Carl Jung: Intuitive and Sensation Types

Carl Jung: Intuitive and Sensation Types

Zarathustra Seminars

Prof Jung:

Here is a question by Miss Welsh:

“Speaking of Nietzsche’s intuitive way, you said, ‘When an intuitive escapes from a situation because it threatens to become a prison, he only does so apparently, for the unfinished thing follows him and clings to him and may lame him; he has overstepped the body and it will take its revenge.’

Will you say something about the reverse situation of the sensation type.

When he gets stuck in a situation and is unwilling or unable to leave it, has something gone ahead in spite of him?

Does this pull and worry at him and can this tension also cause the body to suffer?”

This is an interesting question.

Of course it is not exactly on the line of Zarathustra, but since it is just the opposite of Nietzsche’s problem it is perhaps worthwhile to say something about it.

The sensation type always finds or creates a situation in which he believes: that is his reality, the thing that is; but the thing that is only possible is definitely unreal to him, because the function which is concerned with possibilities, intuition, is in his case the inferior function.

And like every other type, the sensation type represses the inferior function because it is the opposite of the superior function and is contaminated not only with the personal unconscious but also with the collective unconscious.

It is weighed down by the enormous weight of the whole unconscious world.

Therefore, the sensation type will not use intuition and then it works against him, just as the intuitive type is counteracted by his inferior function, sensation.

Now the question is, what is the inferior intuition doing in such a case?

Well, it creates possibilities but possibilities unknown to the consciousness of the sensation type, and it does pull and worry because this unconscious intuition creates projections.

You know, when the differentiated intuitive function creates a reality from a mere possibility, it is as if it were giving substance to what is nothing but a possibility in itself.

So the intuitive can create fabulous schemes and make them more or less real: he gives reality to his possibilities.

Now in the case of the sensation type, where the intuitive function is inferior, the intuition does the same thing, only of course the possibilities are of a more symbolic kind, more primitive.

Although it is in an inferior condition, his intuition nevertheless creates a possibility, makes it real, and projects it.

You see, a seemingly real possibility cannot be only in yourself; it is always outside too.

It does exist somewhere, so the inferior intuition creates a situation as if in space, a phantasy world or existence which is expensive because it drains the forces of consciousness of their energy.

The sensation type will therefore suffer a certain loss of energy which escapes, or is drained off, into a sort of mythical or fabulous creation, a wonderland where the things happen which their intuition creates; and that is, as a projection, semi-substantial.

I should make it clear here that we use our libido for such a projection, and libido is energy, and energy is substantial, it has mass.

That fact explains the possibility of spook phenomena, materialization and such things, which really do occur.

It is an awkward fact, so people prefer to say they do not, since they would then be forced to explain them, but strangely enough, they do exist.

So to a certain extent every projection is a substantial entity, and it drains the body, takes substance from the body.

Therefore it is quite possible that the body in a sensation type may suffer on account of such unconscious intuitive creations.

It is just as if somebody having a definite position, being a cashier, say, were unconsciously creating another business into which the money he earns is secretly flowing away; it disappears in a sort of miraculous way, and then the body begins to suffer from peculiar ailments, ghostly diseases which one often cannot explain properly.

It can take all sorts of forms: if there are certain inferiorities or weaknesses in the body already, an inferior stomach or any other organ that is not quite up to the mark, the symptoms will surely begin there.

If the digestion is a bit weak, it will become weaker; or if there is a little deafness, that will increase.

Perhaps a rheumatic tendency might become more marked, for instance.

In the case of the intuitive type, it is chiefly the intestines that suffer, and intuitives seem particularly apt to have ulcers of the stomach, while with the sensation type it seems to be more the bones or the muscle substance that is affected.

And we know, in cases of materialization, that it is chiefly the large muscles which lose substance, apparently drained off in order to produce semi-material
phenomena.

That is my experience, but of course one should make quite specific studies about these things and I have had too much to do in my life to be an intern and work in a hospital, examining the different forms of rheumatism exclusively: that is a life work in itself. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Pages 1149-1151.