All of Life Is Projection



All of Life Is a Projection

Lecture by Howard W. Tyas, Jr.,

to the Charlotte Friends of Jung

on Friday, September 13, 2002

“There is a fine old story about a student who came to a rabbi and said, ‘In the olden days there were men who saw the face of God. Why don’t they any more?’ The rabbi replied, ‘Because nowadays no one can stoop low enough.’” (C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 355)

Jung, as an old man, told this story in his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, as a corrective to people who considered him to be a wise old man. He prefaced this rabbinic tale with these words: “When people say I am wise or a sage, I cannot accept it. A man once dipped a hatful of water from a stream. What did that amount to? I am not that stream. I am at the stream, but I do nothing. Other people are at the same stream, but most of them find that they have to do something with it. I do nothing. I never think that I am the one who must see to it that cherries grow on stalks. I stand and behold, admiring what nature can do.” Jung then later concludes, “One must stoop a little in order to fetch water from the stream.”

I will come back to this story and the deeper significance of this quote a little later. But for now, let me say that when considering the mysteries of life or the mysteries of the psyche, the best approach is often a humble and simple one. The mysteries flowing along this archetypal stream are best observed from a stooped or kneeling position. And I consider the common, everyday phenomenon of projection an integral part of this stream.

I’d like to share with you something I created. [Set up the “projection box” and illustrate.]

The interesting thing about this “projection box” is the fact that it appeared to me in a dream. It came the night after Beverly Padgett and I first spoke about the possibility of giving a lecture on the phenomenon of projection. (It’s always nice when the psyche responds in such a way.) This “projection box” is a wonderful symbolic representation of what happens when we are projecting. Much like Plato’s Cave (show picture), an image is projected upon a screen, creating a shadow. The audience can see the shape of the thing, perhaps even recognize it, but the thing in and of itself, they cannot perceive. Unless, they turn their heads around, as with the prisoners in Plato’s Cave (and even then it is difficult to see the object as it is because the fire is burning and shining directly in their eyes), or now, when I actually take the object out of the box. Being unable to see the thing as it is, in and of itself, we can only identify it or attach meaning to it out of our own experience or imagination.

The phenomenon of projection has been noticed and reflected upon by individuals throughout the ages. We find Jesus of Nazareth referring to it in the Gospel of Matthew 7:3 (NIV), when he says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye?” This saying comes during a discourse about judgment; and the insinuation is that we cannot judge objectively, because we often concern ourselves too much with another’s shortcomings, while ignoring the darker issues which lie hidden within ourselves.

Rumi, the Sufi mystic, once wrote, “We are the mirror as well as the face in it. We are the pain and what cures the pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.” (Barks, The Essential Rumi, p. 106.) He is suggesting that there is an inseparable relationship between the subject and the object; what is out there cannot be separated from what is in here.

You may also be familiar with the Zen Buddhist saying, which the psychotherapist Sheldon Kopp used for the title of one of his books, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” This admonition cautions the Zen monk not to surrender or project his or her own inner truth upon any outside person, no matter how wise or well meaning that person may be. And though not to be taken literally, the advice that they should kill the Venerable One points to the seriousness of the matter.

Jung himself had much to say about the phenomenon of projection and we will examine it soon enough. It is enough for now to hear these few words, “All the contents of our unconscious are constantly being projected into our surroundings.”

Our modern day psychological exploration of projection has produced several diagnostic tools or projective techniques that are used to access hidden parts of one’s personality. Perhaps the two visual tests most frequently cited and used are the Rorschach Inkblot Test and the Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT for short. These are some examples of what each looks like. (Show pictures of Rorschach and TAT.) I would add Jung’s pioneering work on the association test or experiment to this category.

One other statement about projection comes from the Dalai Lama, in which he says, “We are weaving our dream every moment. All of life is a projection. The director is the sum of our karma – all we fear, all we desire, all we have cleared and the debris still left to clean up.” These words of the Dalai Lama imply that even though it may appear or feel like a dream, that is, unreal, our projecting is so pervasive and so important, that not only our whole being, but also our whole well-being depends on it. What we fear, what we desire, what has been healed and what is still left wounded within us, all these things, seemingly with a life all their own, are being projected onto the world around us.

Jung speaks about projection in many places throughout his Collected Works, but there is one paragraph (507) in Volume 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, where he sums it up nicely.

“Just as we tend to assume that the world is as we see it, we naively suppose that people are as we imagine them to be. In this latter case, unfortunately, there is no scientific test that would prove the discrepancy between perception and reality. Although the possibility for gross deception is infinitely greater here than in our perception of the physical world, we still go on naively projecting our own psychology into our fellow human beings. In this way everyone creates for himself a series of more or less imaginary relationships based essentially on projection. Among neurotics there are even cases where fantasy projections provide the sole means of human relationship. A person whom I perceive mainly through my projections is an imago or, alternately, a carrier of imagos or symbols. All the contents of our unconscious are constantly being projected into our surroundings, and it is only by recognizing certain properties of the objects as projections or imagos that we are able to distinguish them from the real properties of the objects. But if we are not aware that a property of the object is a projection, we cannot do anything else but be naively convinced that it really does belong to the object. All human relationships swarm with these projections; anyone who cannot see this in his personal life need only have his attention drawn to the psychology of the press in wartime. Cum grano salis [Latin for with a grain of salt], we always see our own unavowed mistakes in our opponent. Excellent examples of this are to be found in all personal quarrels. Unless we are possessed of an unusual degree of self-awareness we shall never see through our projections but must always succumb to them, because the mind in its natural state presupposes the existence of such projections. It is the natural and given thing for unconscious contents to be projected. In a comparatively primitive person this creates that characteristic relationship to the object, which Levy-Bruhl has fittingly called ‘mystic identity’ or ‘participation mystique.’ Thus every normal person of our time, who is not reflective beyond the average, is bound to his environment by a whole system of projections.”

Jung, C. G., Collected Works, “The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche,” Volume 8, par. 507.

What we are going to do this evening is to examine some definitions of projection, some illustrations of projection, and then some of the implications of projection, including how we can learn from them.

As I have already mentioned, projection is nothing new. History and literature records that there have been people, who through self-reflection, were aware of this phenomenon from earliest times. In the last century ethnologists and psychologists, like the Frenchman Lucien Levy-Bruhl, wrote extensively on the phenomenon as it existed among primitive, or more accurately, primal societies, and he referred to this phenomenon as “participation mystique,” or mystical participation. Participation mystique describes the mystical connection or relationship that exists between a subject and object, between a person and some thing external.

For example, in certain societies, a person might have a special relationship to a particular animal or tree in the wild. Jung witnessed this occurrence during his travels to Africa. He commented that a person would have a “bush soul” in addition to his own soul, or psyche. This bush soul might take a variety of forms. “If the bush soul is that of an animal, the animal itself is considered as some sort of brother to the man. A man whose brother is a crocodile, for instance, is supposed to be safe when swimming a crocodile-infested river. If the bush soul is a tree, the tree is presumed to have something like parental authority over the individual concerned. In both cases, an injury to the bush soul is interpreted as an injury to the man.” (Jung, C. G., Man and His Symbols, p. 24)

Such mystical connections between a person and an object, or between a person and another person, are not the sole possession of people living in primal societies. I’m sure you can think of modern-day examples among so-called civilized people. And we’ll look at some of those later. But psychologically, what is involved in this process is what is called an “abaissement du niveau mental,” a lowering of the level of consciousness. When the boundary between consciousness and the unconscious is blurred, either intentionally or unintentionally, the ego has a hard time differentiating between what belongs to itself and what belongs to the other. The two become identified with each other. Whether it is a person or an object, suddenly, all those things outside become carriers, unconsciously, of what resides within.

At this point I think is important to restate that projection is not pathological, in and of itself. As Jung submits to us, “It is the natural and given thing for unconscious contents to be projected.” Wonderful things and terrible things can be done and have been done by human beings as a result of projecting unconscious material, but the phenomenon itself is neutral. It just is. And again, later, we will look at what purpose projection plays, what value it has for us. But it is important to reiterate - projection is itself a natural process of the human psyche.

As we continue to examine projection more closely, you’ll notice that what is projected is everything about ourselves that is unconscious. And that “everything” might include experiences, memories, thoughts, feelings, temperaments, attitudes, talents, aspirations, shortcomings, failures, hopes, yearnings, or complexes. Whether repressed, forgotten, or yet undiscovered, all the content of our personal lives that has fallen into the unconscious and lacks the quality of consciousness, is available for being projected upon our surroundings. If you have ever experienced the common dream image of a small boat riding on the ocean with no land in sight in any direction, you get the picture of just how vast the unconscious is and how much is capable of being projected.

Jung went on to make a distinction between passive projection, which we have been talking about thus far, and active projection. He writes, “The passive form is the customary form of all pathological and many normal projections; they are not intentional and are purely automatic occurrences. The active form is an essential component of the act of empathy. Taken as a whole, empathy is a process of introjection, since it brings the object into intimate relation with the subject. In order to establish this relationship, the subject detaches a content – a feeling, for instance, - from himself, lodges it in the object, thereby animating it, and in this way draws the object into the sphere of the subject.” (C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, “Definitions”, Volume 6, par. 784.)

Passive projection is entirely automatic and unintentional. We are not even aware we are projecting. It is something that happens to us; like falling in love when we see someone across a crowded room, or overreacting to someone who is different from us. We are more or less the passive recipients of whatever unconscious material is being projected. Active projection, on the other hand, can be compared to empathy, because we actively feel our way into someone else’s situation, imagining what it’s like to be in his or her shoes, what they must be going through. For example, when we see or are with someone who has just lost a loved one, we may feel a certain amount of grief, and imagine that they, too, are feeling the same thing. We feel the grief because we have been there before. We project that feeling of grief onto the other, because they are now going through a similar experience. What makes active projection, or empathy, different is the fact that we are conscious of and own our own feeling of grief, while we are projecting it onto another person and their situation. As Jung suggests, active projection allows one person to enter the sphere of another. It establishes a different kind of relationship compared to the one created as a result of passive projection, where we are unaware that the content being projected originates and resides within us.

As I have been speaking about projection thus far, you may have heard me use at least one word more than once. And that word is relationship. The phenomenon of projection creates or involves relationship; that is, a connection or correlation between two things. Now this relationship exists on different levels. We see it initially between one person and another, or between one person and some other object. When it is with another person, the relationship may involve an attraction, to someone we like, or a repulsion, from someone we don’t. When an object is involved, the same attraction or repulsion exists, whether it is a work of art or a creation of nature. What projection does, by its very nature, is to form a relationship between the person who is projecting and the person or thing upon which the projection is being cast. Jung uses a graphic image when we says, “All human relationships swarm with these projections.” We are constantly bombarding others with our projections, or should I say projectiles, just as we are constantly the target of others’ projections, whether we are aware of it or not.

While it may be this outward relationship to others that we see or experience initially, there is another relationship present and at work simultaneously. And this is the inner relationship, which we have already alluded to, between the unconscious and the consciousness in the individual him or herself. As Jung reminds us, it is that which is unconscious within a person that ends up being projected. Everything that resides in the unconscious does not seem to be content to stay there. It wants to come out. It wants to be seen. It wants to be assimilated or integrated, in some fashion, into consciousness. It seeks, and in its own way demands, relationship. And this is being done in a very natural, instinctive way. It is the order of things.

Now we can take this inner relationship a step further and speak about the bond that exists between the ego and the Self, the regulating center of the psyche. In Jung’s psychology, a relationship between the ego and the Self is presupposed. The Self is the template upon which the ego is created, and the blueprint according to which the ego hopefully unfolds. The Self, as mysterious, unfathomable, and unconscious as it may be, desires a relationship with the ego. Edward Edinger and others have referred to this as the ego/Self axis, that primal relationship within the human psyche around which every life revolves and evolves. And the phenomenon of projection appears to be the most common and preferred tool of choice for furthering and broadening this relationship. Projection may resemble more an invitation to relationship than a coercion, simply because it is so seemingly subtle. But then again, ignoring the invitation can have dire consequences, as we will see.

There are two other aspects of projection that I’d like to touch on before we look at illustrations. The first involves how we can know we are or have been in the grip of a projection. Some of the telltale signs include 1) strong emotional feelings, whether positive or negative; 2) a sense of psychological inflation, whether too high or too low; 3) no relationship to or knowledge of the other person or thing involved; and 4) the subsequent revelation that we were simply wrong in our assumptions about the other.

A strong emotional reaction to someone is usually an excellent way to know we are projecting. It may be a strong feeling of hate, disdain, or anger, on the one hand, or attraction, respect, or love, on the other. It could trigger a feeling of fear or alarm. It doesn’t always, but it often does. Closely associated to such strong emotional reactions are the extreme self-perceptions that come. I used the term inflation to describe these reactions. When projecting, a person may unconsciously respond to another in an inflated manner, with either too high an opinion, (I’m much more talented than they are.) or too low an opinion of him or herself (That person is so much smarter than I am.) The key that a projection is in progress is how extreme the response is. It is the extremeness of the response, be it emotional or ideational, which serves as the indicator.

Often times when we are projecting upon someone, we have no idea who that person is. That person may be a complete stranger, someone walking across the street, sitting in a car next to us, working in the same building, or eating at an adjacent table. In some ways, the less we know about someone, the better projective screen they provide. They offer no objective reality to hinder or prevent our projections. And as Jung observed, there are people for whom these fantasy projections provide the sole means of human relationship.

The most powerful indication that we have been projecting comes when we actually meet the person we were so sure we knew. I think everyone has probably had this experience. Our first impression of someone, whether positive or negative, is soon reversed when we begin to spend time with him or her and realize that they are quite different than we imagined. A false relationship is suddenly replaced by a truer one, and then we are left with some disturbing questions, such as, “Where did I get the idea she was like that?” Or, “Why did he get under my skin so?” Or, “Where did those assumptions and those feelings come from?”

The other aspect of projection that needs to be mentioned is the possibility that there may be a “hook” in the other person upon which to hang the projection you are experiencing. Jung writes, “Something that strikes me about the object may very well be a real property of that object. …it frequently happens that the object offers a hook to the projection, and even lures it out. This is generally the case when the object himself (or herself) is not conscious of the quality in question.” (Volume 8, par. 519.) So it quite possible that there is a “hook” on which to hang your projection. But at the same time, that does not leave you “off the hook.” There is still unconscious material present emanating from your own psyche begging for recognition.

Now we come to what has been for me most interesting and revealing – the illustrations of projection. The statement by the Dalai Lama that “all of life is a projection” is an incredible statement. All of life is a projection. Along with Jung, the Dalai Lama insists that we are constantly projecting something personal, something meaningful onto all the people and things around us. That is an incredible statement to make. Since agreeing to present this lecture I have been trying to do what Jung suggested was most helpful when confronting “the stream” – and that is, doing nothing, only standing and beholding, admiring what nature can do, from a stooped position. I have intentionally been watching myself, listening to my clients, being attentive to the statements said about me, and observing those around me, in order to see when and how projections manifest themselves. It is a revealing, if not amusing exercise in which to engage. As I have said before, the process is so unconscious, so spontaneous, and so subtle, that we are seldom aware of its presence. I’m going to sprinkle in some of those observations as I explore the various areas of life where projections can be seen.

Before looking at these various areas, I want to state again that what we most often project onto others is what Jung referred to as the shadow; that is, all those “hidden and unconscious aspects of oneself, both good and bad, which the ego has either repressed or never recognized.” (Sharp, Daryl. C. G. Jung Lexicon, p. 123)

Jolande Jacobi puts it very nicely in her book The Way of Individuation: “People who believe their ego represents the whole of their psyche, and who neither know nor want to know all the other qualities that belong to it, are wont to project their unknown ‘soul parts’ into the surrounding world – for everything unconscious is first experienced in projection, as qualities of objects. These are those well-known people who always think they are in the right, who in their own eyes are quite blameless and wonderful, but always find everybody else difficult, malicious, hateful, and the source of all their troubles. Nobody likes to admit his own darkness, for which reason most people put up – even in analytical work – the greatest resistance to the realization of their shadow.” (p. 39)

While Jacobi equates the shadow here with darkness, the shadow can contain good as well as appalling aspects. While we normally associate the shadow with all that is negative and destructive, what lies unconscious in the shadows can also be very positive and worthwhile. This is sometimes referred to as the bright shadow.

I’d like to begin our examination of illustrations with looking at our personal, and perhaps professional one-on-one relationships.

• Parent and child

• Husband and wife

• Doctor and patient (or anyone in the healing profession)

• Therapist and client

• Minister and congregant

• Teacher and student (regardless of what is being taught)

• Police officer and citizen

• Attorney and litigant

• Manager and employee

• Owner and laborer

• Celebrity and fan (a ball player, an actor/actress, a performer, or in NC a race car driver)

• Neighbor and next-door neighbor

• Stranger and stranger

You may be able to think of other examples out of your own experience of personal, one-on-one relationships where projections are active. In these examples I have just mentioned the defining characteristic may be that one of the persons possesses an authority, a knowing, a skill, a position of honor, a lifestyle, or an answer that the other envies, needs or desires. The projection may be personal in nature, in that it reflects what is unconscious in one’s personal psychology or history. Or, the projection may be professional in nature, because it touches an archetypal foundation within the psyche. But even though there may appear to be an unequal, “above and below” dimension to the relationship, it is still a relationship, and therefore the projections flow both ways. Both persons involved are capable of casting projections and receiving projections. And Jung noted that when a projection is cast in one direction, a counter-projection is usually sent back in the other direction. We could probably spend the rest of the evening discussing what kinds of things are most often projected in each of these relationships. In the seminar tomorrow morning we will explore more specifically exactly what is being projected in each of these personal connections.

The next area of life where projections can be found is in our social relationships. The relative size of these social relationships can range from something as small as a nuclear family to as large as a nation. For those who believe in extra-terrestrials, the largest relationship would then be planetary. There have been numerous films in the last fifty years that have played with this possibility. But, if we stay here on earth, I can identify at least five areas of social life where projections can be seen; I’m sure there are more:

• Labor and management

• Political parties

• Movements and organizations

• Society and scapegoats

• Nations and enemies

The dynamic of the projection process in social relationships is similar to that in personal relationships, except for one obvious difference – the power of the projection is shared and magnified. This group projection can range in its manifestation from a mob-like possession on the one hand to a very organized and methodical maintaining of the status quo on the other. Regardless of what form it takes, the effects are just as far-reaching.

One need only read a history book or the morning newspaper to see examples of this mass projection at work.

• Labor and management (Recent baseball strike – owners, players, fans)

• Political parties (Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – you can name your issue)

• Movements and organizations (NOW/Christian Coalition, Right to Life/Pro-Choice)

• Society and scapegoats (gays and lesbians – Matthew Shepherd murdered in Wyoming; blacks – Civil Rights and MLK, Jr.; women – battered and abused; minorities – any Middle-eastern looking people after 9/11, Irish Protestants/Catholics, caste system in India)

• Nation and their enemies – all the infamous Evil Empires (USA/USSR, Pakistan/India, USA/Iraq, Israel/Palestine)

Jung had much to say about the phenomenon and reality of social projections. Most succinctly he said, “Masses are always breeding grounds of psychic epidemics.” (C. G. Jung, The Development of Personality, par. 227.) And a statement written before the fall of the Berlin wall, is still relevant to our world today, regardless of what nation we call home: “It is the face of our own shadow,” Jung writes, “that glowers at us across the Iron Curtain.” (C. G. Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, par. 85.) In another statement more fleshed out, he wrote, “There is indeed reason enough for man to be afraid of the impersonal forces lurking in his unconscious. We are blissfully unconscious of these forces because they never, or almost never, appear in our personal relations or under ordinary circumstances. But if people crowd together and form a mob, then the dynamisms of the collective man are let loose – beasts or demons that lie dormant in every person until he is part of a mob. Man in the mass sinks unconsciously to an inferior moral and intellectual level, to that level which is always there, below the threshold of consciousness, ready to break forth as soon as it is activated by the formation of a mass.” (C. G. Jung, Psychology and Religion, par. 23.) Social projections have the potential for raining down much greater destruction, not only upon those groups targeted, but also upon our species as a whole.

Another area upon which we project unconscious images is the natural world; for instance, the heavens. (Picture of the constellations.) Or an example, which interested Jung quite a bit, was alchemy; that very involved process by which the alchemists sought to transform base matter into gold. (Show pictures of alchemical processes) What Jung concluded after much study was that the alchemists were projecting their subjective visions of inner transformation onto their outer work of transmuting ordinary materials into something of great value. The seven basic processes the alchemists followed were: 1) solution, 2) coagulation, 3) sublimation, 4) calcination, 5) putrefaction, 6) mortification, and 7) conjunction. Each of these chemical operations has a parallel in the psychotherapeutic process of healing. That is why Jung saw the alchemists more as the precursors of depth psychologists than chemists. The deeper realities of psychological healing and development within the human psyche were still unconscious, but beginning to work their way into consciousness through the process of projection.

Somewhat along the same lines, Jung also took an interest in the phenomenon of UFOs. He was quite interested in the medieval accounts of such sightings, like those witnessed in Basel and Nuremberg. (Show Previous History of UFO Phenomenon) After also considering contemporary accounts and his own dreams, he concluded that the possibility of actual extraterrestrial visitations was still an open question. However, he thought it was more likely that the numerous UFO sightings reported were projections of the Self upon the skies. We can only conjecture as to the purpose. But, as in the case of the alchemists, it may presage a new development within the human psyche moving toward consciousness. Or could it be a preparation for a deeper revelation of our unique, and perhaps humble position in the universe?

We also often project our unconscious material onto animals, whether tame or wild. Pets especially are great screens onto which to project our innermost thoughts. How many times have we witnessed someone or ourselves putting words into our pets’ mouths? I remember an occasion when a young boy, 9-10 years old was visiting our home. Our cat Neo was then about 4-5 months old, a kitten really, and was quietly sitting on the floor looking intently at the boy. The boy looked at Neo for a good 10 seconds and then turned to me and said with all seriousness, “That cat is evil.” Well, there are some days when I might concur. But knowing that this boy had had a deeply troubled and abusive childhood, I understood his comment more in terms of projection. My projection was that Neo’s intent gaze might have somehow reflected the judgmental and punitive “all-seeing eye” of an abusive parent, now introjected into the young boy. I’ll never know.

Perhaps the best “projection-catchers” are unknown objects and shadows. I think we have all had the experience of seeing a shape in the dark or at a distance, and immediately becoming startled or surprised. It is amazing what we think we see, until we turn on the lights or come closer. A couple of weeks ago I came home at dusk and saw what I thought was a dead owl on our roof. At that moment my imagination was off and running, and I didn't stop it. What’s a dead owl doing on my roof? Is it some kind of a sign? Or a symbol? Wasn’t there a book called, “I Heard the Owl Call My Name”? And wasn't it a story about a minister who was dying? Am I dying? Is there something dying in the house? As I got closer to the porch I could see that my owl was really a small branch of leaves left over from the storm the night before. But the projections were already out. Now what was all that about? You get the picture how just quickly and revealingly such projections come.

We also project our unconscious material upon man-made creations. Art, especially modern or expressive art, can evoke all kinds of thoughts, feelings, experiences, etc. What we see and how it affects us involves projection. We project ourselves upon cars, houses and gardens. We project ourselves upon buildings, cities, and neighborhoods. What kinds of projections did the World Trade Center towers stir a little over a year ago? What comes to mind when I say Myers Park, or West Charlotte? Why do we choose the kinds of cars we do? What do we project of ourselves upon our homes and how does the way we decorate them reveal something about ourselves? All of life is a projection.

For those who are therapists or who have been in therapy, you also know something about the reality of projection. The psychological term is transference – the transferring of a client’s unconscious material upon the therapist. One session the therapist takes the form of a nurturing mother, the next a disapproving father, and the next a wise old sage. Often there is a hook on which to project those estimations. Sometimes there is not. What usually occurs in such therapeutic relationships, as well as in other relationships, is a reciprocal projection, called counter-transference. The therapist projects his or her own unconscious material onto the client. This is not always helpful and is why many training programs insist that therapists undergo their own analysis, so as not to contaminate the therapeutic relationship unduly.

To give you an example of this therapeutic projection and to illustrate how dreams are comprised almost entirely of projections, I’ll tell you a dream that one of Jung’s patients had that indirectly involved him. The patient was a woman who was bothered by a father complex, even though her father had passed away. This peculiar relationship with her father had hindered her from being able to live her life as fully as she desired. During the course of her analysis she one day presented Jung with the following dream:

“Her father (who in reality was of small stature) was standing with her on a hill that was covered with wheat-fields. She was quite tiny beside him, and he seemed to her like a giant. He lifted her up from the ground and held her in his arms like a little child. The wind swept over the wheat-fields, and as the wheat swayed in the wind, he rocked her in his arms.” (C. G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, par. 211.)

Even before working with this dream, it had been apparent to both Jung and to the woman that she saw Jung as a larger than life, almost god-like figure. Consciously, they were both aware that she was projecting something of the father onto Jung. But in spite of this realization, the woman continued to elevate Jung to a position far greater than what was warranted. Instead of trying to explain away this projection, Jung decided to explore and understand it. These were his musings:

“…what is the purpose of such fantasies? A careful examination and analysis of the dreams, especially the one just quoted, revealed a very marked tendency – in contrast to conscious criticism, which always seeks to reduce things to human proportion – [revealed a very marked tendency] to endow the person of the doctor with superhuman attributes. He had to be gigantic, primordial, huger than the father, like the wind that sweeps over the earth – was he then to be made into a god? Or, I said to myself, was it rather the case that the unconscious was trying to create a god out of the person of the doctor, as it were to free a vision of God from the veils of the personal, so that the transference to the person of the doctor was no more than a misunderstanding on the part of the conscious mind, a stupid trick played by ‘sound common sense’? Was the urge of the unconscious perhaps only apparently reaching out towards the person, but in a deeper sense towards a god? Could the longing for a god be a passion welling up from our darkest, instinctual nature, a passion unswayed by any outside influences, deeper and stronger perhaps than the love for a human person? Or was it perhaps the highest and truest meaning of the inappropriate love we call ‘transference,’ a little bit of real Gottesminne [love/devotion of God], that has been lost to consciousness ever since the fifteenth century?”

Jung and the woman explored all these possible explanations, some of which the woman herself could agree with, at least consciously. And yet she continued to elevate him to ever-greater proportions, overlooking his humanity. Her transference, her projection upon Jung remained unaffected. Finally, after almost despairing that he would ever be able to help the woman, Jung decided to stop trying to explain it. Trusting that the projection was following its intended course, he just let it be. What Jung then began to witness was astonishing. While consciously clinging to her inflated projections upon Jung, she was also deepening her relationship with a certain friend. There soon came a point at which she was able to terminate her analysis with Jung quite easily, quite matter-of-factly, and proceed living her life without hindrance.

Jung concluded that the woman’s overvalued projections upon him were necessary. They provided her a connection, albeit unconscious, to the transpersonal, to the divine. It was not of Jung’s doing; he was simply the conduit through which the woman could establish a relationship with God. The images contained within her dream provided confirmation. The father-like figure in the dream was not pictured as an old man in a white robe seated on a golden throne in heaven, as might be expected. But he did possess god-like qualities, depicted symbolically by the gigantic proportions, the holding of the patient protectively in his arms like an infant, and the presence of the wind, which is one of the ancient images or manifestations of God, taken from the Hebrew word ru’ah. Being able to feel this connection to something greater than herself, even though projected onto Jung, allowed the woman not only to transcend the personal issues with her father, but also to begin living life in a meaningful way.

This last example leads very well, I think, to the final illustration of projection I’d like to examine - religious projections. This is a tricky area; and one that probably warrants an entire lecture to itself. What do they say are the two things that should not be discussed when guests are invited to dinner – politics and religion? We border now on the metaphysical, on the mysterious and the unknown. Jung could not agree with Freud that God was only a projection. As a scientist and a psychoanalyst, Jung could affirm that a “god-image” did reside within the human psyche. He referred to this inner reality as the Self. At times he was reluctant to infer that this god-image presupposed a corresponding metaphysical reality. But there were other times, especially late in his life, when it seemed he could use the two terms interchangeably.

When we think of God we may have some definite ideas or images. They may arise from sacred scriptures or from early religious teachings. More than likely, we view God as an object, a some-thing. This is quite different from Jung’s own definition, where he suggests that God “… is the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans, and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse.” For Jung, God was more of an experience than a thing. Just as real, though harder to confine. This understanding is what led Jung to once answer the question put to him, “Do you believe in God?” by responding, after a long pause, “I don’t need to believe. I know.”

If God is more like an experience, maybe even an experience upon which the world’s great religious founders and personages based their lives, then perhaps it is difficult to equate our projections upon God with the reality itself. But we do it, nevertheless. How often have you heard feelings attributed to the Divine, descriptions given of the Holy One, or words put into the mouth of God that resemble more the author than the Almighty? Do you remember the words of a past president of a major Christian denomination stating that, “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew”? When was the last time you heard someone confidently state that a particular person or group of persons, not aligned with the speaker, were all destined for the fires of Hell? At the same time, God also catches the some of noblest and most compassionate attributes humans possess.

In addition, we see unconscious qualities, religious in nature, being projected onto people. These people may understandably be clergy, religious workers, or those in the healing professions, like Jung in the story just mentioned. But such religious qualities can also be projected onto any individual who exhibits in some way a hook upon which to hang the projection. While we usually associate religious qualities with everything that is good, decent, and loving, there is also a dark side to such projections. You may recall people like Jim Jones or David Koresh, whose followers unquestioningly and violently followed them to their deaths. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. might be examples of leaders who caught the projections of people in a different direction. The important thing is that there does appear to be an inner yearning to know, to relate to, and to express some Truth of a deeply spiritual nature.

All of life is a projection. I have attempted to examine some of the places where projections appear. It is by no means exhaustive. I have a hunch that while I have been speaking, you may have been recalling incidents when you have been either the instigator or the recipient of a projection. Now I’d like to turn our attention to the implications of projection for us.

We will begin with another quote of Jung’s taken from Volume 7, Two Essays on Analytic Psychology, par. 373.

“Here one may ask, perhaps, why it is so desirable that a man should be individuated. Not only is it desirable, it is absolutely indispensable, because, through his contamination with others, he falls into situations and commits actions which bring him into disharmony with himself. From all states of unconscious contamination and non-differentiation there is begotten a compulsion to be and to act in a way contrary to one’s own nature. Accordingly a man can neither be at one with himself nor accept responsibility for himself. He feels himself to be in a degrading, unfree, unethical condition. But the disharmony with himself is precisely the neurotic and intolerable condition from which he seeks to be delivered, and deliverance from this condition will come only when he can be and act as he feels is comfortable with his true self. People have a feeling for these things, dim and uncertain at first, but growing ever stronger and clearer with progressive development. When a man can say of his states and actions, ‘As I am, so I act,’ he can be at one with himself, even though it be difficult, and he can accept responsibility for himself even though he struggle against it. We must recognize that nothing is more difficult to bear than oneself. Yet even this most difficult of achievements becomes possible if we can distinguish ourselves from the unconscious contents. The introvert discovers these contents in himself, the extrovert finds them projected upon human objects. In both cases the unconscious contents are the cause of blinding illusions which falsify ourselves and our relations to our fellow man, making both unreal. For these reasons individuation is indispensable for certain people, not only as a therapeutic necessity, but as a high ideal, an idea of the best that we can do.”

First, I’d like to make a comment about the sentence toward the end, “The introvert discovers these contents in himself, the extrovert finds them projected upon human objects.” I believe it would be more accurate to say that there is a tendency for the introvert to find these unconscious contents within him or herself, and for the extrovert to project them onto human objects. Both introverts and extroverts project unconscious material. It is a part of the structuring of the human psyche.

For Jung, the individuation process was of central importance whenever he addressed anything related to the human psyche. In this quote we find Jung speaking of the individuation process as that development which enables a person to free himself from the unconscious, psychological contamination that compels him to act or react contrary to his true nature. When we are unable to free ourselves, we not only experience a feeling of inner disharmony, but also an estrangement in our relationships, both with our fellow man and with the world in which we live. The goal of individuation is to be able truly to affirm, “As I am, so I act,” creating a feeling of “being at one with oneself.” It is this process of becoming one’s authentic self that reveals the purpose and the importance of projection. We would have no means of accessing those unconscious contaminants that bring such disharmony, if it were not for the psyche’s natural ability to project, whether in dreams or in life. We need the opportunities that projection offers us to see those unconscious contaminants within us for what they are. And yet it is not easy to recognize these unconscious contents within ourselves, because we tend to find these shadow qualities, whether dark or bright, either extremely distasteful or unattainable.

This is why projection is both a curse and a blessing. I have already mentioned how much destructiveness can result, on both a personal and a collective level, when we project our own unconscious material upon others without realizing how much of that material is either partly or entirely our own. We can judge, blame, wound, alienate or physically injure others for offensive qualities that are really ours. At the same time, however, the phenomenon of projection is also a great psychological gift. It offers us the possibility, the opportunity for a deeper self-knowledge and a genuine relationship to our fellows. But, we have to open the gift first to see what it contains. And as Forrest Gump’s mother always said, “You never know what you’re gonna to get.”

Jung was concerned with this so-called “opening the gift,” and he spoke of it in terms of “dissolving” or “withdrawing” the projection. But there were times, he said, that some projections are all right to leave alone, for they do no more than grease the wheels of everyday interpersonal interaction. They help us to build bridges in the social world. They relieve some of the emotional, psychic pressure that builds up during the course of a day. And if we spent all our time and energy trying to be conscious of what we might be projecting in every given moment, we wouldn’t get anything done. It’s like the first time I took a psychology class and learned that much of our behavior is unconsciously motivated. I almost drove myself crazy going around all day asking myself, “Why did I do that? What did I really mean when I said that? Why am I feeling this way?” At some point you just have to realize that it’s going on all time; and then pick and choose the most important things on which to work.

Jung also recognized that one couldn’t force a dissolution or withdrawal of projections. He writes, “The recognition of something as projection should never be understood as a purely intellectual process. Intellectual insight dissolves a projection only when it is ripe for dissolution. But when it is not, it is impossible to withdraw libido from it by an intellectual judgment or by an act of will.” (C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, CW, Vol. 6, par. 421, note 158.) So Jung cautions us that when a projection is strongly fixated, it may be next to impossible to separate one’s projected material from the person who is carrying the projection. What constitutes ripeness is an individual matter and is probably connected in some way to the person’s own process of individuation.

Related to this issue of ripeness, is the fact that there are also times when it may be therapeutically necessary for someone to carry the projections of another until that other person is ready and able to withdraw them. This happens quite often during the course of an analysis. The qualities being projected upon the analyst may be negative or they may be positive, but sometimes the analyst is called upon to carry the shit or to carry the gold, until such time as the client can realize and say, “That really belongs to me and not to you.” It happens in other arenas as well: between a parent and a child, between a minister and a congregant, between a husband and a wife. It is not an easy place to get to. Even those who have been trained to recognize projections, and are aware they are being projected upon, can find it a draining experience. But it can be even more draining to carry someone else’s projections when the person doing the carrying is not even aware they that are.

Several years ago I felt it was important to educate my three children about the experience of projection. Knowing how painful it can be to receive and to carry a projection that is not our own, I wanted to at least give them a “heads up” as to when that might be happening. So I gave them a definition, some examples, and some ways to recognize when someone might be projecting upon them. And they picked it up quite quickly. Whenever an accusatory comment was directed toward them that they didn’t think fit, they’d say, “Projection!” For a few months there, “Projection!” was the response to every statement said to them in the house. The novelty has worn off, but I still hear this retort from time to time; and usually it’s right on the money. I think we could spare our children some unnecessary anguish if we gave them the tools to recognize projection and thereby to realize that not every statement said to them is about them.

But back to those who are doing the projecting. Despite a person’s ripeness or their reluctance, there often comes a time when our projections are marked by quite disturbing emotions or the painful breakdown of human relationship. That is when they are difficult, if not impossible, to ignore. The discomfort, or what Jung referred to as “the neurotic and intolerable condition,” we feel, virtually forces us to come to grips with what is ours.

There is a powerful scene in Arthur Miller’s play After the Fall that captures what this experience of withdrawing our projections is like. The scene takes place in Germany, in the shadow of one of the towers of a Nazi concentration camp. Quentin, a man who is trying to come to terms with his many failures in life, is walking with a young woman he loves named Helga. As Quentin looks up at one of the towers, Helga reads the emotion on his face and says, “Quentin, dear – no one they didn’t kill can ever be innocent again.” He responds, “But how did you solve it? How do you get so purposeful? You’re so full of hope!” Then Helga explains.

“Quentin, I think it’s a mistake to ever look for hope outside one’s self. One day the house smells of fresh bread, the next of smoke and blood. One day you faint because the gardener cut his finger off, within a week you're climbing over the corpses of children bombed in a subway. What hope can there be if that is so? I tried to die near the end of the war. The same dream returned each night until I dared not go to sleep and grew quite ill. I dreamed I had a child, and even in the dream I saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away. But it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes. Until I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps I could sleep. And I bent to its broken face, and it was horrible … but I kissed it. I think one must finally take one’s life in one's arms, Quentin.”

That is what is involved in living with a projection and in withdrawing a projection. Being tormented by something that is really ours, but is horrible to look at. Bending over to embrace its broken face. Finally taking one’s life in one’s arms. Which brings us back to the story told by Jung with which we started. “In the olden days there were men who saw the face of God. Why don’t they any more?” “Because nowadays no one can stoop low enough.”

All of life is a projection. The key to much of the hatred, prejudice, violence and abuse that goes on in this world lies in the phenomenon of projection – casting our own unconscious contents into the world around us. Likewise, the key to much of the potential, promise, creativity, and courage that is left unrealized in life may result from the same dynamic – it is projected upon others and never lived out. As strange and as paradoxical at it may sound, I think there is a correlation between seeing the face of God and taking our lives into our own arms, including our projections. To do so offers both personal and collective rewards. And it will be easier to take our lives into our own arms if we are willing to bend, to stoop low enough.

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