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Nectar, like soma, is the drink of fertility and immortality. The soul is fructified by the intellect; as the “oversoul” it is called the heavenly Aphrodite, as the “under-soul” the earthly Aphrodite. It knows “the pangs of birth.” It is not without reason that the dove of Aphrodite is the symbol of the Holy Ghost ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 198
Just as Christ left behind his redeeming blood, a true pharmakon athanasias in the wine, so Agni is the soma, the holy drink of inspiration, the mead of immortality CW 5 Para 246
Soma is also the “nourishing drink.” Its mythological characteristics coincide with those of fire, and so both are united in Agni. The drink of immortality, Amrita, was stirred by the Hindu gods like the fire. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 247
Flight from life does not exempt us from the laws of old age and death. The neurotic who tries to wriggle out of the necessity of living wins nothing and only burdens himself with a constant foretaste of aging and dying, which must appear especially cruel on account of the total emptiness and meaninglessness of his life. If it is not possible for the libido to strive forwards, to lead a life that willingly accepts all dangers and ultimate decay, then it strikes back along the other road and sinks into its own depths, working down to the old intimation of the immortality of all that lives, to the old longing for rebirth. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 617
Faust’s desire, like that of every hero, is a yearning for the mystery of rebirth, for immortality; therefore his way leads out to sea and down into the maw of death, that frighteningly narrow “passage” which signals the new day ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 417
This primordial experience finds an echo in the widespread motif of robbery (sun-cattle of Geryon, apples of the Hesperides, herb of immortality). And it is worth remembering that in the cult of Diana at Aricia [Lake Nemi], only he could become her priest who plucked the golden bough from the sacred grove of the goddess ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 250
Dhulqarnein brought his “friend” Khidr to the source of life, that he might drink of immortality. Alexander himself bathed in the stream of life and performed the ritual ablutions ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 288
It happens sometimes that I must say to an older patient: “Your picture of God or your idea of immortality is atrophied, consequently your psychic metabolism is out of gear.” ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 794
The feeling of immortality, it seems to me, has its origin in a peculiar feeling of extension in space and time, and I am inclined to regard the deification rites in the mysteries as a projection of this same psychic phenomenon. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 248-249
As a psychopomp she [Sophia] leads the way to God and assures immortality. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 613
There the main concern is the “diamond body,” in other words, the attainment of immortality through the transformation of the body. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 511
Alchemy was trying to produce a corpus subtile, a transfigured and resurrected body, i.e., a body that was at the same time spirit. In this it finds common ground with Chinese alchemy, as we have learned from the text of The Secret of the Golden Flower. There the main concern is the “diamond body,” in other words, the attainment of immortality through the transformation of the body ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 511
The sun comparison tells us over and over again that the dynamic of the gods is psychic energy. This is our immortality, the link through which man feels inextinguishably one with the continuity of all life. The life of the psyche is the life of mankind. Welling up from the depths of the unconscious, its springs gush forth from the root of the whole human race, since the individual is, biologically speaking, only a twig broken off from the mother and transplanted ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 296
The “son of the mother” as a mere mortal, dies young, but as a god he can do that which is forbidden and superhuman: he commits the magical incest and thus obtains immortality. In the myths the hero does not die; instead, he has to overcome the dragon of death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 394
In the Mithraic sacrifice the conquest of instinctuality no longer takes the archaic form of overpowering the mother, but of renouncing one’s own instinctive desires. The primitive idea of reproducing oneself by entering into the mother’s body has become so remote that the hero, instead of committing incest, is now sufficiently far advanced in the domestic virtues to seek immortality through the sacrifice of the incest tendency ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 398
Worringer rightly says of Oriental art: Tormented by the confusion and flux of the phenomenal world, these people were dominated by an immense need for repose. The enjoyment they sought in art consisted not so much in immersing themselves in the things of the outside world and finding pleasure there, as in raising the individual object out of its arbitrary and seemingly fortuitous existence, immortalizing it by approximation to abstract forms, and so finding a point of repose amid the ceaseless flux of appearances (Abstraction and Empathy, p. 16 ) ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 493
The primordial images are, of course, just as much ideas as feelings. Fundamental ideas, ideas like God, freedom, and immortality, are just as much feeling-values as they are significant ideas. Everything, therefore, that we have said about introverted thinking is equally true of introverted feeling, only here everything is felt while there it was thought. But the very fact that thoughts can generally be expressed more intelligibly than feelings demands a more than ordinary descriptive or artistic ability before the real wealth of this feeling can be even approximately presented or communicated to the world. If subjective thinking can be understood only with difficulty because of it unrelatedness, this is true in even higher degree of subjective feeling ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 639
Our life is indeed the same as it ever was. At all events, in our sense of the word it is not transitory; for the same physiological and psychological processes that have been man’s for hundreds of thousands of years still endure, instilling into our inmost hearts this profound intuition of the “eternal” continuity of the living. But the self, as an inclusive term that embraces our whole living organism, not only contains the deposit and totality of all past life, but is also a point of departure, the fertile soil from which all future life will spring. This premonition of futurity is as clearly impressed upon our innermost feelings as is the historical aspect. The idea of immortality follows legitimately from these psychological premises. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 303
They [spirits] are objects of outward perception, whereas their own soul (or one of several souls where a plurality is assumed), though believed to be essentially akin to the spirits, is not usually an object of so-called sensible perception. After death the soul (or one of the plurality of souls) becomes a spirit which survives the dead man, and often it shows a marked deterioration of character that partly contradicts the notion of personal immortality ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 293
The Self, as an inclusive term that embraces our whole living organism, not only contains the deposit and totality of all past life, but is also a point of departure, the fertile soil from which all future life will spring. This premonition of futurity is as clearly impressed upon our innermost feelings as is the historical aspect. The idea of immortality follows legitimately from these psychological premises ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 303
Nothing endangers this connection more in a man than a successful life; it makes him forget his dependence on the unconscious. The case of Gilgamesh is instructive in this respect: he was so successful that the gods, the representatives of the unconscious, saw themselves compelled to deliberate how they could best bring about his downfall. Their efforts were unavailing at first, but when the hero had won the herb of immortality and was almost at his goal, a serpent stole the elixir of life from him while he slept ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 457
The tale shows how the immortality-bringing rebirth comes about. Characteristically, it is neither Moses nor Joshua who is transformed, but the forgotten fish. Where the fish disappears, there is the birthplace of Khidr ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 248
I might mention, for instance, the motif of the dual descent, that is, descent from human and divine parents, as in the case of Heracles, who received immortality through being unwittingly adopted by Hera. What was a myth in Greece was actually a ritual in Egypt: Pharaoh was both human and divine by nature. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 93
It is normal to think about immortality, and abnormal not to do so or not to bother about it. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 310.
Immortality cannot be proved any more than can the existence of God, either philosophically or empirically. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 743
He can hardly accept the loss of his friend, but what torments him most is the fear of death. He has seen his friend die and is faced with the fact that he is mortal too. One more desire tortures him to secure immortality ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 239
Finally he comes to his destination and persuades the old man to tell him of the remedy. At the bottom of the sea he acquires the magic herb of immortality, the pharmakon athanasias, and he is bringing the herb home. Although he is tired of travelling he is full of joy because he has the wonderful medicine and does not need to be afraid of death any more ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 239
But while he is refreshing himself by bathing in a pool, a snake smells out the herb of immortality and steals it from him ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 239
We are immortalized in memory. Oh, yes, it is so. The soul has become immortal if we leave something behind for others. Psychology can affirm no other immortality. ~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung, Emma Jung and Toni Wolff-A Collections of Remembrances, Page 7.
We have children and grandchildren and even if we don’t believe in immortality for ourselves, we can believe in the right to live of future people. ~Carl Jung, C. G. Jung, Emma Jung and Toni Wolff – A Collection of Remembrances., Pages 90-95
Our unconscious definitely prefers the Hindu interpretation of immortality. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 146.
Although the assertion of immortality is in itself a fact, it is no more proof of immortality than are any other mythological statements. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 457-458
I make a great effort to fortify the belief in immortality as far as I can, especially in my older patients, for whom such questions are crucial. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 124.
The result is an image of the insoluble tension between limitedness and eternity, reality and dream, actuality and ideal, body and soul, mortality and immortality. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Page 287
When we apply this to our dream we could say that the Ka soul, the sidereal or subtle body of the child, sits on top of the pyramid: in general terms, the desire for perfection and boundlessness, for salvation and immortality, embodied in the dreamer. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Page 287
There are people who feel no craving for immortality, and who shudder at the thought of sitting on a cloud and playing the harp for ten thousand years! ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections, Page 301
You also wrote about the experience of immortality which results from the ego’s contact with the Self I have not had this experience. ~James Kirsch, Jung-Kirsch Letters, Page 166
This observation, however, does not tell us anything about immortality or life after death. It refers only to the quality of our experience. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with Jung, Page 13
But your attitude to it matters, how you will take it, whether you believe in immortality or not, how you react to such and such an event, that matters to the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 903.
One should not be deterred by the rather silly objection that nobody knows whether these old universal ideas—God, immortality, freedom of the will, and so on—are “true” or not. Truth is the wrong criterion here. One can only ask whether they are helpful or not, whether man is better off and feels his life more complete, more meaningful and more satisfactory with or without them. ~Carl Jung, Face to Face, Pages 48-51
Science is a transitory phenomenon, while the idea of immortality or something equivalent to it is an age-old problem of man that surely won’t die out, because it is an archetypal idea. ~Carl Jung, Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process, Page 307
The Christian doctrine of original sin on the one hand, and of the meaning and value of suffering on the other, is of profound therapeutic significance and is undoubtedly far better suited to Western man than Islamic fatalism. Similarly the belief in immortality gives life that untroubled flow into the future so necessary if stoppages and regressions are to be avoided. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 186
Death is psychologically as important as birth, and like it, is an integral part of life. As a doctor, I make every effort to strengthen the belief in immortality, especially with older patients when such questions come threateningly close. For, seen in correct psychological perspective, death is not an end but a goal, and life’s inclination towards death begins as soon as the meridian is passed. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para. 68.
For the man of today the expansion of life and its culmination are plausible goals, but the idea of life after death seems to him questionable or beyond belief. Life’s cessation, that is, death, can only be accepted as a reasonable goal either when existence is so wretched that we are only too glad for it to end, or when we are convinced that the sun strives to its setting “to illuminate distant races” with the same logical consistency it showed in rising to the zenith. But to believe has become such a difficult art today that it is beyond the capacity of most people, particularly the educated part of humanity. They have become too accustomed to the thought that, with regard to immortality and such questions, there are innumerable contradictory opinions and no convincing proofs. And since “science” is the catchword that seems to carry the weight of absolute conviction in the temporary world, we ask for “scientific” proofs. But educated people who can think know very well that proof of this kind is a philosophical impossibility. We simply cannot know anything whatever about such things. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 790
Following Vollers, we may compare Khidr and Elias (or Moses and his servant Joshua) with Gilgamesh and his brother Eabani (Enkidu). Gilgamesh wanders through the world, driven by fear and longing, to find immortality. His journey takes him across the sea to the wise Utnapishtim (Noah), who knows how to cross the waters of death. There Gilgamesh has to dive down to the bottom of the sea for the magical herb that is to lead him back to the land of men. On the return journey he is accompanied by an immortal mariner, who, banished by the curse of Utnapishtim, has been forbidden to return to the land of the blessed. But when Gilgamesh arrives home, a serpent steals the magic herb from him (i.e., the fish slips back into the sea). Because of the loss of the magic herb, Gilgamesh’s journey has been in vain; instead he comes back in the company of an immortal, whose fate we cannot learn from the fragments of the epic. Jensen believes that this banished immortal is the prototype of Ahasuerus. Once again we meet the motif of the Dioscuri: mortal and immortal, the setting and rising sun. The Mithraic bull-sacrifice is often represented as flanked by the two dadophors, Gautes and Cautopates, one with a raised and the other with a lowered torch. They form a pair of brothers whose characters are revealed by the symbolic position of the torches. Cumont not unjustly connects them with the sepulchral Erotes, who as genies with inverted torches have a traditional meaning. One would stand for death, the other for life. There are certain points of resemblance between the Mithraic sacrifice (where the bull in the centre is flanked on either side by dadophors and the Christian sacrifice of the lamb (or ram). The Crucified is traditionally flanked by two thieves, one of whom ascends to paradise while the other descends to hell. The Semitic gods were often flanked by two paredroi; for instance, the Baal of Edessa was accompanied by Aziz and Monimos (Baal being astrologically interpreted as the sun, and Aziz and Monimos as Mars and Mercury). According to the Babylonian view, the gods are grouped into triads. Thus the two thieves somehow go together with Christ. The two dadophors are, as Cumont has shown, offshoots 61 from the main figure of Mithras, who was supposed to have a secret triadic character. Dionysius the Areopagite reports that the magicians held a feast in honour of τοϋ τρι-πλασίου Μίθρον (the threefold Mithras). ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 293
We have already pointed out that the Dioscuri represent a similar idea in somewhat different form: one sun is mortal, the other immortal. As this whole solar mythology is psychology projected into the heavens, the underlying idea could probably be paraphrased thus: just as man consists of a mortal and an immortal part, so the sun is a pair of brothers, one of whom is mortal, the other immortal. Man is mortal, yet there are exceptions who are immortal, or there is something immortal in us. Thus the gods, or figures like Khidr and the Comte de Saint-Germain, are our immortal part which continues intangibly to exist. The sun comparison tells us over and over again that the dynamic of the gods is psychic energy. This is our immortality, the link through which man feels inextinguishably one with the continuity of all life. The life of the psyche is the life of mankind. Welling up from the depths of the unconscious, its springs gush forth from the root of the whole human race, since the individual is, biologically speaking, only a twig broken off from the mother and transplanted. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 296
The immortality of the soul insisted upon by dogma exalts it above the transitoriness of mortal man and causes it to partake of some supernatural quality. It thus infinitely surpasses the perishable, conscious individual in significance, so that logically the Christian is forbidden to regard the soul as a “nothing but.” As the eye to the sun, so the soul corresponds to God. Since our conscious mind does not comprehend the soul it is ridiculous to speak of the things of the soul in a patronizing or depreciatory manner. Even the believing Christian does not know God’s hidden ways and must leave him to decide whether he will work on man from the outside or from within, through the soul. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 11
This matriarchal goddess is obviously an anima figure who at the same time symbolizes the Self. Hence her stone-nature, her immortality, her four daughters born from the body, plus one from the spirit, her duality as sun and moon, her role as paramour, and her ability to change her shape. The Self of a man living in a matriarchal society is still immersed in his unconscious femininity, as can be observed even today in all cases of masculine mother-complexes. But the turquoise goddess also exemplifies the psychology of the matriarchal woman, who, as an anima figure, attracts the mother-complexes of all the men in her vicinity and robs them of their independence, just as Omphale held Herakles in thrall, or Circe reduced her captives to a state of bestial unconsciousness not to mention Benoît’s Atlantida, who made a collection of her mummified lovers ~Carl Jung, CW 13 Para 131
The connection of the lapis with immortality is attested from very early times. Ostanes (possibly 4th cent. B.C.) speaks of “the Nile stone that has a spirit.” The lapis is the panacea, the universal medicine, the alexipharmic, the tincture that transmutes base metals into gold and gravel into precious stones. It brings riches, power, and health; it cures melancholy and, as the vivus lapis philosophicus, is a symbol of the saviour, the Anthropos, and immortality. Its incorruptibility is also shown in the ancient idea that the body of a saint becomes stone. Thus the Apocalypse of Elijah says of those who escape persecution by the Anti-Messiah: “The Lord shall take unto him their spirit and their souls, their flesh shall be made stone, no wild beast shall devour them till the last day of the great judgment” ~Carl Jung, CW 13 Para 133
From this material it appears quite clearly what alchemy was seeking, in the last analysis. It wished to produce a corpus subtile, the transfigured body of the resurrection-a body that is simultaneously spirit. In this it matches Chinese alchemy, as it has become known to us through the text of The Secret of the Golden Flower. This is the “diamond body,” that is immortality, attained through the transformation of the body. Because of its transparency, its brilliance, and its hardness, the diamond is a fitting symbol. ~Carl Jung, “Jung” by Gerhard Wehr, Page 258
The soul does not represent a force in a material form, and thus there can be no judgment concerning it. But everything that cannot be judged subsists outside the concepts of space and time. Accordingly the soul is independent of space and time. Thus sufficient reason exists for us to postulate the immortality of the soul. approximately the same level. In short, despite the change in his substance the individual remains the same. Thus it appears that the principium vitae constitutes, so to speak, the scaffolding on which matter is built up. ~Carl Jung, Zofingia Lectures, Para 99