To conclude, I think it part of the human experience, if not a universal one, to have mystical visions and insights; that in pre doctrinal religious times and in many parts of the world today, these are understood in different terms as accessing the world of spirits, gods and other supernatural powers, conforming to whichever overall set of beliefs are ascribed to in that culture or society. Doctrinal religions such as Christianity and Islam, particularly the mystical branches of these, ‘organise’ such experiences within the tenets of the canon of beliefs of that religion: the seeing of angels and saints, whereas visions of other sorts of entities might then be ascribed to demonic beings, and so on.
In Jungian terms, visions of this nature are understood as part of the phantasmagoria of the Collective Unconscious. Jung himself experienced many such visions and visitations by spirit beings, and it was through these sorts of experiences that he elaborated his understanding of the Collective Unconscious and also the autonomy of the apparitions within it. Medieval Christian mystics such as Jean d’Arc, who had a wide range of different kinds of visions, was interrogated by the Inquisition of the day to establish whether these could be interpreted as being from God, as she asserted, or from the Devil. Their decision to ascribe them to the latter and her refusal to renounce her beliefs in them as being of Divine origin, condemned her to be burned as a heretic.
In the chapter ‘The Tale of Juana Icha. A Trial by Three Models’ I elaborated my belief that many of the visionary experiences of mystics from traditional cultures might be ascribed to the Self:
“However complex the psyche and the concepts of the personal and collective unconscious are, people indisputably have wide ranging experiences of spirit beings in very many different cultural contexts, which are frequently experienced as being ‘numinous’ in a positive way . It is also quite clear that “the experience of the numen is of an exclusively personal nature (1)”, however later interpreted or organised into a collective containing framework for the purpose of better understanding it, or into formal religious doctrines. I would therefore posit that Juana Icha’s tutelary guide Apu Parato, and indeed the generality of many of the tutelary spiritual guides that Andean shamans allied themselves with was, in fact, a manifestation of the ‘Self’ in its Andean cultural guise, which could take a very wide range of forms it should be pointed out. The Jungian model therefore fully accepts and accommodates the plurality of the human spiritual experience, as diverse as humanity is and human cultures are (2)”
Many years ago, when I was just emerging from my near ten years of atheism and starting to learn about Eastern religions, I vividly recall feeling very alienated when reading Paramahansa Yogananda’s ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’, when he started to describe other heavenly ethereal dimensions of reality with attendant spiritual entities, angels and so on. These were the days well before I had read anything about Jung’s Collective Unconscious or knew anything whatever about shamanism or mysticism.
It has been a long and fascinating journey for me, from ignorance in many of these things to now, when I am able to offer a fair interpretation myself as to their potential meanings and significance.
(1) C. M. Smith. 2014. Jung and Shamanism in Dialogue. Chapter 2: Technician of the Sacred. Expression of the Numen Para 1.
(2) Elizabeth Currie. Indigenous Concepts of Health and Healing in Andean Populations. The Relevance of Traditional MEDICINE in a Changing World. Report to the EC Horizon 2020. October 2019. Section Three, Chapter 5: The Tale of Juana Icha. A Trial by Three Models. The Psychological Impact of Evangelisation: 245
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