John Van Eenwyk, one of the authors we have already cited, focuses on the unconscious (and particularly the Jungian unconscious) as a major source of meaning and (I would suggest) our anticipations. Van Eenwyk (1997, p. 37) suggests that we must consider the role played by the unconscious and, in particular, the symbolic manifestations of unconscious content as related to our everyday construction of meaning:
“. . . we need to see the everyday events and circumstance as having meaning—a meaning that relates directly to the issue at hand. For example, if we arrive at the door of the office to deliver our application and find it locked, and the secretary refuses to listen to our entreaties, we should consider bowing to circumstances and walking away instead of trying to beat the door down.
Jung called this active role that the archetypes play in resolving the conflicts generated by the synchronic dynamics of individuation the transcendent function. He defines it as: A natural process, a manifestation of the energy that springs from the tension of opposites, and it consists in a series of fantasy-occurrences which appear spontaneously in dreams and visions. [Jung, Two Essays, par. 121.]”
I propose that these fantasy occurrences might be carried by the peremptory ideational train as it travels through and influences the content of our dreams and visions.
Synchronicity: it is in this final statement that Van Eenwyk brings up one of Jung’s most controversial concepts –this being synchronicity. For Jung (1960), there are no accidental relationships between one event and a second event. Even if there is no causal connection between the two events, there can be an important a-causal relationship that contains something of importance (such as the secretary’s refusal). Placed in the context of meaning-making and anticipation, Jung’s concept of synchronicity and Van Eenwyk’s emphasis on a “symbolic attitude” suggest that the seeming non-content of nothingness can strongly influence the way in which we view and act in the world. We “believe” that the nothingness of non-causally connected events is filled with an important “something.” There is something that these events are telling us. Our peremptory ideational train is conveying a message to us about something about which we are ignorant (nothingness). This is something that we must learn.
While it may be important for us to be symbolically attuned and conscious of that which is usually unconscious, it is also critical that we are discerning about that which we should attend and what we must learn from unconscious sources – or even from God (given that the “Devil” can be disguised as a divine source). What is the source of our personal anticipation and the meaning we assign to specific events—and people? Is our assignment based on a rigid, socially-determined anticipation that is aligned with our equally as rigid socially-constructed self—what Jungians call the Persona.
As Van Eenwyk (1997, p. 33) notes, our Persona tends to operate on the basis of acceptance and rejection. Is it really valid and developmentally mature for us to base our meaning and our anticipations on the probability that other people will find us acceptable? Wilhelm Reich (1933/1980) observed that we can be shielded by character armor to avoid rejection. At this point, as I have suggested regarding the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, there is not only the rigidity of the armor but also the lost sense of one’s heart (Bergquist, 2006).
