Hi James. Thanks very much for your friendly response, despite my criticism of your article. That is how things should be. I admit to being sometimes feisty and provocative when challenging others, my purpose being to stimulate the debate, and hopefully help to attract the attention of others. Sometimes the author is not quite so friendly when responding.
Incidentally, my response was only something I put together quickly, brief comments and nothing in-depth, yet it has turned out to be my most successful article ever, significantly more claps than anything else I've written, and the first time I've ever had 100 clappers. So I must have struck a chord, which is great for both of us as lovers of Jung.
I agree that we cannot expect the mainstream to bend to Jung, but that is because they are so blinkered and prejudiced. They should bend to him, however, because they would learn much. That's why we have to keep working at the project of a new synthesis that you mention – I call this the reunification of science and religion.
It's interesting that your non-mention of the archetypes was intentional. As was obvious from my criticism, I find it hard to understand how “what the collective unconscious is” can be explained without mentioning them. As I said, I thought you were only telling half the story.
To talk about Jung, the archetypes, and the collective unconscious with clarity is difficult, because his thinking developed over the years. I haven't studied this in depth, but from what I've read I believe that the instinctual aspect you describe was incorporated in his later years, while his earlier period was more metaphysical. The evidence for this is that he latterly coined the term 'psychoid' to describe the archetypes as partly psychic, partly material/instinctual. I don't think this means that he abandoned the psychic/ metaphysical dimension. That's why I say that your assertion that “the collective unconscious is an empirical phenomenon and the archetypes are instincts developed through our evolutionary past” only tells part of the story, and in fact may be misleading if stated in those precise terms. So I think that there is evidence in Jung's texts to justify your suspicion that Jung may be more metaphysical than he appears in the texts you refer to.
Ken Wilber may have a big mind and a lot to say, but I don't think he is infallible. (Coincidentally, on that theme I have recently written an article about his thoughts on quantum physicists and spirituality, which I found especially wanting.) Is it really true that the archetypes can only have the wisdom of the ancestors? Perhaps they can have the wisdom of the gods.
By the way, are you aware of the brilliant philosopher Bernardo Kastrup and his book Decoding Jung's Metaphysics. You might think that would be several hundred pages, but it's actually quite short.
