Carl Jung on “Missionaries” – Anthology
When those doubtful blessings, missionaries, stop the initiation ceremonies of a tribe, it always decays. When you take these rites from the people they lose their sense of life, and then they just go from one cigarette to the next, and from one drink to the next. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 216.
What we from our point of view call colonization, missions to the heathen, spread of civilization, etc., has another face the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel intentness for distant quarry a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen. ~Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections, Page 248
So I hold that when the missionaries convert such people to Christianity and tell them that it is sufficient if they go to church on Sunday and sing hymns, they have deprived them of the only means of becoming conscious, and what they substitute is not sufficient. ~Carl Jung, Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process, Page 241
The Christian missionary may preach the gospel to the poor naked heathen, but the spiritual heathen who populate Europe have as yet heard nothing of Christianity. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Page 12.
The dignity of man— an essential notion still to be learned by all missionaries! ~Carl Jung, Hans Schmid Guisan Letters, Pages 100-114
The materialistic error was probably unavoidable at first. Since the throne of God could not be discovered among the galactic systems, the inference was that God had never existed. The second unavoidable error is psychologism: if God is anything, he must be an illusion derived from certain motives—from will to power, for instance, or from repressed sexuality.
These arguments are not new. Much the same thing was said by the Christian missionaries who overthrew the idols of heathen gods. But whereas the early missionaries were conscious of serving a new God by combatting the old ones, modern iconoclasts are unconscious of the one in whose name they are destroying old values. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 142
With the methods employed hitherto we have not succeeded in Christianizing the soul to the point where even the most elementary demands of Christian ethics can exert any decisive influence on the main concerns of the Christian European. The Christian missionary may preach the gospel to the poor naked heathen, but the spiritual heathen who populate Europe have as yet heard nothing of Christianity. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 13
Missionaries are doing everything under the sun to remove their fears from the poor primitives, as if you could relieve humanity from fear. You would do humanity a poor service if you could, for that is the only thing that keeps people in reasonable form. There must be fear. ~Carl Jung, Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process, Page 241
The horror which the dictator States have of late brought upon mankind is nothing less than the culmination of all those atrocities of which our ancestors made themselves guilty in the not so distant past. Quite apart from the barbarities and blood baths perpetrated by the Christian nations among themselves throughout European history, the European has also to answer for all the crimes he has committed against the coloured races during the process of colonization.
In this respect the white man carries a very heavy burden indeed. It shows us a picture of the common human shadow that could hardly be painted in blacker colours. The evil that comes to light in man and that undoubtedly dwells within him is of gigantic proportions. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 571
What we from our point of view call colonization, missions to the heathen, spread of civilization, etc., has another face the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel intentness for distant quarry a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen. ~Carl Jung, Meries, Dreams and Reflections, Page 248
Even today the European, however highly developed, cannot live with impunity among the Negroes in Africa; their psychology gets into him unnoticed and unconsciously he becomes a Negro. There is no fighting against it. In Africa there is a well-known technical expression for this: ‘going black.’ It is no mere snobbery that the English should consider anyone born in the colonies, even though the best blood may run in his veins, ‘slightly inferior.’ There are facts to support this view.” ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 249
Quite apart from the barbarities and blood baths perpetrated by the Christian nations among themselves throughout European history, the European has also to answer for all the crimes he has committed against the coloured races during the process of colonization. In this respect the white man carries a very heavy burden indeed. It shows us a picture of the common human shadow that could hardly be painted in blacker colours. The evil that comes to light in man and that undoubtedly dwells within him is of gigantic proportions. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 571
Onkel [Jung] said the British must talk down. The British consider Americans as colonials. In fact they consider even their own people colonials, even people of the aristocracy, if they have had the misfortune to be born in a colony. ~Katy Cabot, Jung My Mother and I, Page 408
To the psychologist there is nothing more fatuous than the attitude of the missionary who pronounces the gods of the “poor heathen” to be mere illusion. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 111
A creature that loses its fear is condemned to death. When “cured” by missionaries of their natural and justified fear of demons, primitives degenerate. I have seen enough of this in Africa whatever the missionaries may say. Anyone who is afraid has reason to be.
You know missionaries in primitive countries admonish the natives to wear clothes.
The European women knit woolen socks and pants and jumpers for those little Negroes, because they are so terribly naked, and the fools here send money over for that purpose.
Those perfectly natural beautiful beings who are so much more decent than we are, going about naked like animals or beautiful flowers, are taught by our Christianity to wear clothes; it is abominable, apart from the bad taste. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 493
How can we do missionary work? It is terribly ridiculous. It is more than ridiculous; it is a shame, because we are not Christians at all. Look at Europe that calls itself Christian! ~Carl Jung, Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process, Page 204
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