Carl Jung: The nature of the redeeming symbol is that of a child,
[For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)] (Footnote 3)
Footnote 3: In 1921, Jung cited this passage, noting:
“The nature of the redeeming symbol is that of a child, that is the childlikeness or presuppositionlessness of the attitude belongs to the symbol and its function.
This ‘childlike’ attitude necessarily brings with it another guiding principle in place of self-will and rational intentions, whose ‘godlikeness’ is synonymous with ‘superiority.’
Since it is of an irrational nature, the guiding principle appears in a miraculous form.
Isaiah expresses his connection very well (9:5) …
These honorific titles reproduce the essential qualities of the redeeming symbol.
The criterion of ‘godlike’ effect is the irresistible power of the unconscious impulses” (psychological Types, CW 6, §442-43). ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 229.
[Isaiah said: Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53: 1-4)] (Footnote 2)
Footnote 2: In 1921, Jung cited the first three verses of this passage (from Luther’s Bible), noting: “The birth of the Savior, the development of the redeeming symbol, takes place where one does not expect it, and from precisely where a solution is most improbable” (psychological Types, CW 6, §439).
Carl Jung: the relativity of the symbol.
Psychological Types (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 6)
We now come to the main theme of this chapter—the relativity of the symbol.
The “relativity of God,” as I understand it, denotes a point of view that does not conceive of God as “absolute,” i.e., wholly “cut off” from man and existing outside and beyond all human conditions, but as in a certain sense dependent on him; it also implies a reciprocal and essential relation between man and God, whereby man can be understood as a function of God, and God as a psychological function of man.
From the empirical standpoint of analytical psychology, the God-image is the symbolic expression of a particular psychic state, or function, which is characterized by its absolute ascendency over the will of the subject, and can therefore bring about or enforce actions and achievements that could never be done by conscious effort.
This overpowering impetus to action (so far as the God-function manifests itself in acts), or this inspiration that transcends conscious understanding, has its source in an accumulation of energy in the unconscious.
The accumulated libido activates images lying dormant in the collective unconscious, among them the God-image, that engram or imprint which from the beginning of time has been the collective expression of the most overwhelmingly powerful influences exerted on the conscious mind by unconscious concentrations of libido. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 412
Carl Jung: the relativity of the symbol.
Psychological Types (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 6)
We now come to the main theme of this chapter—the relativity of the symbol.
The “relativity of God,” as I understand it, denotes a point of view that does not conceive of God as “absolute,” i.e., wholly “cut off” from man and existing outside and beyond all human conditions, but as in a certain sense dependent on him; it also implies a reciprocal and essential relation between man and God, whereby man can be understood as a function of God, and God as a psychological function of man.
From the empirical standpoint of analytical psychology, the God-image is the symbolic expression of a particular psychic state, or function, which is characterized by its absolute ascendency over the will of the subject, and can therefore bring about or enforce actions and achievements that could never be done by conscious effort.
This overpowering impetus to action (so far as the God-function manifests itself in acts), or this inspiration that transcends conscious understanding, has its source in an accumulation of energy in the unconscious.
The accumulated libido activates images lying dormant in the collective unconscious, among them the God-image, that engram or imprint which from the beginning of time has been the collective expression of the most overwhelmingly powerful influences exerted on the conscious mind by unconscious concentrations of libido. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 412
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