But Jung elsewhere suggests that Nietzsche was going through a mid-life crisis when he wrote Zarathustra. In addition, Jung says that what Nietzsche experienced at the time when he wrote Zarathustra was "the Dionysian stage of his initiation; it is the feeling of rebirth which always accompanies the revelation of Dionysos" (page 192). So Nietzsche's mid-life crisis involved the experience of the so-called Dionysian spirit, and the Dionysian stage of his initiation process filled him with a feeling of rebirth and was creative.
Most importantly, Jung suggests that the so-called Dionysian stage of the initiation process is not the culminating stage of the initiation process, but only a stage along the way toward the culminating stage of the initiation process. But Jung does not happen to delineate the further stages of the initiation process that Nietzsche would have to undergo, had he not descended into irreversible madness in 1889. He died in 1900.
Perhaps we can conclude from Jung's various comments that a dramatic mid-life crisis can be an important stage in one initiation process, but further stages will follow it if one lives long enough.
But can we connect Nietzsche's mid-life experience of the so-called Dionysian spirit with the experience of the holy as Otto describes this kind of experience? Or does the experience of the holy involve an entirely different kind of experience of the spirit? Jung himself does not undertake to explain whether or not there is any connection between the so-called Dionysian spirit and the spirit involved in the experience of the holy as described by Otto. Nevertheless, the two different experiences of the spirit are probably related.
Jung repeatedly claims that Nietzsche is a very one-sided person. According to Jung, Nietzsche has over-developed what Jung refers to as his intuitive function, with a secondary strength involving his thinking function. As a result, Jung characterizes Nietzsche as having serious under-developed sensing and feeling/valuing functions.
Jung's claim about Nietzsche having a seriously under-developed feeling/valuing function fits with one central theme in Zarathustra and some of his other works -- namely the theme of revaluing values, especially the conventional Christian values in his time of good and evil. Nietzsche had studied ancient Persian and the Zoroastrian religious scriptures. He saw the Zoroastrian religion as influencing the ancient emerging Christian tradition of thought about good and evil. (The Zoroastrian religion also contributed to the ancient Christian view of Satan.)
Now, as I noted by introducing William James's use of the term noetic, deep experiences of the spirit usually lead a person to undergo something like a revaluation of values in his or her life. Moreover, it strikes me that many people undergo a revaluation of values more than once in their lives. But most people are not quite as dramatic about it as Nietzsche was when he went through his mid-life crisis.
CONCLUSION
Now, Jung likes to work with what he styles two principles of life: (1) the principle of the spirit and (2) the principle of the body (page 401; also see page 808).
Because poor health forced Nietzsche to retire from his position at the University of Basel in 1879, there can be no doubt that he had learned some things about his body the hard way. Not surprisingly, he devotes a subsection to "On the Despisers of the Body." Not surprisingly, he characterizes certain preachers as despisers of the body. As we might suspect, he was referring to Christians preachers as the despisers of the body. Historically, a strong anti-body bias has been a big part of Christianity.
Today the Roman Catholic bishops are among the major perpetrators of the anti-body views in Christianity. For example, they claim that masturbation is "intrinsically evil," that artificial contraception is "intrinsically evil," and that legalized abortion in the first trimester is "intrinsically evil." But these three positions of theirs show how strongly ingrained their anti-body views are. Unfortunately, they are notoriously stubborn. Evidently, their religious zealotry makes it almost impossible to change their anti-body views and attitudes. In addition, their pre-modern Tradition of thought predisposes them not to adapt to the modern world as it has developed since the Gutenberg printing press emerged in the 1450s.
But Jung is probably right when he suggests that the principle of the spirit needs to be connected with the principle of the body. For this reason the religious zealotry of the Roman Catholic bishops in their opposition to masturbation, artificial contraception, and legalized abortion in the first trimester is NOT a healthy spirituality for people in the modern world today. In short, the Roman Catholic bishops represent a disordered approach to life.
DIGRESSION. Concerning a healthy spirituality, see Anthony de Mello's book The Way to Love: Meditations for Life (Image, 2012). Concerning the principle of the body, see Michael Murphy's book The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution of Human Nature (Tarcher, 1992) and Robert Masters and Jean Houston's book Listening to the Body: The Psychophysical Way to Health and Awareness (Delacorte, 1978). END OF DIGRESSION.
(Article changed on July 23, 2014 at 12:56)
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