Theos-Talk Archives (August 2004 Message tt00519)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "kpauljohnson" <kpauljohnson@y...> 
wrote:
> Jung has certainly not established the four functions as "things"
> separately observable?? nor can introversion/extraversion,
> projection, etc. be considered as scientific theories.

If you are talking about the argument that used to rage between 
clinical and experimental psychologists when I was in college ages 
ago, yes. The experimentalists maintained then (and I assume now) 
that anything you can plainly see with your own eyes is 
not "scientific" unless proved via experiment. My problem with that 
was always that most of their experiments were crap and probably less 
worthy of the scientific palm than ordinary observation. Another 
problem was Eysenk's idiotic statement that parapsychology. uniquely 
among pursuits pschological, must be tested according to the 
standards of the HARD sciences, whereas all other psychological 
phenomena can be considered soft science. That and other 
experimentalist arguments struck this observer as bogus. It is 
certainly true that some people get energy from being with people and 
others from solitude. The introvert/extravert dichotomy should 
therefore qualify as scientific fact IMO. But I have never much 
believed in the MBTI, since I definitely get energy from other people 
and fall asleep when alone, yet test INTJ. Go figure.

As for plate tectonics, most tourists don't believe in them. I was 
thrilled when I saw California for the first time, and am sure when 
some tourists feel the earth shake beneath them they assume 
California is thrilled to see them as well. I think the earth shook 
when Schwarzenegger was elected governor, but it stood stolidly still 
when George W. Bush embarrassed everybody by visiting the state. 
That bespeaks intelligence to me, and greater intelligence in fact 
than a lot of humans display. For that reason I predict there will 
be a celebratory earthquake when Bush is defeated and that whole gang 
is sent packing. There has never been an earthquake where I live, 
and yet everyone expects the first one by November 5 at the latest if 
Kerry wins.

Anyway, as a librarian, I wondered if you would care to recommend a 
book on Jung's theories. When I was in college I started reading 
through his COLLECTED WRITINGS (The Bollingen series) but found stuff 
like AION and MYSTERIUM MAGNUM rawtha hard to take. Reading 
endlessly about myths is not for me. It always struck me he needs a 
good exegetist but never have been sure he ever had one. The text 
for the first course, first semester of counseling in graduate school 
dealt with Jung but it was just a high level overview.