Carl Jung: in all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order
The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious (Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol.9 Part 1)
Thus the anima and life itself are meaningless in so far as they offer no interpretation.
Yet they have a nature that can be interpreted, for in all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order, in all caprice a fixed law, for everything that works is grounded on its opposite.
It takes man’s discriminating understanding, which breaks everything down. into antinomial judgments, to recognize this.
Once he comes to grips with the anima, her chaotic capriciousness will give him cause to suspect a secret order, to sense a plan, a meaning, a purpose over and above her nature, or even-we might almost be tempted to say-to “postulate” such a thing, though this would not be in accord with the truth.
For in actual reality we do not have at our command any power of cool reflection, nor does any science or philosophy help us, and the traditional teachings of religion do so only to a limited degree.
We are caught and entangled in aimless experience, and the judging intellect with its categories proves itself powerless.
Human interpretation fails, for a turbulent life-situation has arisen that refuses to fit any of the traditional meanings assigned to it.
It is a moment of collapse.
We sink into a final depth-Apuleius calls it “a kind of voluntary death.”
It is a surrender of our own powers, not artificially willed but forced upon us by nature; not a voluntary submission and humiliation decked in moral garb but an utter and unmistakable defeat crowned with the panic fear of demoralization.
Only when all props and crutches are broken, and no cover from the rear offers even the slightest hope of security, does it become possible for us to experience an archetype that up till then had lain hidden behind the meaningful nonsense played out by the anima.
This is the archetype of meaning) just as the anima is the archetype of life itself. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Page 32, Para 66.
My views on the place of our psyche in the cosmos.
C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950
To Pastor W. Arz
Dear Pastor Arz, 10 April 1933
Of course I have no objection to your discussing my private communications
to you among your circle of friends.
Scientifically speaking, nothing whatever can be made out about the phenomenon of the spirit.
These things are so delicate that they completely elude our scientific grasp.
The idea that man alonepossesses the primacy of reason is antiquated twaddle.
I have even found that men are far more irrational than animals.
Since we know from experience that the psyche can be grasped to only a very limited degree, it would be best to regard it as a tiny conscious world influenced by all sorts of unknown factors lurking in the great darkness that surrounds us.
Among these factors we can perhaps include what we call spirit; thus far science may go, but no further.
I have discussed what spirit means to me in my essay “Geist und Leben” (Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart, Rascher, Zurich, 1931).
There you will find a formulation of my views on the place of our psyche in the cosmos.
It seems to me therefore quite right if man, conscious of his limitations, feels himself only in modest degree a creator, but in far higher degree a creature or object of a ( scientifically unknown) factor that evidently has the tendency to realize itself in human life.
One should never confuse oneself with this determinant, otherwise there is always an inflation.
In this connection I would like to draw your attention to my book Die Beziehungen zwischen dem Ich und dem Unbewussten, published by Reichl ( Darmstadt [ 1928]).
Perhaps you also know the book I brought out together with the late Richard Wilhelm, Das Geheimnis der goldenen Blute.
With best regards,
Yours sincerely,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 119
