C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950

To Aniela Jaffe

Dear Frau Jaffe, 3 September 1943

Your letter was very interesting.

The situation with the Golden Pot seems to be that the masculine and feminine principles, spirit and life are in a state of unconscious conflict which is excluded by consciousness.

The macrocosmic relationship presents a great difficulty.

It shows itself symptomatically first in the form of an urge to make the microcosmic relationship objective external tangible.

The coniunctio of the masculine and feminine halves of the self is apt to overpower the individual and force him into physical i.e. cosmic manifestation.

You want to illuminate the world as Luna (I as Sol).

But every archetype before it is integrated consciously wants to manifest itself physically since it forces the subject into its own form.

The self in its divinity (i.e., the archetype) is unconscious of itself It can be come conscious only within our consciousness.

And it can do that only if the ego stands firm.

The self must become as small as and yet smaller than the ego although it is the ocean of divinity: “God is as small as me,” says Angelus Silesius.

It must become the thumbling in the heart.

The hieros gamos takes place in the vessel In principle you are not the goddess, I am not the god, otherwise man would cease to be and God would not have been born.

We can only stretch out our hands to each other and know of the inner man, Superhuman possibilities are not for us.

I am wrestling just with this problem of the coniunctio which I must now work up as the introduction to Aurora Consurgens.

It is incredibly difficult.

Cordial greetings.

Ever sincerely yours,

C.G. Jung

P.S. The one standing behind my face (the masculine part of the self) calls to your “Elisabeth” who is the feminine half.

In this world both are thumblings (homunculi).

God as the greatest becomes in man the smallest and most invisible, otherwise man cannot endure him.

Only in that form of the self does God dwell in the macrocosm (which he himself is, though in the most unconscious form).

In man God sees himself from “outside” and thus becomes conscious of himself.

All this in support of your difficult work on the Golden Pot! ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 335-337.