ABSTRACT
Carl Jung saw individuation as an encounter with the unconscious. He postulated that in early societies this encounter was unique to the shaman. In the later Egyptian dynasties, the aristocracy was allowed to participate in the initiatory process of 'Osirification', formerly reserved to Pharaoh. The images of the personal unconscious, tend to be signs, standing for instances in the individual's personal experience. The person who pursues individuation must be prepared to disregard the dictates of the culture. The culture expresses the psychic state of the collective, and it works very powerfully to enforce that psychic state upon all who are a part of it. The process of individuation is the process of self's becoming a living presence in the consciousness of the individual. The scientific attitude can perhaps more readily embrace a natural impulse towards consciousness than it can the further impetus towards individuation that Jung also attributes to the self.
