Carl Jung: The term unconscious denotes, we don’t know it.
To Harold Lloyd Long
Dear Sir, 15 November 1958
The derogatory interpretations of the unconscious are usually due to the fact that the observer projects his primitivity and his blindness into the unconscious.
He thereby pursues the secret goal of protecting himself against the inexorable demands of nature in the widest sense of the word.
As the term “unconscious” denotes, we don’t know it.
It is the unknown, of which we can say anything we like.
Not one of our statements will be necessarily true.
The reason why the unconscious appears to us in such a disagreeable form is because we are afraid of it, and we revile it because we hope that by this method we can free ourselves from its attractions.
It is a puzzler-! admit-to anybody who occasionally indulges in thinking.
Sincerely yours,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 464-465
