(writing by me) Demons - The Collective Unconscious - Conducting the Higher Will

While it is true that Jung “came to see the psyche as an inherently more spiritual and fluid place, an ocean that could be fished for enlightenment” he also recognized that great care must be taken by the individual when delving into his or her unconscious and possibly even much more care should be taken when going beyond that into the collective unconscious.

From ‘Two essays on analytical psychology’ by Jung, Francis, Hull.

“We are greatly mistaken if we think that the unconscious is something harmless that could be made into an object of entertainment, a parlor game.”

“It is as if one were digging an artesian well and ran the risk of stumbling on a volcano.”

From a psychological perspective, nearly every positive achievement is made by bringing some part of our lower nature under our control. If you meditate you may be bringing the wandering mind under control. If you exercise, the mind may be bringing it’s body under control and consciously willing it to exercise instead of sitting on the couch watching TV. The same thing goes for studying, learning to play music, even learning to walk. An infant must learn to bring it’s body under it’s control, so that when it wills to stand up and walk forward, he or she will be able to accomplish what they intended instead of an unintended, random event occurring, such as falling down, or going sideways off course etc. But does the same kind of logic really apply to demons? Well, as your mind is expanding and unfolding to it’s greater potential, then more of the unconscious must be explored, and accepted, but it must also be brought under control to some extent. There is a point where the individual is not just dealing with their own microcosm of personal unconscious, but they have moved to a new level where they are bringing more of their own extended being into their awareness and under their control. This is the Macrocosm, the next level up from the microcosm of the individual mind. At this level the same kinds of things apply that applied at the lower, individual level. One still needs to bring their lower nature under their control so that progress can be made; only now, at this higher level, these lower natures are of the collective unconscious.

In dealing with these forces, a comparison could be made to a rocket engine. The way a rocket engine works is by controlling and directing what would otherwise be one big destructive explosion that gets you nowhere. Alternatively, instead of working against yourself, this is about getting the different parts of yourself to work and move in the same direction as intended by the will. As Jung said, "Our most hated, feared, or shamed qualities are the ones that hold the key to living the life of our dreams." (See my writing on Thelema - Ethics and Shadow Work for more on this.)

"The Lower Self is sometimes referred to in Jungian terms as the shadow because of the dark, powerful, potentially violent energies that reside there. It is important to point out that the Middle Self [The Middle Self is what we experience in day-to-day, moment-to-moment life.] is primarily ideas, thoughts, and organized processes that have very little energy in their own right, whereas the Lower Self is mainly emotions, energy, and actions that have little intelligence behind them and no rational capacity. The Middle Self thinks and plans, but the Lower Self simply acts on what it is told. It is synthetic in function. However, without the energy of the Lower Self all the good ideas of the Middle Self are worthless. Plans collect dust, and dreams fade into the darkness of death. Only with the skilled direction and cultivation of the raw emotions of the Lower Self is anything accomplished in the material or psychic domains. Through proper training, suggestion, and specific practices, the Lower Self will accept the directions of the Middle Self, thereby opening up awareness of the world of miracles...

Bringing the energies of the Lower Self into full cooperation and direction of the Middle Self, so that an effective channel to the Higher Self can be opened, is the work of various schools of ritual magic, Tantra, and alchemy... 

Tantra uses the energies of the body, particularly stimulation of the physical sensations to stimulate emotions that in turn are directed by the ego to open a pathway for the superconsciousness of the Higher Self to pour through." - Mark Stavish, Between the Gates

We come to find that our True Will is emanating from the highest part of ourselves, and flowing through us. When you stand in that current, you direct the lower in accordance with the higher will. Everybody has a positive and negative pole. The positive pole receives the will from the higher self and directs it into results by conducting the higher will through to the lower. In Thelema, this higher self, or a Crowley would like to say, this "truer self", is called the Holy Guardian Angel. Once this connection with the HGA is established, the Adept will be guided and educated by the HGA in the ways that he/she may safely explore, guide and direct, or interact with the demons beneficially for such purposes as self knowledge and understanding, self growth, and for the benefit of all mankind, as, for example, Solomon, who was enabled to build the Temple by commanding demons. (See my writing on Baphomet - Alchemy - The Temple of Solomon for more information on the Temple built within.)

Abra-melin reveals that each of us is linked to a spiritual being whom he calls the Holy Guardian Angel. Until we have become spiritually wedded to this being, we are not fully equipped as human beings to rule the denizens of our lower nature or advance spiritually. The primary focus of the Abra-Melin operation is union (Knowledge and Conversation) with one's Holy Guardian Angel. Until this is accomplished, it is useless to even attempt to manipulate the circumstances of life because we are as yet spiritually unprepared to adequately comprehend the nature of our true will, and so incompetent to exercise that will upon the cosmos. After Knowledge and Conversation is achieved the Angel becomes the magician's counselor and directs from a position of supreme wisdom all subsequent magical activities.

While the term "Holy Guardian Angel" used in this capacity appears to have originated with the Sacred Magick of Abra-Melin the Mage, the concept of a personal divine entity is unquestionably much older. Zoroaster writes of the Agathosdaimon, a personal guardian spirit who must be contacted before any theurgic ceremony is initiated....The Platonic philosophers taught that between humanity and the gods there exists an intermediate class of spiritual beings called Daemonos [not the same as demon]. Each individual is assigned a personal daemon and it is the daemon, not the gods, who directly hears and answers the prayers of our race. Socrates called his daemon "genius."" - Lon Duquette - Angels, Demons, and Gods of the New Millenium

Other notes:

Jung’s point of view - "Alchemy," the Dutch scholar said, "is the Yoga of the Gnostics."

“[Alchemy] represented the historical link with Gnosticism, and . . . a continuity therefore existed between past and present. Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed the bridge on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious.” – Jung
From Wikipedia – Carl Jung

This is a psychological process of integrating the conscious with the unconscious while still maintaining conscious autonomy.



From Wikipedia – Carl Jung

Based on his study of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Taoism, and other traditions, Jung perceived that this journey of transformation, which he called individuation, is at the mystical heart of all religions.



From Wikipedia – Carl Jung

Jung agreed with Freud's model of the unconscious, what Jung called the 'personal unconscious,' but he also proposed the existence of a second, far deeper form of the unconscious underlying the personal one. This was the collective unconscious, where the archetypes themselves resided, represented in mythology by a lake or other body of water, and in some cases a jug or other container.



From ‘C. G. Jung and the Alchemical Renewal by Stephan Hoeller.

While the tensional relationship of the opposites remains the great operational mechanism of manifest life and of transformation, this relationship exists within the context of a unitary world-model wherein matter and spirit, King and Queen, appear as aspects of a psychoid realm of reality. The ever-repeated charge of radical dualism leveled against Gnostics and their alchemical kin is thus reduced to a misunderstanding by this last, and perhaps greatest, insight of Jung. The workings of the cosmos, both physical and psychic, are characterized by duality, but this principle is relative to the underlying reality of the unus mundus. Dualism and monism are thus revealed not as mutually contradictory and exclusive but as complimentary aspects of reality.