expression and the image of the creating God.

   There had to be a beginning place where the psychological functions were first connected--a place where they first emerged. The beginning place was the Self, the center where the four functions unfolded, like the four petals of a divine, wondrous flower, as intuition, sensation, feeling, and thinking--the soul, body, heart, and spirit of the human and Divine Child.

Figure 46: Cross

Figure 47: Dante's Poem (With Rainbow)

Figure 48: Principles

---> On to References --->

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