Carl Jung on The Nature of Objects
The Nature of the Value of Objects.
- evident or real;
- unconscious or magical value.
What is this magical value? The primitives say it Is mans, value, prestige soul-power.
They only realize the dynamic side, not the ideal side. All energy must have form, e.g. heat or electricity, etc.
So too mental energy must have form, this takes the form of idea or image.
When you perceive psychic energy, you perceive an image; glee, all images have energy.
Repressed energy comes up in the form of phantasy and through the realization of such phantasies energy is released.
The primitive thinks of such energy as “soul.” For example, the sorcars hove cages hanging in the trees to catch the souls in bird form, enticed to the herd of the man by rice grains.
When we suffer from lack of psychic energy, we say we have a depression or an inhibition, not realizing that part of our mental hierarchy has one away beyond our control, that we have, in fact, lost our soul.
Our psychic system is a careful synthesis and from this parts may fall out and become autonomous.
Such parts may come into opposition with the remainder.
The primitive would say this condition was due to loss of soul. Thus images are energy or libido.
This is why the magician makes images, for such things are energy – magic energy.
In as much as such a figure makes an impression on you, it releases energy.
An object that can do that is indeed magic. For example, the Mona Lisa attracts people, it is energy. Such a picture is mana., fetish, etc.
The magic value of the object exists in certain images.
The magical value of the object consists in projection of the anima or animus. (This is looked at from within, the intuitive approach.)
But if we want to describe the structure of the psyche looked at from without, In the scientific way, we have to speak of the psyche as a system of adaptations. ~Carl Jung; Cornwall Seminar; Page 13.
