by Marinus Jan Marijs
Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung wrote down his theory of ‘complexes’ where he explained how unconscious psychological issues can be triggered by people and events. Jung believed that through word association tests one could get insight into these subconscious complexes.
There is instrumental verification for Jung’s theory:
New research in the Journal of Analytical Psychology is the first to reveal how modern brain function technology allows us to see inside the mind as a ‘hot button’ word triggers a state of internal conflict between the left and right parts of the brain.
The study revealed that some words trigger a subconscious internal conflict between our sense of selves and downloaded brain programs referring to “other” beings.
Analysis showed how this conflict takes place between the left and the right brain over three seconds, after which the left brain takes over to ensure ‘hot buttons’ will continue to be active.
“We found that when a complex is activated, brain circuits involved in how we sense ourselves, but also other people, get activated,” said Dr. Leon Petchkovsky. “However, as there is no external person, the ‘other’ circuits really refer to internalized programs about how an ‘other’ person might respond. When a hot button gets pressed, ‘internal self’ and ‘internal other’ get into an argument.”
“If we can manage to stay with the conflict rather than pseudo-resolve it prematurely, it may be possible to move beyond it,” said Petchkovsky. “We can do this in psychotherapy, or by developing ‘mindfulness’ meditation skills. This makes for fewer ‘hot-buttons’ and a happier life.”
Leon Petchkovsky, Michael Petchkovsky, Philip Morris, Paul Dickson, Danielle Montgomery, Jonathan Dwyer, Patrick Burnett. fMRI responses to Jung’s Word Association Test: implications for theory, treatment and research. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2013; 58 (3): 409 DOI: 10.1111/1468-5922.12021
The central question parapsychologists face, is whether the messages that are given by a spiritistic medium are from the subconscious of the medium itself or from an outside source. Jung’s Word Association Test has been used for this purpose:
“In another series of laboratory experiments the experimenters moved away from physical to psychological testing. This involved the participation of one of the most successful American mediums ever, Mrs Garrett, who according to Carrington submitted herself to all kinds of scientific investigations. She was tested by leading universities and scientific groups in Europe and America.
Mrs Garrett as a medium stated that she had a regular control, a spirit or intelligence by the name of Urvani who would speak through her while she was in trance. The experimenters decided to use a word association test devised by Dr Carl Jung from Zurich to test whether Urvani was really a separate entity from Mrs Garrett. It was decided to give Mrs Garrett the test when she was NOT in trance and to give her control, Urvani, a word association test when Mrs Garrett WAS in trance.
Professional psychologists and psychiatrists attest that the subject cannot maintain fraud for any length of time using a word association test of 100 words where the response time to a word is measured in tenths of a second. Any inconsistency and hesitation is noticed immediately. This being so, it was arranged that Urvani would himself take the test and bring in another seven intelligences from the afterlife to also participate.
The results showed conclusively that the word associations of Mrs Garrett when not in trance and of Urvani and the seven other entities were all radically different and that it was NOT possible for the information transmitted to have come from one person, from one mind (Carrington 1973:59). These results correspond with the evidence that we survive physical death and that our personality, our mind, our character survive with us” (Victor Zammit).
