Frontier

one soon comes to a frontier, or rather to frontiers which recede behind one another presumably up to the point of death. The experience of these frontiers gradually brings the conviction that what is experienced is an endless approximation.

Jung, via Edinger, defines the frontier as the receding limiting threshold of psychic approximation toward the unknowable Self-centre, multiplying serially until death.

Edinger, Edward F., The New God-Image: A Study of Jung’s Key Letters Concerning the Evolution of the Western God-Image, 1996thesis

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she dreamed that she came to the frontier; it was a black night, and the only thing she could see was a faint little light. Somebody said that that was the light in the custom-house, and she tried to get to it.

Jung uses the frontier as a clinically diagnostic dream image marking the threshold of genuine analytical engagement and foreseeing the nature of the transference ahead.

Jung, C.G., Collected Works Volume 18: The Symbolic Life, 1976thesis

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she dreamed that she was coming to the Swiss frontier. It was day and she saw the custom-house. She crossed the frontier and she went into the custom-house, and there stood a Swiss customs official.

The successful daylight crossing of the frontier in dream signals a productive analytical prognosis, contrasting with earlier nocturnal frontier encounters that foretold failed analyses.

Jung, C.G., Collected Works Volume 18: The Symbolic Life, 1976supporting

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there is not for man a coincidence between the two frontiers which refer to this death. I mean the first frontier (whether it is linked to a fundamental outcome which is called old age, growing old, going downhill, or to an accident which

Lacan theorizes the frontier topologically as the irreconcilable gap between two modalities of death, a structural no-man’s-land at the heart of the subject’s relation to mortality.

Lacan, Jacques, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015thesis

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Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA — the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.

Wilson frames ‘emotional sobriety’ as the next frontier of recovery, situating the term as a developmental horizon beyond sobriety’s initial achievement.

Wilson, Bill, The Next Frontier: Emotional Sobriety, 1958thesis

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psychology trespasses into the pristine wilderness the moment it accepts without reserve the question of truth. The very moment it is willing to honestly face this question, it has left the safe confines of the fenced-in civilized world.

Giegerich recasts the frontier epistemologically: psychology crosses its decisive threshold not geographically but at the moment it commits to truth without domestication or reserve.

Giegerich, Wolfgang, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020thesis

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The visible horizon, that is, a kind of gateway or threshold, joining the presence of the surrounding terrain to that which exceeds this open presence, to that which is hidden beyond the horizon.

Abram, drawing on Heidegger, figures the horizon as a phenomenological frontier joining sensuous presence to irreducible absence, structurally homologous to depth-psychological uses of the term.

Abram, David, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, 1996supporting

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Gandhi had the daring to go into their midst and tell them that if they really were brave they would throw away their guns and learn to fight nonviolently. Their leader, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, responded to Gandhi’s challenge and transformed himself into such an invincible combination of courage and gentleness that he became known as the Frontier Gandhi.

Easwaran uses ‘Frontier’ as a biographical epithet for Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, illustrating how spiritual transformation can redefine the meaning of a geographical and cultural boundary marker.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975aside

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