Carl Jung Foreword to Wickes: The Inner World of Man
Frances G. Wickes’ book, which first appeared in America in 1938 is now available in a German translation.
It is the fruit of a long and industrious life, uncommonly rich in experience of people of all classes and ages.
Anyone who wishes to form a picture of the inner life of the psyche and broaden his knowledge of psychic phenomena in general is warmly recommended to read this book.
The author has taken the greatest pains to express the inner experiences of her patients with the help of the viewpoints I have introduced into psychology.
Her collection of case histories is of the greatest value to the skilled psychotherapist and practising psychologist, not to mention the layman, for whom she opens vistas into a world of experience hitherto inaccessible to him.
If, as in this book, fantasy is taken for what it is—a natural expression of life which we can at most seek to understand but cannot correct—it will yield possibilities of psychic development that are of the utmost importance for the cure of psychogenic neuroses and of the milder psychotic disturbances.
Fantasies should not be negatively valued by subjecting them to rationalistic prejudices; they also have a positive aspect as creative compensations of the conscious attitude, which is always in danger of incompleteness and one-sidedness.
Fantasy is a self-justifying biological function, and the question of its practical use arises only when it has to be channeled into so-called concrete reality.
So long as this situation has not arisen, it is completely beside the point to explain fantasy in terms of some preconceived theory and to declare it invalid, or to reduce it to some other biological process.
Fantasy is the natural life of the psyche, which at the same time harbours in itself the irrational creative factor.
The neurotic’s involuntary over- or undervaluation of fantasy is as injurious to the life of the psyche as its rationalistic condemnation or suppression, for fantasy is not a sickness but a natural and vital activity which helps the seeds of psychic development to grow.
Frances Wickes illustrates this in exemplary fashion by describing the typical figures and phases that are encountered in involuntary fantasy processes. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 527-528
Carl Jung on Inner World – Anthology
Just as you become a part of the manifold essence of the world through your bodies, so you become a part of the manifold essence of the inner world through your soul. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 264.
I earnestly confronted my devil and behaved with him as with a real person.
This I learned in the Mysterium: to take seriously every unknown wanderer who personally inhabits the inner world, since they are real because they are effectual. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 260.
Man is a gateway, through which you pass from the outer world of Gods, daimons, and souls into the inner world, out of the greater into the smaller world. Small and inane is man, already he is behind you, and once again you find yourselves in endless space, in the smaller or inner infinity. ~Carl Jung; The Red Book; Page 354.
The world of the inner is as infinite as the world of the outer. Just as you become a part of the manifold essence of the world through your bodies, so you become a part of the manifold essence of the inner world through your soul. This inner world is truly infinite, in no way poorer than the outer one. Man lives in two worlds. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 264.
A religious life presupposes a conscious connection of the inner and outer worlds and it requires a constant, meticulous attention to all circumstances to the best of our knowledge and our conscience. We must watch what the gods ordain for us in the outer world, but as well as waiting for developments in the outer world we must listen to the inner world; both worlds are expressions of God. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 36.
When the woman experiences the mystery of creativeness in herself, in her own inner world, she is doing the right thing and then no longer demands it from the outside — from her husband, her son, or anyone else close to her. . ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 29.
Man is not a machine in the sense that he can consistently maintain the same output of work. He can meet the demands of outer necessity in an ideal way only if he is also adapted to his own inner world, that is, if he is in harmony with himself. Conversely, he can only adapt to his inner world and achieve harmony with himself when he is adapted to the environmental conditions. ~Carl Jung; “On Psychic Energy,” CW 8; par. 75.
This is old age, and a limitation. Yet there is so much that fills me: plants, animals, clouds, day and night, and the eternal in man. The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things. In fact it seems to me as if that alienation which so long separated me from the world has become transferred into my own inner world, and has revealed to me an unexpected unfamiliarity with myself. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections; Page 359.
I should like to stress the fact that intense withdrawal from outer reality brings about an animation of the inner world which calls forth these phenomena. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture IX,15Dec1933, Page 39.
Conversely, he can only adapt to his inner world and achieve harmony with himself when he is adapted to the environmental conditions. ~Carl Jung, “On Psychic Energy,” par. 75.
We must watch what the gods ordain for us in the outer world, but as well as waiting for developments in the outer world we must listen to the inner world; both worlds are expressions of God. ~Carl Jung, Jung-Ostrowski, Page 39.
In the second half of life one should begin to get acquainted with the inner world. That is a general problem. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 402.
The religious interest, which ought normally to be the greatest and most decisive factor, turned away from the inner world, and great figures of dogma dwindled to strange and incomprehensible vestiges, a prey to every sort of criticism. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 113.
My family and my profession remained the base to which I could always return, assuring me that I was an actually existing, ordinary person. ~Carl Jung, MDR, Page 189
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