For this purpose we must first of all review the facts that led psychologists to conjecture an archetype of wholeness, i.e., the Self. These are in the first place dreams and visions; in the second place, products of active imagination in which symbols of wholeness appear. ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Para 351
A special variant of the quaternity motif is the dilemma of 3 + 1. Twelve (3 x 4) seems to belong here as a solution of the dilemma and as [twelve] a symbol of wholeness (zodiac, year) ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Para 351
Three can be regarded as a relative totality, since it usually represents either a spiritual totality that is a product of thought, like the Trinity, or else an instinctual, chthonic one, like the triadic nature of the gods of the underworld the “lower triad” ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Par 351
Just as the circle is contrasted with the square, so the quaternity is contrasted with the 3 + 1 motif, and the positive, beautiful, good, admirable, and lovable human figure with a daemonic, misbegotten creature who is negative, ugly, evil, despicable and an object of fear ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Para 355
The death of the dancer is also to be understood in this sense, for these maidens are always doomed to die, because their exclusive domination of the feminine psyche hinders the individuation process, that is, the maturation of personality ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 355
The “maiden” corresponds to the anima of the man and makes use of it to gain her natural ends, in which illusion plays the greatest role imaginable. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Par 355
But as long as a woman is content to be a femme à homme, she has no feminine individuality. She is empty and merely glitters a welcome vessel for masculine projections. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 355
Woman as a personality, however, is a very different thing: here illusion no longer works. So that when the question of personality arises, which is as a rule the painful fact of the second half of life, the childish form of the Self disappears too. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Par 355
The center, as a rule, is emphasized. But what we find there is a symbol with a very different meaning. It is a star, a sun, a flower, a cross with equal arms, a precious stone, a bowl filled with water or wine, a serpent coiled up, or a human being, but never a god ~Carl Jung, CW 11. Para 136
There can hardly be any doubt that not a few of those seekers had the dawning knowledge that the secret nature of the stone was man’s own Self. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 154
The motif of ascent and descent is based partly on the motion of water as a natural phenomenon (clouds, rain, etc.) ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 137
Personifications of metals are especially common in the folktales of imps and goblins, who were often seen in the mines. We meet the metal men several times in Zosimos, also a brazen eagle ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 124
Just as in other cases the sacrifice of a child or a sheep played a part, so here the sacrifice of the maiden hanging on the “cross” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Par 355
This is just the element that is represented by the Christian symbol as having been conquered and offered up in sacrifice. In the Christian mystery it is the sacrificed Lamb, or more correctly, the “little ram” ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 31
This strange usage is explained by the fact that the majority of the patristic allegories have in addition to their positive meaning a negative one. Thus in St. Eucherius the rapacious wolf “in its good part” signifies the apostle Paul, but “in its bad part” the devil ~Carl Jung, CW 14, Para 147
Nor should we forget that the god of revelation has from of old the form of a snake e.g., the agathodaimon. Edem too, as a snake-maiden, has a dual nature, “two-minded, two-bodied”, and in medieval alchemy her figure became the symbol of the androgynous Mercurius ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 560
Associations to the tree led to its maternal significance. The tree would explain the plant motif in the mandala, and its sudden growth represents the higher level or freeing of consciousness induced by the movement to the right ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 570
For the same reason the “philosophical” tree is a symbol of the alchemical opus, which as we know is an individuation process ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, para 570
It is interesting to observe how the execution of the picture frequently thwarts one’s expectations in the most surprising way. The same thing can be observed, sometimes even more clearly, when writing down the products of active imagination ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 622
But the God-image, as we saw from Jakob Böhme, expresses itself in the mandala ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 626
The original Gnostic myth has undergone a strange transformation: Nous and Physis are indistinguishably one in the prima materia and have become a natura abscondita ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 447
This lost bit of nature seeks revenge and returns in faked, distorted form, for instance as a tango epidemic, as Futurism, Dadaism, and all the other crazes and crudities in which our age abounds ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 44