No language exists that cannot be misused
Modern Man in Search of a Soul
No language exists that cannot be misused… Every Interpretation is hypothetical, for it is a mere attempt to read an unfamiliar text. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul.
Language and Psychological Functions.
C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950
To Jiirg Fierz
Dear Herr Fierz, 10 April 1 942
The application of my function theory to the spirit of language seems to me difficult and problematical in so far as language is infinitely older than the differentiation of the functions.
These are always present, but in such an undifferentiated state that they simply cannot be kept apart.
Together they constitute the psychic functioning in general and out of this matrix is produced language, partly as objective imitation and partly as subjective imitation-that is, it expresses what the object does or what the subject does.
Auditive, motor, and visual factors as well as skin sensations also play a large role.
You see this particularly with primitive languages, where many words would not be understood at all without the corresponding gestures.
Hence many primitives cannot have a conversation at night unless they make a fire in the light of which they can observe each other’s miming.
I know little of the “objective spirit” the philosophers talk about, nor in my opinion does language live of itself-it always lives from man.
I think we are dealing here with the same kind of illusion as the State.
People talk of the State as though it were a living entity, when in fact it is only a conventional concept that could not live for a second unless man pumped the necessary life into it.
A psychological object-lesson could probably be derived from language without too much difficulty.
Take for instance the symptoms of emotion in language and the effects the emotions have upon it, emotive metaphors, etc.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 315.
On Wholeness and the Limits of Language
The Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
March 13, 1958
Language forms a continual hindrance and limitation to our abilityto express thoughts, feelings or experiences.
On the one hand, language equals idea; it is a method of passing on knowledge.
On the other, it is merely made up of words and a particular syntax and grammar, and is therefore limited by its forms.
Thus the alchemists, for example, said of the stone they sought, the lapis philosophorum, that it had a thousand names – “habet mille nomina.”
And even a thousand names were not enough to express its mystery: it is the mystery of wholeness.
But nevertheless, the alchemists tried to define this wholeness and named the stone Mercurius, or diamond, or carbuncle, and invented countless other images.
One can produce a thousand words, a thousand descriptions, and yet the essential is still not expressed, the entirety is not portrayed. It transcends knowledge and language, and remains a mystery.
All instincts and drives, not only sexuality but also aggression or will to power, are expressions of a striving toward wholeness and contain an enigma.
Like the psyche as a whole, every natural drive is a mystery. We do not know how these drives are constructed, just as we do not know how the psyche is constructed.
The psyche always also includes the whole; the same is true of matter, and it cannot be expressed with words.
Take power, for example: it is also a very subtle affair.
One licks the other’s boots and uses such behavior to gain power – it is true when one says that behind every tyrant stands an all-powerful valet.
Sexuality is also an expression of a striving for wholeness, or can be.
Many people do not understand that I can fully accept sexuality as an essential expression of wholeness, but not as the exclusive explanation.
It is nature, it is primitive, that is its essence.
At the same time, it is also a spiritual mystery, in which all that is individual is extinguished in favor of an overarching wholeness.
But the essence of this wholeness remains hidden. That is the mysterium coniunctionis.
0ne must never overlook the fact that wholeness appears in many forms, but it remains a numen.
If one does not acknowledge the truth that sexuality is numinous – it is a god and a demon – one remains stuck in the narrow, exclusively biological understanding of it.
However, the numen cannot be described or grasped with words. Matter is only one aspect of reality, as is the psyche.
But the whole is present in both of them. We just cannot express it. Both are aspects of the One, of the inexpressible. ~Carl Jung, Reflections on the Life and Dreams of C.G. Jung, Page 48-49
