Cognitive Integration as Sanctification?
“The only crime is pride.” ― Sophocles.
There is a temptation to regard the theory of the 4 Sides of the Mind, and any related aspects of Jungian psychology, philosophy, science, and history that contribute to our understanding of personality with religious zeal.
This temptation to regard it with religious zeal emerges when we find things in life that work. A new diet, a new fad, a new book — or perhaps an old diet, fad, or book, rediscovered — we elevate it on a pedestal.
“This, THIS is what’s going to turn my life around!”
Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. Whether we are justified in regarding these “fixes” with religious zeal is a question left up to us. Though, I suspect, like most things, some aspects are justified, and others are not.
We all like to rest in security of our own knowledge. Further, we love it when we think of the solution, when we are helpful, when we see what happens before it happens, and when we push through adversity and reach our goal. We love to be our own liberators.
The danger of knowledge is that it can be treated as a master key that will free us from all our shackles. We feel powerful, perhaps all-powerful, amidst the unique insights revealed through secret knowledge.
But knowledge, while it can unlock some shackles, cannot unlock them all.
There was a moment in time, while studying Chase’s personality material where I felt: This is it.
Even as I felt this, I knew it wasn’t true. It wasn’t true that a piece of knowledge, no matter how profound, could provide the key to all the myriad of problems we face within this mortal coil.
This leads us to limitations of knowledge, specifically for the personality material we discuss in this space.
What are the limits to transformation, redemption, and prosperity can be found through the knowledge of the 4 Sides of the Mind and its accompanying material?
This question I leave with you. We will, by the periphery, answer the question with our explorations in the rest of the article.
What is the essence of “Cognitive Integration”?
If you were to sum up all the aims of everything taught about the 4 Sides of the Mind, the Cognitive Functions and Attitudes, Temples, and everything else we teach here into one word, what would that word be to you?
“Growth” is my choice.
The very language of Cognitive Development or Integration is built on the foundational aim of improvement. We want to get better, become more whole, understand ourselves a little bit better, understand others a little bit better, and, overall, be a little better for what we know.
We want to be more.
But what is at the end of growth? More growth? Death? Another life?
The Fad of Self Improvement
There are worse and better places to be than where we are now.
If you spend even a few minutes on YouTube, you are likely to come across a video or two claiming something like the following: “Try THIS New Technique!” with a thumbnail, “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!”
Perhaps these claims, initially, were meaningful. But after days, weeks, months, and years of being told that every little aspect of your life, “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!” … it starts to lose its meaning. You will start to sense the theme: Everyone has an opinion about the one, or several, thing(s) that will change my life.
And somehow, all these thousands of people you encounter, each with their own opinion, claim to have a silver bullet that will offer the transformation and growth that you’ve been looking for your whole life.
We live in a time that worships self-improvement. Our culture has sacrificed the lamb of personal integrity at the altar of self-improvement. I don’t need to be genuine or good, I simply must be better.
How painful then, do Jesus’ words cut when he says, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, this is the one who will save it.”
If you’re not religious or aren’t Christian, then fine — we are still not let off the hook. We are not let off the hook because Jesus wasn’t just describing a Christian ethic, he was revealing a universal principle.
How do we know this? Because amidst the spreading fanaticism of self-improvement, with those ideological obsessions with our own power over one’s life, we have still somehow become lonelier, more selfish, more isolated, and shallower than perhaps ever before in human history.
It is as if the very thing we sought, and unconsciously (or consciously) dedicated our lives to — self-improvement — has not only escaped from our grasp, but has been weaponized to destroy the very thing we were seeking to begin with.
And this, right here, is the same danger we face with all the content that we produce here at CSJ. We are spinning at the edge of a whirlpool of quicksand, where the integrity of the material will either be sucked into the fad of fanatical self-improvement, OR it will become something more, if it can be accepted to be something less.
The Path to Not Being a Selfish, Self-Obsessed, Self- “Improver”
I will not let my statement hang in the air for long. What does it mean when I say, “or it will become something more, if it can be accepted to be something less,” mean?
It means what the title of this article points to, if we are looking for sanctification through the 4 Sides of the Mind, we will not find it. That is not what it’s for.
Johnny Lee’s Lookin’ for Love seems almost too fitting here.
I was lookin’ for love in all the wrong places
Lookin’ for love in too many faces
Searchin’ their eyes
Lookin’ for traces of what I’m dreaming of
Hoping to find a friend and a lover
I’ll bless the day I discover another heart
Lookin’ for love
These lyrics reveal the necessity of self-reflection. The towering roots of expectations dictate our relationship to the things we pursue. We often look for things where they are not to be found.
What’s the solution, then? Do we use the 4 Sides of the Mind as our “theory of everything” to solve the universe from head to toe, and experience all the redemption, transformation, and connection a man could ask for?
Or, are we looking for sanctification in all the wrong places?
The Crown of Pride
“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.” — Saint Augustine
The weight of a human’s pride as the ultimate barrier to a better life is a theme whose roots run through antiquity.
In the Garden, the ever-clever Serpent knew exactly where to levy his social-engineering attack against the psyche of Adam and Eve. “For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.”
The seduction was too great. The serpent had them at the mention of “You will become like God.” We too, daily, face the temptation to regard ourselves as the beings who have it all — to be God-like — and that whatever feeling of incompleteness, incompetence, or insincerity we possess is someone else’s fault.
We often talk about the Hero function being a source of pride within our mind, psychologically. The Hero is naturally equipped with competence but comes with overzealousness and arrogance too. We resist using the Inferior because it’s hard and it hurts, and it reveals the fragility of the Hero. We don’t want to see our own vulnerability because that would mean our pride would be unjustified.
And it is the hubris of the Hero, and the hubris of us, to think that the Hero alone is enough to combat this existence. Part of us, deep down — maybe not even that deep — knows the Hero has severe limitations. But we ignore it, by default. And this creates the weight of pride. Pride is the closing off to further input or suggestion. It says, I am complete as I am, nothing else can add to what I know or who I am.
The true consequence of pride, however, is stagnation. Growth does not occur when pride is present. Pride causes us to discard the deeper tools of our personality. And if pride is the crown that prevents growth, then pride is the curse akin to death.
What are you looking for?
What are any of us looking for, but an answer? An answer that will allow us to live better lives. An answer that will bring us close to people we love — or perhaps find people that we love, to begin with. An answer that can transform the misery and tragedy in our lives into purpose and engagement. An answer that will transform the adversity presented through relationships, and the mystery of our lovers or spouses, and their discontent. And an answer to the puzzle of our own identity, and our significance amidst the cosmic planes.
We are here, studying Chase’s material and learning all this psychology, no doubt, because we want better lives. And why shouldn’t we?
The danger and the risks, however, lie in attributing the attainment of this knowledge to something it was never fit to fulfill. In matters of completeness, wholeness — Holiness: complete and lacking nothing — we should become suspicious of ourselves when we attribute merely knowing as the key to our sanctification and transformation.
But it is not only knowledge, but the assurance that we have all that it takes, that creates the danger. The risk of pride and stagnation runs ever hot in the veins of our own self-assurance. To overcome the Pride of the Hero and the Ego — let alone the “general” pride that every human deals with — is not a trivial task.
The irony is that the more we focus on overcoming pride, the more we treat it as an obstacle to be squashed by our mere will. That, if we just pushed a little harder, developed, and relied on our strength and knowledge a little bit better, pride would cease.
But pride is not “overcome” by more effort, by more push, or by newfound power. It is overcome by letting go, by relinquishing, by surrendering, and by submission. Many, by their own account, have not been able to effectively deal with pride without being shown the divine in some way to humble them.
But regardless of your theological perspective, the vital point that must be cut through is that the human condition is not something to be conquered by our mere will. Our wills are insufficient compared to the obstacle of pride.
Those who have treated their wills as sufficient have instigated atrocities whose casualties run beyond count. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, is it not? Even the serpent did this, through his spiel to Eve on self-empowerment.
The “opposite law,” described by many eastern philosophers and the great INFP, Alan Watts, can help us through this problem of “self-improvement.” The “opposite law” is revealed when we get the opposite of what we intended. The harder we try to chase something, the more it eludes our grasp. The harder we try not to sink in a pool, the harder it is to stay afloat. And the harder we try to transform ourselves, the less we change.
Applying this to human psychology, we are forced to contend with the deeper reality that strength, integration, “completion,” and wholeness are found through the embrace of weakness, fragmentation, division, and fear.
Because these characteristics — weakness, fragmentation, division, and fear — are what we are from birth. We are fragile beings with fragmented psyches, who are yet tempted to pride to regard ourselves as the ones that know.
How is it then, that one of the “wisest” men in existence, openly admitted that he knew nothing, and that his actions reflected just as much? Perhaps, whatever we’re looking for is first found in the embrace of limitation — our limitation. And in that humility, perhaps we are drawn to the doorsteps of the answer we are seeking.
To be a fad or not to be a fad?
So, which is it? Is all of Chase’s content just a hype train of self-empowering drivel meant to uphold all our ego-investments of self-importance, self-reliance, and “can do” mojo? Or is there a limitation, like all knowledge, to the scope of what we do here?
If it wasn’t for Chase’s constant incessance on the ultimate utility of wisdom — which includes the open embrace of unknowing — perhaps we would be right to label all his material as fad-like. As nothing more than a convenient “silver bullet” not dissimilar to the thousands of silver bullets peddled by all the other online “experts” who know how to fix your life in three easy steps.
But the theory of the 4 Sides of the Mind does not promise salvation, nor sanctification, or even transformation. But it does promise illumination — illumination of some things previously left in the dark. And in the dark, we find ourselves a small light that wasn’t there prior, that will help us see a little further. And in the light, our choices are given that much more weight.
And like all those who will not look within because they “don’t want to be put in a box,” those who refuse to look at their limitations are forever bound by them. And that is ultimately what the knowledge of depth psychology and 4 Sides of the Mind is about. The path to freedom is found through the acceptance of our limitations — and the acceptance of the reach knowledge can provide.
But there are all kinds of lights. But this light, the light that we focus on here, will show us a piece of the path that other lights cannot. And there, in the place that was once dark, we can now walk.
Love this article.
Acceptance of our limitations is so key. But it has become a lost virtue in the world of self-help books that emphasize such sayings as “You can do anything you put your mind to” and “Awaken the giant within.”
But few modern writers emphasize things like “know your limitations.”
Yet the ancient philosophers like Socrates did. Whose key phrase was “I know I know nothing.” And Jesus would ask us to humble ourselves like a little child. And Paul’s definition of charity started out by saying it “suffers long.”
But such things as accepting our smallness and suffering is shunned by modern self-help books that seem to say find the quickest and easiest way to become “big” in some form.
As a pilot of 10 years I learned no amount of wishful thinking could make you go higher or faster than the airplane could fly. And to just appreciate the speed and height it could go.
The whole “self-empowerment” schema of modern self-help books grosses me out. I wish more people went to flight school like you (: I feel like you Ne users are much faster to understand the tension between limitation and freedom. Us Ni users want it all, no holds barred, and we become prisoners for it.
That was informative and unorganized.
All of it could have been said in 4 lines.
I do agree with the opposite law but I think we gotta play both sides.
The journey is necessary to reach the destination.
Hello! There are too many loops and questions that don’t indicate anything specifically.
When I think of cognitive integration, I think of merging nature and nature with my understanding of myself. I can’t speak for others, but meditation does a great deal of answering questions you may have regarding life and the people in it. All the answers you may wonder about are inside of your mind.
Highly recommend meditation Jay.
In the words of YouTuber Thor Skywalker, https://youtu.be/z59cMaVMcGU higher levels of “strength” in the light side of the Force can only be attained by those who are willing to let go of their wants, their wants for power and control for their own sake, in order to control their emotions (stay calm), temper their use of the light side with WISDOM, and only use it with the greater good in mind. They are to rely on their instincts (trust in the Force, may the Force be with you blah blah blah).
This human need for sanctification, I would agree does need to be met and not with any one light among many other lights. In saying this I also acknowledge the fact that we as individuals are limited and we will need to remain open-minded to receive help that we need. However, where I disagree is that contrary to this article, I don’t see any limits to knowledge itself becoming a problem, why it isn’t enough, and I don’t believe tools such as Jungian typology should NOT be used as sanctification. Sure, they only help a small amount, but I will take every bit of sanctification I can get. I guess I am just being jaded about what does and doesn’t count as sanctification and don’t actually disagree on that issue. Look at me starting this comment with a run-on sentence. I will leave here with this question: if we are not using knowledge to solve our problems then what ARE we using? I would argue that it can be best thought of as merely instinct and that our self-awareness enables us to identify that SOMETHING worked for us.
“… if we are not using knowledge to solve our problems then what ARE we using? I would argue that it can be best thought of as merely instinct and that our self-awareness enables us to identify that SOMETHING worked for us.”
— My answer to this is simply that I an unconvinced that a human being can “save” himself through mere knowledge alone. Knowledge can assist in improving our lives. Little by little, over various topics, nutrition, fitness, science, history, philosophy, finance, self-improvement, etc. we may improve our life little by little. But I sense that there is an insatiable hole within every human, and I remain skeptical of anyone claiming to have the antidote to fill that hole.
Perhaps something beyond knowledge, perhaps the divine, is necessary. Or, perhaps the internal hole keeps us ever propelling forward, ever seeking. But there is no peace in that life and I maintain that there is at least some peace to be experienced in this world. But that belief — the existence of peace or not — is a choice each of us makes to believe in or not, and much it is based on whether we’ve experienced true peace, or not.
And I should have added, the Jedi are to rely on their instincts rather than SANCTIMONIUS self-righteousness which often abandons the greater good in my own experience. In its narrow-mindedness it starts to dehumanize people who are still human (they talk, walk, look, and sound like a human).
In my experience it’s often times diversity and adversity which provides wisdom. I have gotten my butt kicked a bunch and still deal with pride it’s not going away but if I keep relying on my friends and vice versa I can learn to shed personal bitterness. Growth is usually where you least expect it and there’s always a fine line between wishful thinking and knowing when you’re the one that has one of the potential correct answers. But I think we’ll be okay guys I mean we made it this far we’ll keep going :))
The wisest people I’ve met have suffered more than anyone I know. I wonder if there is a place a human can reach where they can thrive amidst adversity and suffering. I believe there is, though I don’t think it’s easy to find. I have experienced that at the other side of an adverse season in life, there is often newfound strength — but not always. Sometimes the fear of going through that akin outweighs the wisdom you might have gained. But, still, I think the place where a level of peace and adversity meet is worth looking for. Thank you for your comment.
You should read the manga Berserk because it really expresses many of the themes you talk about here.
I’ll look into it.
The interesting thing is that this entire post is you integrating/ developing your Fi critic.
My Fe demon found this a hard one to read ngl. But I respect the grind to find your values/ principles.
I appreciate it. I’m definitely looking to expand my wheelhouse. The grind ever continues (:
I really enjoyed this mix of truth and poetry. The information Chase presents is not wisdom in itself, but rather gives language and structure to the wisdom that we must all work out for ourselves. I already knew who I was, but it was valuable finding the words to help me better understand why I am that way. It helps me to put words to how other people are different and why we value different things. People can arrive at wisdom without this information. This information is a tool like any other and not a end in itself.
I agree, the information as always a means to an end. We simply become the users of those tools. I think it’s important for people to value life-experience over having specific-knowledge. Both are great, but I would choose life experience over knowledge. And, based on your post, I get the sense you would too.
I have suggested reaching cognitive integration is through the process of sanctification practically lived out. Yet without God, psychology of every kind is only a cheap counterfeit tool to mask the real internal work of putting sin to death and increasing in goodness.
Isn’t it greater pride to not acknowledge God creating the wiring for his purposes? Isn’t it a form of blindness to not see that He made within us the cognitive functions of each type as biology in motion? Are we not created as an interface to receive His holy and purifying will and way. Do we not choose to receive or reject His ways through a gracious process of growth practically lived out: through humbly submitting to God that we could not fill our empty void by our own way and works towards ourself, others, and unto Him?
Isn’t it a profound loss to label the creation He made as simply an illuminating tool for growth? But to what ends do we grow then, and by what empowerment if it is only just our own study of light? What a dim beam leading to nowhere! and growth in that case is to and for what meaning?!
The four sides proves the need for more, because it highlights what is good and evil within. As do all the foundations of Jungian study. Our biology itself is a teacher and a witness and a growth mechanism by the design of God. Romans 12 summarizes how we transform and consider others wiring and purpose, as well as other coordinating passages of Gods Word.
For Christians, knowing the exchanges of transformation is knowing practical supports to eradicate sin and grow in the knowledge of God Himself. Christ’s character, the ultimate soul heart body and mins temple, is the root of truth knowledge and strength. Instead is demon and angel functions as a standalone, we have an internal war for our good if we so choose to let God make us increasingly virtuous instead of increasingly sinful.
Integration is the end goal of sanctification said in non-Christian terms for the masses to either awaken understanding or think they can do things in their own power. Integration is impossible without the process of Gods work within of sanctification, and isn’t available until salvation is fully realized. Full integration is equal to glorification, realized by the power of God at resurrection to life, for those who believe Christ the Son of God died for this complete end.
I do believe it is illogical to believe in the 4 Sides Dynamics and deny the existence of a creator. We will not be at peace if we place ourselves on the throne of ultimate authority.
In His own image. Likeness.
I’m sorry I’m pissed right now at how close-minded you are.
See what they see. Not what you see.
What more excuse do you have? Denier.
…has a form of godliness but denies it.
It’s better to just leave you in the desert to rot, if that is the most effective and efficient way for you to see and understand.
See it from their eyes. Not the eyes of humans.
Why did God, the creator, All-Knowing, etc.. let Serpent do his job? Be a serpent.
Wise as serpents. Innocent as doves.
See it from their eyes. Why?
If it is true. To include your weakness AND strength. Why?
Pissed. So pissed. Leaving you is the right choice. Effective choice.
Both sides. Burden. Responsibility. You’re humble to it. Surrendering.
I understand you want to be humble. If your humility leads to stagnation, lying yourself in rest, in surrender, then your humility is stagnation in disguise.
Pride is a stance. Humility is surrender. You can feel it in your muscles.
You need pride to STAND. On your own. Stance. Place. Move.
Surrender, I see you, submission to the Way. Way=Will. Will=Way. Way of Life. The Tao.
I also see you… as limp. Sluggish. Weak. If your always weak and you keep speading this, then you better stop spreading your “humility” right now. Corrupting others to that way. “Humility” Your humility.
Pride. Painful for your eyes for a reason. Your close-minded. Get out of your house. And on your roof, See. Be. ON. IT. Not in it. BE ON YOUR HOUSE. Your Box.
Beyond Pride, beyond your house there is…. are other people. Living.
Taking their stand. You? Lying.
Yes, my Si hero definitely values life experience. Humility can be gained by realizing that your greatest strengths and your greatest weaknesses are two sides of the same coin. Learning that your way of seeing the world is not the only valid way. These are expressed very well by Jungian psychology, but Life teaches these things to most of us in time. I’m not sure that integration is the best way to think of it. We can not be all things. I can develop other sides of my personality. I can listen to other points of view. Still, I am best served by being the best Si hero that I can be and letting that be enough.
Arril Mike, what IS the point?
I want to say: I don’t know.
I can say:
To meet yourself all over again.
Reach yourself all over again.
See yourself.
=Know who you are again.
Spiritually,yes.
Bodily, again, be burdened?
If you want to, again. All over.
Why? “again.”
What if we are but an energy expansion mechanism of the universe?
The duality that pervades all our mental, emotional and spiritual processes suggests a dynamo type of creative mechanism that expands awareness, both at individual and collective levels.
It seems to me the 3rd Newtons law suggests that there is no “salvation” apart from perspective 🙂 how freeing is that?
Does that mean every quest is purposeless? I don’t think so. Maybe we decide which pairs os duality go forth. But probably there is so much that we fail to grasp about truth.
Learning about our cognition and its mechanisms is like observing/understanding our patterns and allows us to change our perspective (widening it or narrowing it).
Even though it might entertain our projections about the future, change our perception of the present or our judgment of the past, being therefore a powerful awareness tool it does not crack what awareness is.
We all know what is yet I wonder if we will ever know it fully.
Good reflection material 🙂
“In matters of completeness, wholeness — Holiness: complete and lacking nothing — we should become suspicious of ourselves when we attribute merely knowing as the key to our sanctification and transformation … one of the “wisest” men in existence, openly admitted that he knew nothing, and that his actions reflected just as much?”
“ there are all kinds of lights. But this light, the light that we focus on here, will show us a piece of the path that other lights cannot. And there, in the place that was once dark, we can now walk.”
Well said 👍
Knowledge is mindfulness of what is true.
Wisdom is the good and accurate application of knowledge.
Sanctification is the process by which we learn through education, edification, and acts of service how to behave “holy” or “righteous”.
What or whose standard or metric do we use in what value system?
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”
Light from the sun is essential for life and growth of living things. Ex. Plants for photosynthesis; humans for vitamin D. Light is a survival tool to assist with sight, warmth, and deters predators.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil. Thy rod and staff comfort me.”
The staff or animal prod is a tool to guide, direct, and combat predators.
Re-reading this a couple months later … thank you for your added references and analogies. I love that you integrated the “light” theme all the way from the spiritual to the cells of our body needing fuel from the sun to be propelled forward.
Knowledge is a tool not the be all end all. Learn how to better use knowledge to obtain “enlightenment” however you define that concept in your life.