Uranus, Aquarius, 11th house and Understanding Self-realisation through Individuation

Jung developed the notion of individuation, the lifelong process in which the centre of psychological life shifts from the ego to the self.  Maslow defined self-actualization as:The impulse to convert oneself into what one is capable of being.  Both individualisation and self actualisation are not states we become but rather ongoing processes throughout adult life, one cannot become individualised or self actualised but may at certain moments by self actualising or individualising.

All of Maslow’s subjects reported the frequent occurrence of peak experiences (temporary moments of self-actualization). These occasions were marked by feelings of ecstasy, harmony, and deep meaning. Self-actualizers reported feeling at one with the universe, stronger and calmer than ever before, filled with light, beautiful and good, and so forth.  “Abe Maslow was unhappy with what happened with many people when they read what he wrote about ‘self-actualizing people’. What they did with it was very strange. I have received a fair number of letters saying ‘I am a self-actualized person’. Maslow said that he must have left something out. Fritz (Perls) put it in. He saw that most people actualized a self-concept. This is not self-actualizing.”

Self actualisation is the process of using our talents and skills to optimum effect in what ever situation we find ourselves in life.

According to Jung, self-realization is attained through individuation. His is an adult psychology, divided into two distinct tiers. In the first half of our lives, we separate from humanity. We attempt to create our own identities (I, myself). This is why there is such a need for young men to be destructive, and can be expressed as animosity from teens directed at their parents. Jung also said we have a sort of “second puberty” that occurs between 35-40- outlook shifts from emphasis on materialism, sexuality, and having children to concerns about community and spirituality.  In the second half of our lives, humans reunite with the human race. They become part of the collective once again. This is when adults start to contribute to humanity (volunteer time, build, garden, create art, etc.) rather than destroy. They are also more likely to pay attention to their unconscious and conscious feelings. Young men rarely say “I feel angry.” or “I feel sad.” This is because they have not yet rejoined the human collective experience, commonly reestablished in their older, wiser years, according to Jung. A common theme is for young rebels to “search” for their true selves and realize that a contribution to humanity is essentially a necessity for a whole self.  It is a completely natural process necessary for the integration of the psyche.

Gilbert Simondon developed a theory of individual and collective individuation in which the individual subject is considered as an effect of individuation rather than a cause. Thus, the individual atom is replaced by a never-ending ontological process of individuation.

Simondon also conceived of “pre-individual fields” which make individuation possible. Individuation is an ever-incomplete process, always leaving a “pre-individual” left over, which makes possible future individuations. Furthermore, individuation always creates both an individual subject and a collective subject, which individuate themselves concurrently.

The philosophy of Bernard Stiegler essential points are the following:

• The I, as a psychic individual, can only be thought in relationship to we, which is a collective individual. The I is constituted in adopting a collective tradition, which it inherits and in which a plurality of I ’s acknowledge each other’s existence.

• This inheritance is an adoption, in that I can very well, as the French grandson of a German immigrant, recognize myself in a past which was not the past of my ancestors but which I can make my own. This process of adoption is thus structurally factual.

• The I is essentially a process, not a state, and this process is an in-dividuation — it is a process of psychic individuation. It is the tendency to become one, that is, to become indivisible.

• This tendency never accomplishes itself because it runs into a counter-tendency with which it forms a metastable equilibrium. (It must be pointed out how closely this conception of the dynamic of individuation is to the Freudian theory of drives and to the thinking of Nietzsche)

• The we is also such a process (the process of collective individuation). The individuation of the I is always inscribed in that of the we, whereas the individuation of the we takes place only through the individuations, polemical in nature, of the I ’s which constitute it.

• That which links the individuations of the I and the we is a pre-individual system possessing positive conditions of effectiveness that belong to what Stiegler calls retentional apparatuses. These retentional apparatuses arise from a technical system which is the condition of the encounter of the I and the we — the individuation of the I and the we is in this respect also the individuation of the technical system.

• The technical system is an apparatus which has a specific role wherein all objects are inserted — a technical object exists only insofar as it is disposed within such an apparatus with other technical objects

 

Self actualisation is the process of utilising our skills to make the best of any situation and individuation is the process of becoming a whole person through being part of a community and working towards its benefit, both of these themes are important aspects of the process of maturing and they represent the ideals of Uranus, Aquarius, 11th house which is part-taking in the ongoing process of human life through community and common good for all.

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