You will lose your soul for in that book is your soul.

My soul, what is happening?

Black Books

My soul, what is happening? What sets me at odds with myself? What tears asunder?

Soul: Poisoning by the earth spirits.

What do you mean by this?

Soul: The black one has an earth spirit with her, a spirit of the dead, who would like to live. He sucks force from you. He would like to come to life. She can’t help it. She can do nothing about it, only you can. It is to be stood up to. You have still not tried everything, you have still not done everything.

I. What more can I do?

Soul: You can love still more.

I. I don’t know how.

Soul: Through the act.

I. Through which act?

I. Is it not a mirage? Does the black one have a spirit in her? Or is not rather something in me?

Soul: Spirits are always between two people. They live from the relation of two people. Spirits are also dead without relation, not only people. But spirits must be removed from a relation, so that they can die.

I. But how, that is the question!

Soul: I know, but the how is not easy. It turns around and around and seeks an opening and doesn’t find it. The spirit is this how. The spirits of the dead live from this how. Where there is a how, the unredeemed spirits gather. They suck it in, they live from it. Where the question how? is, there they find nourishment. As long as men do not know the how, the spirits devour it.

I. So help me find this how.

Soul: First and foremost, you should see that you are behind. Why did you give me the two kinds of properties? Why did you not separate the opposites? Why did you leave me mixed? This creates the trouble of the standstill. The opposites cancelled each other out. My other half, which is on the side of the earth, is another soul than I. She is between things and you. I am between the eternal images and you. I am mind, she is feeling.

I am light, she is dark. The black one is her symbol. You have still not released Salome from her. She is the spirit of the earth that dances poisonous dances, that bewitches and intoxicates, that drinks blood and causes magical sickness. If she were released from the symbol, she would give form, substance, and actual life to the eternal images. But she intoxicates herself in the blood of the holy one. w5 Why? She has not been released from the human symbol. Why do you love the black one? Because she is the dancer-(there is a scratching on the door).

I. Who was that?

S: Spirits of the dead accompany her, spirits of the earth, buried ones-not the spirits of the eternal images. They bear claws like dogs and cats, they have feet like black night birds, carrion birds, since the dancer rends, she has claws and sharp teeth, behind her lie bloody torn ones, blood pools and spirits of the dead gorge themselves on this.

She makes one drunk and she is drunk from the blood of the holy one, she pours poison into the entrails. She is a fire of voluptuousness and torment of voluptuousness. She is beautiful like hell. She gives pleasure and the craving for poison. She makes men drink poison and eat poison. She is hellish temptation. She is the compulsion of suffering.

I am eternal contemplation. I carry up into eternity, she drags down into the mystery of mat ter, into the beauty of the earth, into the death of everything earthly.

I am the daughter of the eternal mother, she is the daughter of the eternal father. She is the earth, I am the vessel of heaven. Yes, she is the womb of the earth. Actual forms grow from her, but the eternal images grow from me.

I. Yet how can I release her?

Soul: How did you release me? Only through differentiating me from reality. How will you release her? Only through differentiating her from reality. If you experience torment, then call her, and ask her, as you call and ask me. What did I give you? I gave you the eternal images.

She will also give to you, if you differentiate her from reality and ask her and force her to speech and answer, as you forced me. I tormented you with impotent rage. She torments you with impotent pleasure and helpless longing. Call her and listen to what she says.

I. I’ll do it, and on the spot, since the torment is too great. Salome, heinous dancer, you tiger with the bloody claws-come, listen and speak. What do you want?

Salome: What do you want? You know what I want.

I. I know it. But I no longer want it.

Salome: So you want no more? Do you believe this? You want sensuality and its torment, you wanted the longing, the consuming fire. I give you what you want.

I. You deceive yourself. The not wanting awakens. It is still small and weak. But it will grow. There should be a hero who strikes you.

Salome: Where? A hero? Has someone seen this?

I. I will show him to you.

Salome:  A fool, a prophet, an ascetic?

I. No, certainly not, but one who does not let himself be smothered under wet kisses, a man who wants to live and refuses to be consumed by longing. Rage has not killed me, no less should longing succeed in this.

Salome:  You already regret it. You want to miss the beauty of the earth?

I. I will not be your slave-what is the fortune of the earth when it burns like hellish fire? When it makes sick, like poison? The struggle against you is accepted. I will not rest until you have handed over your power to men.

Man must live. You should obey. I do not want to do without the beauty of the earth, the fragrance of the fields should not evade me, but the serpent poison should be slain, so that man can wander among the flowers.

Salome:  You have great plans. So get down to the work of heroes. You are laughable.

I. listen, Salome, your magic will be broken. I will snatch the mystery of your magic. You teach me your mystery.

Salome:  Nevermore. I have no mystery. My mystery is your weakness, and that is no mystery.

~The Black Books. Vol. VI, Page 185-187

Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog