Jungian Interpretation of the Ten Commandments

Jungian Interpretation of the 10 Commandments 1 EXODUS 20: 1 And God spake all these words, saying, 20:2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. I speak to you as the center that unifies your lives as unity not a multiplicity. I have helped you out of profound states of psychic dissociation when your unified center was missing, such as when you have been addicted to substances which is truly a house with bondage 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 20:4 Thou shalt not makeunto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 20:6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Although your ego develops out of an initial state of idolatry where one archetypal aspect or power is exalted at the expense of the whole, do not stay in your early developmental stages forever. 3. 20:7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Do not act, speak or claim about yourself that you are in harmony with the Self, operating out of wholeness. This is a dangerous disregard for the reality of the shadow. 4. 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 20: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do anywork, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 20: 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, these, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it Bring your transpersonal goals into specific time. Take specific time out in the week to rest from your secondary goals to acknowledge your larger goals. 20: 12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. Respect and keep sacred the archetypal images within you such as the wise old woman and the wise old man that connect you to the roots of the tree of life on which you are but a twig. 1Wolfe-Blaru:: on Edinger on Jung on Moses 20: 13 Thou shalt not kill. Do not repress yourselves overmuch, this is a self-killing,· do not deny the right of one of your psychic contents to exist in your consciousness. 20: 14 Thou shalt not commit adultery. Do not mix and adulterate valuable material with something inferior. Try not to violate your highest perceived values by paying most of your attention to lesser values. 20: 15 Thou shalt not steal. Be not presumptuously identifying as the Self in which you act out your ego inflation, losing the distinctions between what belongs to you and what does not. 20: 16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Be honest about the shadow (your neighbour) and do not deny its existence by projecting it, saying, "I am good. The source of evil is to be found in the other." This is another commandment that is necessarily broken in the early phases of ego development. In the beginning the shadow must be denied to allow the ego to crystallize. Once the ego has sufficiently developed, seek to move out of the early phases of massive shadow denial. 20: 17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. Transform through your consiousness even the primal desires that flow through you. As you find intense desire in yourselves, seek to find the desire (for happiness, completion, etc.,) within the desire. This innermost desire can be attained in more direct ways that do not divide yourself from your shadow projections more than you already are. Find a way to make conscious peace with your shadow self instead. In this way you transform God as incarnated in your desire.