in respect to the videos on this channel
people really seem to like it when I
combine psychological concepts with
popular culture they tend to be my most
popular videos whether it's the
psychoanalysis of Silent Hill or the
unconscious madness of The Shining one
question I have received from some
people is what made me decide to study
psychology in the first place and then
apply it to video games and movies well
believe it or not it is thanks to a
youtube video I saw in late 2016 I'm
sure many of you have heard of a man
named Jordan Peterson the clinical
psychologist from Canada who first came
to notoriety back in late 2016 and who
has grown in popularity ever since then
well back when he was teaching at the
University of Toronto he would record
his lectures and post them on YouTube
one specific lecture he gave was what
ultimately motivated me to study
psychology it was given back in 2014 on
the famous Swiss psychoanalyst named
Carl Jung as my regular viewers already
know Jung is a mainstay and much of my
content and it's because of Peterson's
lecture here that I started reading Jung
if it weren't for this lecture and
Peterson's subsequent lectures I would
never have done videos on Silent Hill
Shadow of the Colossus the heart of
darkness
and more almost everything that Petersen
brought up in this lecture is something
I have gone out of my way to study
almost everything I have studied from
that lecture and from other lectures has
been integrated into my own content
except for one thing there is one thing
that Petersen brings up in this specific
lecture that I have not studied that is
up until very recently the thing that he
brings up is the subject of this new
series of videos allow me to play you a
brief clip from this lecture it will
serve as an effective introduction now
for you he wrote a book called ion for
example and if you want to have
nightmares for the rest of your life
that's a really good book to read I mean
it says terrified he is young what he
did in that book basically was
investigating the fantasy that he
believed that all of Western
civilization had been predicated on for
the last 4,000
because what you really believed in what
drove human-beings was and it's a Fijian
perspective in some weird ways was the
revelation of the success of unconscious
revelation of fantasies were at the
forefront of them our movement into
unknown territory so it's like there's
unknown territory and then there's known
territory but there's this weird
intermediary space between them and that
intermediary space where you kind of
know what kind of don't know that's
where your imagination plays and of
course that's the case right because
when you encounter something and you
really don't know much about it you
imagine what it might be and so it takes
on the structures of your imagination
and so in some sense what you're dealing
with as you move through history expand
your domain of knowledge into the
unknown is you encounter your own
fantasy anyways if you want to know
about that you have to grieve like
volume 9 and 9 9 1 and 9 2 of you know
once called archetypes of the collective
unconscious and the others called ion
but like it'll take you a while to crack
them you have to beat your head against
those books quite a bit because what
what Jung is outlining in some sense is
so shocking it's almost impossible to
grasp once you get the picture all of a
sudden things flip around does he
understand what he's talking about but
before then it's tough going the one
thing about this lecture that has
perpetually intrigued me was Peterson's
citation of Jung's book called ion and
how it supposedly would give those who
read it nightmares for the rest of their
lives naturally upon hearing this fact
ion was the first book from Jung that I
tried to read I wish somebody could have
told me that this would end up being a
bad idea but not because the book gave
me nightmares
at first the reason why it was a bad
idea is the same reason why you don't
start watching Game of Thrones in the
middle of the pith season Carl Jung
wrote I on expecting that those who read
it would have read a substantial amount
of what he wrote leading up to it when I
began to understand Jung's more basic
concepts like the shadow the collective
unconscious
psychology's links to religion I on
began to open itself up to me when that
happened I started to see what Peterson
was talking about I started to
understand what
was that gave him nightmares now granted
he's likely being somewhat facetious
when he says you will have nightmares
for the rest of your life yet there's
likely some uncomfortable feeling
motivating that choice of words after
all when I had the opportunity to
briefly talk to Peterson back in late
2017 at one of his public appearances I
talked to him briefly about ion and when
I did his first response to me was oh
that's the terrifying book I think it's
fair to say that if something terrifies
you it's something that you tend to
think about on a regular basis it's
something that has permanently altered
your character in some way I think it's
fair to say that because when I reread I
on and started to get what Young was
talking about it really helped me to
understand the motivating forces that
drive Peterson and his utterances much
of what he said in his public biblical
lectures and his university lectures
seems to branch off from the content of
this book with that in mind I thought it
might be useful to explain to people
what this book says my mission with this
new series of videos is to go through
ion and do a video for each chapter I
will present the basic message of each
chapter the arguments Jung presents in
favor of that message and how these
contents might terrify somebody like
Peterson I believe this will be useful
not just to people who are fans of
Peterson but also to people who aren't
by understanding the psychological and
metaphysical assumptions that drive
somebody like Peterson one can critique
them we can determine if they have some
sort of value or if they have no value
whatsoever my approach to this content
will attempt to mirror Young's approach
to his own content as jung said in the
foreword for this book he did not write
as someone confessing faith but merely
as a physician a psychologist as I
present the content in this book I will
attempt to present it as an unbiased
researcher emphasis on the word attempt
I will try not to pass judgment on the
validity of the content but merely
present it that way you can derive your
own conclusions my understanding of this
content will be based on my own
interpretations but those
interpretations will be aided from two
sources on the one hand I will be citing
a study done by two Jungian analysts
called the eye on lectures written by
Edward F ed Inger and edited by Deborah
a Wesley I have also watched several
streams about eye on from a YouTube
channel called uber boyo the two
gentlemen who have done those streams
Stefan and James have given me their
blessing to do my own series of videos
on ion to conclude this preface I would
like to provide a brief introduction to
the first chapter of ion let's start by
laying out what an ion is in the
simplest terms it is a long period of
time an age if you will obviously the
use of the word ion can be subjective
the amount of time one refers to when
saying ion depends on the person saying
it for Carl Jung the type of ion he is
referring to is that of the Platonic
month which is a period of two thousand
years as for what a platonic month a is
and why it lasts two thousand years
here's a diagram to help you this is
from the Afro mentioned text the ion
lectures what you see here is a basic
diagram of the universe the dot at the
center is the Sun the dots orbiting the
Sun is of course the earth at different
periods of time the big circle that
encompasses all of this are the
constellations in the sky note the
astrological names given to each section
of the circle note these two dots in the
circle representing Earth's orbit one
says one ad and another says 2080 at any
time between these two thousand years if
one were to look at the Sun from Earth
at the spring equinox you would see the
constellation of Pisces in the sky at
the moment the constellation in the sky
seems to be moving from Pisces to
Aquarius throughout the course of a on
Yonge focuses on the period of two
thousand years also known as the ion
slash Age of Pisces he does this because
throughout this period of two thousand
years there was a serious change going
on in the psychology of the Western man
namely how the symbol of Christ entered
the world and defined the Age of Pisces
as the Christian eye on young
investigates why Christianity had such a
strong influence on people from a
psychological perspective he
investigates a lot of not just Christian
but religious symbology and the forms it
emerged in during this age namely the
symbolism of Christ as the fish and how
that coincides with the Age of Pisces
which is also symbolized by fish before
we get to any of that however it is
necessary to understand how Jung
conceptualized
the human mind he does this for the
first four chapters it is only around
Chapter five that things become as
Peterson would say terrifying once one
understands what the ego the shadow the
syzygy and the self are the contents of
ion open up in the next video we will
start with the ego
you
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