14. Main elements and basic psychological functions.

As I said before, the Mandala of Characters is a combination of three personality typologies. These are:

• Ancient Typology,
• “Psychological Types” created by Carl Gustav Jung,
• and Enneagram.

As for now, in this description of the construction of the Mandala, I was talking about the Ancient Typology. Personally, the Ancient Typology charmed me very much, and I have great respect for it. In my opinion, among others fascinating in this Typology are:

• The way it is built.
  In the Ancient Typology, remarkable is its simplicity. This simplicity, however, is very unusual. It is because behind it lies great knowledge that has been accumulated for a very long time. The construction of the Ancient Typology is relatively easy to remember. It is especially easy to remember where the individual main Elements are. That is, Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. In my opinion, the Ancient Typology is an unusual symbol, scheme, or map of our psyche.
  Personally, I decided that Ancient Typology is best suited to be the foundation of the Mandala of Characters. And so I did. On the foundation of the Ancient Typology, I placed appropriately two other great personality typologies. That is, Jung’s “Psychological Types” and Enneagram.
• Symbolism.
  Ancient Typology is very symbolic, and in my opinion, it is its great value. That is why I use this symbolism very widely in the Mandala. For example, I used the main Elements and their qualities to create names in the main types of the Mandala of Characters. Admittedly, for people who lived in ancient times, it was not only symbolic knowledge but also practical knowledge which they use in everyday life. However, this fact of using this knowledge in life for probably several thousand years only strengthens the current symbolic meaning. Indeed, thanks to the very long time of using ancient symbols, they are deeply rooted in or culture, art, and our psyche.

Below I remind the scheme of Ancient Typology.

I also recall the types of characters that I created based on Ancient Typology. Specifically, I formed these names using main (or classical) Elements and their qualities.

As we can see in the above diagram, Ancient Typology is divided into four parts. These are the areas of the main Elements. These four Elements are the main reference points in the Mandala of Characters.

In the Mandala, I decided to briefly describe these four reference points to somehow make it clearer for me, or somehow define them in a possible simple and nice way. So, I created sets of concepts and phrases that would help me analyze my own character and other people characters.

I hope these sets of concepts and phrases will also be useful for others.

In the diagram above, we can see four frames. In these frames, I will put further concepts and phrases which define more closely four main reference points in the Mandala of Characters.

In the beginning, I put in frames some concepts from the Ancient Typology. It means I chose, in my opinion, the most characteristic and symbolic concepts, namely, the main Elements and corresponding seasons.

As we can see, the main Elements and corresponding seasons are:

• AIR, spring,
• EARTH, autumn,
• FIRE, summer,
• WATER, winter.

Probably at first glance, the fact that I decided to use the seasons may seem surprising and puzzling. I was also surprised that the seasons proved to be useful in the Mandala of Characters. First of all, this was because I associated the seasons with the basic psychological functions. These functions Jung distinguished in his typology, namely, in “Psychological Types”. I will talk more about it later in this chapter.

And now, since I mentioned Jung’s “psychological functions”, I will briefly present what they are?

Basic psychological functions, simply put, are ways of functioning. That is ways of acting or some forms of activity.

Jung pointed out that forms of our psychological activity, (namely, psychological functions) are still the same. It means forms of our psychological activity are the same, regardless of:

• changing conditions,
• changing circumstances,
• changing environment,
• changing situations,
• etc.

So, regardless of the changing conditions, our way of functioning is basically the same. In changing situations, we constantly use the same psychological functions.

Jung distinguished the four most basic ways of functioning of our psyche. He did on the basis of his lasting many years' experience and analysis. In his works, he described them as—basic psychological functions.

These basic psychological functions are:

• Intuition,
• Sensation,
• Thinking, and
• Feeling.

According to Jung, these functions are basic, because:
— are completely different from each other, and
— they cannot be connected in any way.

And if they cannot be connected, it is impossible to reduce them and make them fewer than the four above functions.

The above principle we can also apply to ancient main Elements. That is, these four Elements are:
— are completely different from each other, and
— they cannot be connected in any way.

And if we cannot connect them together, then we cannot reduce them and make them fewer than four above Elements. For example, we cannot connect Fire and Earth together and create from them one Element. And in this way, it will be one Element less. That is, it will be three Elements, not four.

Thus, we can see above that both the main Elements and the basic psychological functions are undivided factors.

Furthermore, both Ancient Typology and Jung's "Psychological Types" are describing human characters.

In that case, since we have such common features as in above both personality typologies, we can associate them with each other.

In the diagram above, I have placed basic psychological functions in four frames. That is, in four reference points. We can see now that these functions are accompanied by the following symbolic concepts that I distinguish from Ancient Typology:

• INTUITION—AIR, spring,
• SENSATION—EARTH, autumn,
• THINKING—FIRE, summer,
• FEELING—WATER, winter.

Why did I place basic psychological functions in this way?

To answer this question, I think, I need to say first what basic psychological functions mean?

Jung gave many definitions of psychological functions in his works. Personally, I like the shortest and simplest definitions among those which gave Jung.

We can read about in the following quote.

So, according to Jung, the definitions of basic psychological functions are as follows:

• Sensation — establishes that — something exists.
• Thinking — tells us — what it means.
• Feeling — tells us — what its value is.
• Intuition — surmises — whence it comes and whither it goes.

I put these definitions on the diagram of Ancient Typology.

I think that now it is worth mentioning where the seasons came from in the ancient system. To explain this, I will use the quote from the Wikipedia web-page:

All in all, in a symbolic sense, the seasons and the age of human can be associated as follows.

Comparing the seasons with the stages of human development generally tells us that we are dealing with specific processes, periods, or cycles. These processes involve four stated that are different, one follows another, and they are dependent on each other.

However, regardless of whether we are dealing with a process, cycle or period, we must function somehow during this time. Symbolically, this is reflected by the seasons or stages of human development. Our way of functioning is different at different stages of our lives. Our way of functioning is also different at different seasons. Or also we can say, we adapt our way of functioning to the different seasons.

When it comes to processes that take place in the world of our psyche, in this world, we adopt our way of functioning to the circumstances. Circumstances, which occur in our inner and outer world.

For our psyche, inner and outer circumstances are basically similar. Both when we are dealing with our inner world inside us or outer world around us, we have to manage these both worlds somehow. We need to function somehow in internal or external reality.

Of course, mental processes differ from seasons or periods of human life. For example, in the fact that they are not periodical. That is, they do not always follow each other and last for a certain time.

In our psyche, some processes can occur often and others rarely. One process can dominate, and others can be withdrawn. One process can play a leading role, while others can play a supporting role.

Speaking figuratively, we can function in our psyche, for example, like in autumn for most of the time. And only sometimes like in spring, summer, or winter. Or for most of our lives, we can behave like a young man, and not pay attention to those parts of our personality that behave similarly to a child, an adult, or an old man.

And basically, it is so in our psyche. We often give priority or leading role to one way of functioning. Thus, using Jung’s term, one of our basic psychological functions is more often used by us than the other three basic functions. And all in all, there is nothing strange about it, we must give priority to the some way of functioning in order to function somehow. For example, we have to decide how we will do something because usually, we cannot do something in two, three or four ways at the same time.

In our psyche, therefore, we are giving the leading role one of four basic psychological functions. Other functions play supporting roles.

Regarding the above short Jung’s definitions of basic psychological functions, I decided to shorten them even more. I did so, after many of my own considerations about this subject.

These considerations concerned, among others, the seasons. It means, I associated my definitions of psychological functions with the symbolic meaning of the seasons.

So, in comparison with Jung’s definitions, my definitions look like this.

How I created my definitions, I described in updates 1.16, 1.17, 1.18, 1.19.

Now I try to summarize these definitions.

In my considerations, among others, I used the example of an apple tree. This tree:
— looks different during each season,
— during each season this tree can evoke various emotions and associations in us,
— and during each season this tree requires a different approach from us.

During spring, we may not even know that we are dealing with an apple tree.

Let us imagine the situation that in spring we are standing in front of a three when there are buds and flowers on it. Then we can see that there are buds and flowers on the three, which will most likely become fruit.

If we do not know what kind of tree it is, then we can — suppose and predict:

• From which kind of tree do the buds and flowers are coming from?
• And what fruits will come from the buds and flowers? Or what buds and flowers are going to be?

In this situation, our Intuition, that is our assumption and prediction, must discover the origin and purpose of buds and flowers from the given tree.

In the previous sentence, therefore, appeared phrase that we can connect with Jung’s definition of Intuition. That is phrase—origin and purpose, which applies to spring. Then, in sum, we can create short definition of Intuition. It means:

spring—origin and purpose

I made another change to this definition. That is, instead of the word “origin” I decided to use the word “source”.

Why?

Creating the Mandala of Characters, I decided to use concepts and phrases that are symbolic and ambiguous. Thanks to this, there is much bigger “space” for various associations and analogies that help discover the secrets of individual types of characters.

The word “source” is more broad in meaning and is more symbolic than the word “origin”. That is why I think the “source” will be better suited to the Mandala. In that case, I modified the above definition. And the definition that I use in the Mandala now is as follows:

spring—source and purpose

Summer

In summer, plants are growing and developing. Faster or slower, depending on the location, weather, soil type, etc. Among others, an apple tree on which apples are getting bigger and bigger, and gain more and more volume.

When we stand in front of an apple tree in summer, we can use Jung’s definition of summer and ask—what does it mean? Or in other words—what it is, what role does it play, what is its function, etc.?

We can answer these questions because we can see growing apples, that is, apple tree fruits. So, seeing apples on the tree, we can easily recognize that it is an apple tree. Thus, we can say what is the meaning of this tree, what role it plays, and what function it has? That is, for example, bears apples, gives shade, gives shelter and food to birds and insects, produces oxygen, etc.

When we are gardeners or farmers, we will be most interested in fruits. We will want the fruits to ripen in the best possible way. Then we need two things:

1. Knowledge (theory) about the cultivation of fruit trees.
2. Practice (training, experience), for example, practice in growing trees from previous years.

So, in the summer, we have to think and care about the development of our tree growing. Before, during spring and later during autumn, we need to focus on doing the right work that needs to be done in the right way and at the right time.

Therefore, in summer, it is time to care and think about whether we have done everything in the spring as best as possible. And to think and deal with the preparation for autumn fruit harvesting.

All in all, in summer, during this what we do, we need a lot of thinking. Thinking, for which we mainly use the above mentioned two factors, namely:

1. Knowledge (theory).
2. Practice (training, experience).

Jung, in his reflections about thinking function, described these two factors as—active and passive intellectual activity. In short, their meanings are as follows.

1. Active intellectual activity, (that is, the act of the will).
   The task of this intellectual activity is to find the right knowledge or theory that will provide us with logical and rational cognition of something.
2. Passive intellectual activity, (that is, mere occurrence, fantasizing, intuitive thinking).
   The task of this intellectual activity is to rely on appropriate practice and attitude to be able to make a rational choice among many possibilities.

I think I can make the above definition even shorter.

Thinking—discovers the meaning and is divided into:

1. Cognition, that is—knowledge (theory)—active intellectual activity (the act of the will).
   
2. Choice, that is—practice (training, experience)—passive intellectual activity (mere occurrence, fantasizing, intuitive thinking).

So, to describe the active and passive intellectual activity, I chose two words: cognition and choice. I like these words because they have a wide philosophical dimension. Both “cognition” and “choice” are philosophical issues that philosophers have been dealing with for many centuries. Thus, this is a great field for reflection, which can be useful to us to learn about the types of characters, which are in the area of the Mandala where we can find thinking function.

Returning to the summer, in the summer we can deal with, for example, the apple three mentioned above. And to look after this tree well, we need the biggest as possible “cognition” of this three.

Besides, when growing this tree, we must also make the right “choices”, how to look after this three? It means, for example:
— how to care for this tree depending on the changing weather (for instance, during dry or wet summer),
— what to do when this tree is sick,
— etc.

In conclusion, in the summer, we need cognition and choice. And all in all, it gives us a short definition.

summer—cognition and choice

Autumn

Autumn can mean, among others:

• an adult or mature part of our lives. (If we refer to the fact that Galen and other philosophers symbolically compared autumn to the period of our lives, which is adulthood).
• Fruit harvesting time. (If we refer this to my above consideration about the apple tree).

Autumn, therefore, is the time for fruit harvesting.

When we are adults, we are creating various fruits of our activities.

During autumn, the apple tree is reaching an important moment. That is, its fruits become ripe or mature. Therefore, for the apple tree, it is the end of some period, stage, or cycle. So, in autumn, the apple tree creates the mature fruits of its activities. Activities which took place during spring and summer.

In autumn, therefore, when we are standing in front of the apple tree, we see that this apple tree is bearing ripe apples.

And what can we say then?

For example, we do not have the problem we had in spring. It means when we were standing in front of the apple tree, and might even know what the thee is, what fruit it will bear?

In autumn, however, we do not have to think at all and prove that it is the apple tree. We see fruit, and we can easily conclude that we are dealing with the apple tree.

At this point, we can recall Jung’s definition of the basic psychological function—Sensation.

• Sensation — establishes that — something exists.

So, in autumn, seeing the apple tree bearing apples, we can easily say that “there is something”. That is, the tree we are standing in front of, “it is the apple tree”. Or in other words, we can say — here we see that there “is” or “exists” apple tree. In turn, seeing ripe or mature apple fruit, we can also find out what is the sense of the existence of the apple tree.

Then, fruits let us recognize a given tree, and also recognize the sense of the existence of this tree.

And here appeared the phrase “sens of existence”. I like this phrase because this phrase consists of very deep concepts, namely, “existence” and “sense”.

In the case of apple tree, I will summarize this in this way:

• Tree—it is existence.
• And the fruits of this tree—it is its sense.

All in all, based on the above considerations, I created a short definition of basic psychological function, which is—Sensation.

Autumn—existence and sense

Winter

Winter is usually the most challenging period to survive. We also need to prepare well for this period. Admittedly, nowadays, thanks to technological progress, it is easier to survive winter than it used to be. For example, we have better ways to build and heat our homes, and a better way to store food (including apples, which I mentioned above).

However, even now during winter, we must at least dress properly to avoid getting a cold, flu, or other illnesses that we can catch during this time.

In general, I think we can say that valuable things are needed to survive the winter.

And here I will remind Jung’s definition regarding the basic psychological function, which is—Feeling.

• Feeling—tells us—what its value is?

So, the word “value” appeared here.

And we may ask, how do we are giving value to something?

If we recall the apple tree, it will be valuable enough if it can survive the winter. On the other hand, apple fruits are valuable to us if we store them properly, and we keep them fit to eat for many months. So, to store apples, we need to have adequate or valuable food storage. It means, food storage with right conditions, that is, the right temperature and humidity, appropriate containers for fruits, etc.

The key, therefore, for storing fruits in winter is to provide them with the right conditions.

Appropriate conditions help, for example, keep apples valuable for us for a long time.

So, as we can see, that word “conditions” is associated with the word “value”.

Besides, the word “conditions” in our lives is often associated with the word “arguments”. For example, for storing apples in a fruit storage, following arguments convincing us:

• proper conditions to store apples, for example, appropriate temperature, humidity, fruit storage methods, etc.
• properly trained people who work in storage,
• knowledge and practice of people who supervise apple storage,
• continuous work on improving apple storing methods,
• etc.

So, the word “argument” appeared next to the word “value”.

I took the word “value” from Jung’s definition of basic psychological function—Feeling.

In my considerations, I decided to associate the word “value” with the word “argument”. In turn, think, “value” and “argument” we can associate with the symbolic meaning of the season—winter.

And all in all, I created a short definition of basic psychological function, which is—Feeling. This definition is:

winter—value and argument

In summary, this definition tells us what is valuable and what the right arguments are for surviving winter.

Therefore, I have shown above that Jung’s basic psychological functions can be associated with the symbolic meaning of the seasons that we can find in the Ancient Typology.

Thus, let me remind the table I put earlier and which summarizes the above considerations.

My definition were inspired by:

• the symbolic meaning of the seasons, which was used by, among others, ancient philosophers,
• and Jung’s definition’s regarding basic psychological functions.

I will put my definitions on the diagram that I used earlier in this chapter. The diagram, which refers to the four main reference points in our psyche.

References: