Sense and nonsense are merely man-made labels
Psychology and Alchemy (Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol.12)
If the motif of the mandala is an archetype it ought to be a collective phenomenon, i.e., theoretically it should appear in everyone.
In practice, however, it is to be met with in distinct form in relatively few cases, though this does not prevent it from functioning as a concealed pole round which everything ultimately revolves.
In the last analysis every life is the realization of a whole, that is, of a self, for which reason this realization can also be called “individuation.”
All life is bound to individual carriers who realize it, and it is simply inconceivable without them.
But every carrier is charged with an individual destiny and destination, and the realization of these alone makes sense of life.
True, the “sense” is often something that could just as well be called “nonsense,” for there is a certain incom- mensurability between the mystery of existence and human understanding.
“Sense” and “nonsense” are merely man-made labels which serve to give us a reasonably valid sense of direction. Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 222
I let my animus whisper utter nonsense to me
June 24, 1935
This interview simply blew up the foregoing one because I let my animus (as Dr. Jung said) whisper utter nonsense to me such It might be of interest to you to know that Doctor Jung, with whom I am working, was originally a friend and co-worker with Freud, but he soon broke away from him for various reasons, which are too complicated to write you in a short letter. . ..
He is one of the most deeply religious men, in the true sense of the word, whom it has been my privilege to meet.
All of intellectual Europe is beginning to recognize that he is one of the most, if not the most powerful intellectual force which has appeared since Schopenhauer Keyserling told a friend of mine the other day that he considered Jung the most superior mind that he’d ever encountered.
It is a liberal education to sit at his feet and it is a most inspiring experience to attend in the new great lecture hall of the University his special lectures in German before the Philosophical Society, and to hear the tremendous applause with which they receive the man whom previously the University had forced out because of their inability to understand his high and advanced thinking. . ..
Analysis is Work, hard, tedious and at times discouraging but I am sure the results justify all the work and energy one puts into it.
It is of course just as lonely for me as it is for Jim but the extraordinary reestablishment of Janey’s health has justified the long stay in Switzerland. ~Katy Cabot, Jung My Mother and I, Page 49-50
The image of God has a shadow.
The supreme meaning is not a meaning and not an absurdity, it is image and force in one, magnificence and force together.
The supreme meaning is the beginning and the end. It is the bridge of going across and fulfillment.
The other Gods died of their temporality, yet the supreme meaning never dies, it turns into meaning and then into absurdity, and out of the .fire and blood of their collision the supreme meaning rises up rejuvenated anew.
The image of God has a shadow.
The supreme meaning is real and casts a shadow.
For what can be actual and corporeal and have no shadow?
The shadow is nonsense.
It lacks force and has no continued existence through itself.
But nonsense is the inseparable and undying brother of the supreme meaning.
Like plants, so men also grow, some in the light, others in the shadows.
There are many who need the shadows and not the light.
The image of God throws a shadow that is just as great as itself.
The supreme meaning is great and small, it is as wide as the space of the starry Heaven and as narrow as the cell of the living body.
The spirit of this time in me wanted to recognize the greatness and extent of the supreme meaning, but not its littleness.
The spirit of the depths, however, conquered this arrogance, and I had to swallow the small as a means of healing the immortal in me.
It completely burnt up my innards since it was inglorious and unheroic.
It was even ridiculous and revolting. But the pliers of the spirit of the depths held me, and I had to drink the bitterest of all draughts.
The spirit of this time tempted me with the thought that all this belongs to the shadowiness of the God-image.
This would be pernicious deception, since the shadow is nonsense.
But the small, narrow, and banal is not nonsense, but one of both of the essences of the Godhead.
I resisted recognizing that the everyday belongs to the image of the Godhead.
I fled this thought, I hid myself behind the highest and coldest stars.
But the spirit of the depths caught up with me, and forced the bitter drink between my lips. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 230
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
063 Senses
