Someone on Reddit asked me, "Are you familiar with introverted
intuition from Jungian psychoanalysis? I think it is a good tie to what
'A New Way to Use Psychedelics' is discussing. If you aren’t familiar
with it, I hope you read up and consider if it has any value to your
work. If you are familiar, what are your thoughts on the potential
connection between the goals of phonomancy and the function of
introverted intuition?"Here's my answer:
I have a layperson's grasp of Jungian psychology. I'm much more interested in his thinking re: archetypes than his theory of personality, but I'm aware of his definition of intuition as a function.
I'm pretty sure you can connect it to the traditional mystical idea that
there are different modes of drawing information from internal sources;
there's the "eye of knowledge," which is when we use our cognitive apparatus to
engage with Transcendental Reality, and the "eye of the heart," which is
when we use our emotions to feel our way into and through an
experience. This is like when the ghost of Obi Wan tells Luke "Trust
your feelings." When Luke finally allows himself to take that leap of
faith, he's able to make that impossible shot and destroy the Death
Star.
That is exactly what phonomancy is. In my prayers before a ceremony, I say, "Please help me make my heart the door through which I enter into my experiences tonight." Phonomancy works by getting you into heightened states of emotion while in an altered state of consciousness. The more intense the emotion, the more vivid and wild and informationally dense your visions. This becomes a feedback loop until there's a phase change and you are no longer having an emotion, the emotion is having you. At that point you have tapped directly into the emotion's archetype, which is to say, an energetic structure in the deep unconscious that is, effectively, an aspect of the Divine.
This alone is an overwhelming experience, but it doesn't have to stop there. At that point you can intentionally direct that energy into an image of the Divine you're holding in your imagination. It animates, and suddenly you sense an undeniable presence. You are now in relationship to a Person as the God(dess) incarnates in your consciousness and communicates with you. Think of it as active imagination on steroids--ALL the steroids.
Jung would refer to this as the Transcendent Function, I think. Developing one's intuitive function is a necessary part of getting there.
That is exactly what phonomancy is. In my prayers before a ceremony, I say, "Please help me make my heart the door through which I enter into my experiences tonight." Phonomancy works by getting you into heightened states of emotion while in an altered state of consciousness. The more intense the emotion, the more vivid and wild and informationally dense your visions. This becomes a feedback loop until there's a phase change and you are no longer having an emotion, the emotion is having you. At that point you have tapped directly into the emotion's archetype, which is to say, an energetic structure in the deep unconscious that is, effectively, an aspect of the Divine.
This alone is an overwhelming experience, but it doesn't have to stop there. At that point you can intentionally direct that energy into an image of the Divine you're holding in your imagination. It animates, and suddenly you sense an undeniable presence. You are now in relationship to a Person as the God(dess) incarnates in your consciousness and communicates with you. Think of it as active imagination on steroids--ALL the steroids.
Jung would refer to this as the Transcendent Function, I think. Developing one's intuitive function is a necessary part of getting there.
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