Of course, such unwitting activation of unconscious contents in the psyche of a writer is decidedly different from Jung's deliberately evoking unconscious contents in his psyche through his dangerous self-experimentation with active imagination.
Nevertheless, even though I firmly believe that Tolkien did indeed unwittingly activate unconscious contents in his psyche when he wrote The Hobbit (1937), I hasten to admit here that I do not understand why this happened to him in particular but not to all other writers. Such unwitting activation of unconscious contents through writing a certain work appears to be an unpredictable event in the lives of certain writers - perhaps it is a blessing that God bestows on certain writers for a mysterious reason, just as God blesses certain individual persons with powerful mystical experiences, as God blessed the Spanish Renaissance mystic St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the author of the minor classic the Spiritual Exercises and the founder of the Jesuit order (known formally as the Society of Jesus).
For an English translation of Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, see the American Jesuit George E. Ganss' book The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: A Translation and Commentary (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992).
For a perceptive Freudian analysis of St. Ignatius Loyola, see the American Jesuit psychiatrist W. W. Meissner's book Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint (Yale University Press, 1992).
Now, in my 7,800-word OEN article "About J. R. R. Tolkien's Fantasy Novel, The Lord of the Rings," I also discussed Ong's work. As part of Ong's lengthy Jesuit formation, he twice made a 30-day retreat in silence (except for the daily conferences with the retreat director) following the Spiritual Exercises of the Spanish Renaissance mystic St. Ignatius Loyola. Like the dangerous practice that Jung came to refer to as active imagination, the guided meditations in following the Spiritual Exercises involve engaging in what Jung referred to as fantasy thinking involving images and associative thinking. In other words, Ignatian meditation is designed to evoke unconscious contents in the psyches of Jesuits and others making a 30-day retreat following the Spiritual Exercises.
The danger involved in evoking unconscious contents in one's psyche is that the unconscious contents can overwhelm and overthrow one's ego-consciousness, producing a psychotic break.
As I noted, Jung himself took the precautions of processing the unconscious contents that he had evoked through his dangerous practice of active imagination by writing out reports of his experiences of unconscious contents and by making works of art and drawings of his experiences of unconscious contents.
If we posit that in the process of writing The Hobbit (1937) Tolkien had activated unconscious contents in his psyche, then we would see Tolkien's later writing of the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings as his way of further working through and processing unconscious contents.
Simply stated, once you have activated unconscious contents in your psyche, you need to work and process them - because if you do not, you are in danger of having those unconscious contents overthrow your ego-consciousness, resulting in a psychotic break.
I speak from experience here. As I have noted before, I had a mental breakdown in late February 1974. As a result, I was hospitalized for about a week to ten days. I was diagnosed as having experienced a hypomanic episode. My hypomanic episode was a memorable experience - the most memorable experience in my life - but not a pleasant memory.
I may have unwittingly activated unconscious contents in my psyche in late December 1973 and early January 1974 when I wrote three breakthrough essays - all three of which were eventually published in one form or another.
Now, for whatever it may be worth, I see Tolkien's publication of his fantasy novel The Hobbit (1937) as comparable for him and his life to Jung's publication of his 1912 book was for him and his various public efforts to digest and explain his experience of unconscious contents in his psyche during his dangerous self-experiment with active imagination, on the one hand, and, on the other, I see Tolkien's later publication of the three-volume fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings (1954 and 1955) as comparable for him and his life as Jung's extensive revision in his 1952 re-titled book was for him and his various public efforts to digest and explain his experience of unconscious contents in his psyche during his dangerous self-experiment with active imagination.
By Jung's various public efforts, I mean all the books he wrote and public lectures delivered over the years after he had completed his dangerous self-experimentation with the practice of active imagination - and after he had stopped his private recordings in his Black Books and in his Red Book as his way of processing and containing the unconscious contents he had experienced during his dangerous self-experimentation using active imagination.
Now, in my 7,800-word OEN article "About J. R. R. Tolkien's Fantasy Novel, The Lord of the Rings, I succinctly highlight the British philologist and literary critic Thomas A. Shippey's perceptive book J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (HarperCollins, 2000). For Shippey's argumentative purposes, he constructs a category of comparable war-veteran authors. He aptly describes these authors who saw action in war as traumatized by war (e.g., pp. xxx and xxxi).
In addition, Shippey sees these war-traumatized authors as writing certain novels that could also be described as fantasy novels, as Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937) and the three-volume The Lord of the Rings (1954 and 1955) are described. I have no problem with that much of Shippey's argument.
However, as far as I know, none of the other novels that Shippey mentions by these war-traumatized authors have attracted the critics of Tolkien's fantasy novels.
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