Carl Jung: CW 9i "Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious" - Quotations

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Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious

A report from the year 1198 says that at the Feast of the Circumcision in Notre Dame, Paris, “so many abominations and shameful deeds” were committed that the holy place was desecrated “not only by smutty jokes, but even by the shedding of blood.” In vain did Pope Innocent III inveigh against the “jests and madness that make the clergy a mockery,” and the “shameless frenzy of their play-acting.”

Two hundred and fifty years later (March 12, 1444), a letter from the Theological Faculty of Paris to all the French bishops was still fulminating against these festivals, at which “even the priests and clerics elected an archbishop or a bishop or pope, and named him the Fools’ Pope” (fatuorum papam).CW 9i, Para 458

“The stars of thine own fate lie in thy breast,” says Seni to Wallenstein – a dictum that should satisfy all astrologers if we knew even a little about the secrets of the heart. But for this, so far, men have had little understanding. Nor would I dare to assert that things are any better today. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 9

In Picture 10, begun in Zurich but only completed when Miss X again visited her motherland, we find the same division as before into above and below. The “soul-flower” in the centre is the same, but it is surrounded on all sides by a dark blue night sky, in which we see the four phases of the moon, the new moon coinciding with the world of darkness below. The three birds have become two. Their plumage has darkened, but on the other hand the goat has turned into two semi-human creatures with horns and light faces, and only two of the four snakes remain. A notable innovation is the appearance of two crabs in the lower, chthonic hemisphere that also represents the body. The crab has essentially the same meaning as the astrological sign Cancer. 6 Unfortunately Miss X gave no context here. In such cases it is usually worth investigating what use has been made in the past of the object in question. In earlier, prescientific ages hardly any distinction was drawn between long-tailed crabs ( Macrura , crayfish) and short-tailed crabs ( Brachyura ). As a zodiacal sign Cancer signifies resurrection , because the crab sheds its shell. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 604

The ancients had in mind chiefly Pagurus bernhardus , the hermit crab. It hides in its shell and cannot be attacked. Therefore it signifies caution and foresight , knowledge of coming events. 8 It “depends on the moon, and waxes with it.” 9 It is worth noting that the crab appears just in the mandala in which we see the phases of the moon for the first time. Astrologically, Cancer is the house of the moon. Because of its backwards and sideways movement, it plays the role of an unlucky animal in superstition and colloquial speech (“crabbed,” “catch a crab,” etc.). Since ancient times cancer ( καρκίνος ) has been the name for a malignant tumour of the glands. Cancer is the zodiacal sign in which the sun begins to retreat, when the days grow shorter. Pseudo-Kallisthenes relates that crabs dragged Alexander’s ships down into the sea. “Karkinos” was the name of the crab that bit Heracles in the foot in his fight with the Lernaean monster. In gratitude, Hera set her accomplice among the stars. In astrology, Cancer is a feminine and watery sign, and the summer solstice takes place in it. In the melothesiae it is correlated with the breast . It rules over the Western sea. In Propertius it makes a sinister appearance: “OctipedisCancri terga sinistra time” (Fear thou the ill-omened back of the eight-footed crab). De Gubernatis says: “The crab . . . causes now the death of the solar hero and now that of the monster.” The Panchatantra (V, 2) relates how a crab, which the mother gave to her son as apotropaic magic, saved his life by killing a black snake. As De Gubernatis thinks, the crab stands now for the sun and now for the moon, according to whether it goes forwards or backwards. ~Carl Jung CW 9i, Para 605

Miss X was born in the first degrees of Cancer (actually about 3°). She knew her horoscope and was well aware of the significance of the moment of birth; that is, she realized that the degree of the rising sign (the ascendent) conditions the individuality of the horoscope. Since she obviously guessed the horoscope’s affinity with the mandala, she introduced her individual sign into the painting that was meant to express her psychic self. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 606

The essential conclusion to be drawn from Picture 10 is that the dualities which run through it are always inwardly balanced, so that they lose their sharpness and incompatibility. As Multatuli says: “Nothing is quite true, and even that is not quite true.” But this loss of strength is counterbalanced by the unity of the centre, where the lamp shines, sending out coloured rays to the eight points of the compass. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 607

I would hazard that we have to do here with a tetrameria (as in Greek alchemy), a transformation process divided into four stages of three parts each, analogous to the twelve transformations of the zodiac and its division into four. As not infrequently happens, the number 12 would then have a not merely individual significance (as the patient’s birth number, for instance), but a time-conditioned one too, since the present aeon of the Fishes is drawing to its end and is at the same time the twelfth house of the zodiac. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 552

Heaven and hell are the fates meted out to the soul and not to civilized man, who in his nakedness and timidity would have no idea of what to do with himself in a heavenly Jerusalem. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 56

But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 3

In the Corpus Hermeticum, God is called “archetypal light”. The term occurs several times in Dionysius the Areopagite Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 5

The term “archetype” is not found in St. Augustine, but the idea of it is. Thus he speaks of “ideae principales, `which are themselves not formed but are contained in the divine understanding’ ” Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 5

“Archetype” is an explanatory paraphrase of the Platonic eidos. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 5

The term “représentations collectives,” used by Lévy-Bruhl to denote the symbolic figures in the primitive view of the world, could easily be applied to unconscious contents as well, since it means practically the same thing Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 5

Another well-known expression of the archetypes is myth and fairy tale. But here too we are dealing with forms that have received a specific stamp and have been handed down through long periods of time Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 6

Almost the entire life of the collective unconscious has been channelled into the dogmatic archetypal ideas and flows along like a well-controlled stream in the symbolism of creed and ritual. It manifests itself in the inwardness of the Catholic psyche. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 21

The collective unconscious, as we understand it today, was never a matter of “psychology,” for before the Christian Church existed there were the antique mysteries, and these reach back into the grey mists of Neolithic prehistory. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 21

It is not enough for the primitive to see the sun rise and set; this external observation must at the same time be a psychic happening: the sun in its course must represent the fate of a god or hero who, in the last analysis, dwells nowhere except in the soul of man. Carl Jung CW 9i, Para 7

Visions like the one he had often cause mental confusion and disintegration (witness the heart bursting “into little pieces”). We know from experience that the protective circle, the mandala, is the traditional antidote for chaotic states of mind. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 16

The iconoclasm of the Reformation, however, quite literally made a breach in the protective wall of sacred images, and since then one image after another has crumbled away. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 22

A hymn, ascribed to Bardesanes, dates from an age that resembled ours in more than one respect. Mankind looked and waited, and it was a fish “levatus de profundo” (drawn from the deep) that became the symbol of the saviour, the bringer of healing. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 38

So the dream of the theologian is quite right in telling him that down by the water he could experience the working of the living spirit like a miracle of healing in the pool of Bethesda. The descent into the depths always seems to precede the ascent Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 40

For people who think in this way, spirit means highest freedom, a soaring over the depths, deliverance from the prison of the chthonic world, and hence a refuge for all those timorous souls who do not want to become anything different. ~ Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 41

But water is earthy and tangible, it is also the fluid of the instinct-driven body, blood and the flowing of blood, the odour of the beast, carnality heavy with passion. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 41

The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 45

That is the age-old danger, instinctively known and feared by primitive man, who himself stands so very close to this pleroma Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 4

Hence primitives are afraid of uncontrolled emotions, because consciousness breaks down under them and gives way to possession Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 47

They are water-beings of a peculiar sort. Sometimes a nixie gets into the fisherman’s net, a female, half-human fish Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 52

Among primitives, the soul is the magic breath of life (hence the term “anima”), or a flame Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 55

She [Anima] is the serpent in the paradise of the harmless man with good resolutions and still better intentions Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 59

She [Anima] affords the most convincing reasons for not prying into the unconscious, an occupation that would break down our moral inhibitions and unleash forces that had better been left unconscious and undisturbed Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 59

As usual, there is something in what the anima says; for life in itself is not good only, it is also bad. Because the anima wants life, she wants both good and bad Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 59

Bodily life as well as psychic life have the impudence to get along much better without conventional morality, and they often remain the healthier for it Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 59

It took more than a thousand years of Christian differentiation to make it clear that the good is not always the beautiful and the beautiful not necessarily good. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 60

If the soul were uniformly dark it would be a simple matter. Unfortunately this is not so, for the anima can appear also as an angel of light, a psychopomp who points the way to the highest meaning, as we know from Faust Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 60

To the men of antiquity the anima appeared as a goddess or a witch, while for medieval man the goddess was replaced by the Queen of Heaven and Mother Church. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 61

The American divorce rate has been reached, if not exceeded, in many European countries, which proves that the anima projects herself by preference on the opposite sex, thus giving rise to magically complicated relationships. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 61

In dealing with the shadow or anima it is not sufficient just to know about these concepts and to reflect on them. Nor can we ever experience their content by feeling our way into them or by appropriating other people’s feelings. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 62

It is no use at all to learn a list of archetypes by heart. Archetypes are complexes of experience that come upon us like fate, and their effects are felt in our most personal life Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 62

Or the Heraclitean (ever-living fire) which borders on the primitive notion of an all-pervading vital force, a power of growth and magic healing that is generally called mana. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 68

If one wants to form a picture of the symbolic process, the series of pictures found in alchemy are good examples, though the symbols they contain are for the most part traditional despite their often obscure origin and significance. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 81

In all cases of dissociation it is therefore necessary to integrate the unconscious into consciousness. This is a synthetic process which I have termed the “individuation process” Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 83

Whereas the personal unconscious consists for the most part of complexes, the content of the collective unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 88

To the extent a neurosis is really only a private affair, having its roots exclusively in personal causes, archetypes play no role at all. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 98

But if is a question of a general incompatibility or an otherwise injurious condition productive of neuroses in relatively large numbers of individuals, then we must assume the presence of constellated archetypes Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 98

Since neuroses are in most cases not just private concerns, but social phenomena, we must assume that archetypes are constellated in these cases. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 98.

From this I have drawn the conclusion that dreams often contain fantasies which “want” to become conscious. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 101

Till then, we must for better or worse content ourselves with the assumption that the psyche supplies those images and forms which alone make knowledge of objects possible Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 116

This notion had its origin in archetypal ideas, that is, in primordial images which were never reflections of physical events but are spontaneous products of the psychic factor Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 117

I have often observed that in such cases meaningful but unconscious contents are still bound up with the projection carrier. It is these contents that keep up the effect of the projection, although it has apparently been seen through Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 121

Thus the polytheistic heaven of the ancients owes its depotentiation not least to the view first propounded by Euhemeros [4th c. B.C.], who maintained that the gods were nothing but reflections of human character. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 121

Projection always contains something of which the subject is not conscious and which seems not to belong to him Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 121

Religious ideas, as history shows, are charged with an extremely suggestive, emotional power. ~ Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 127

Among them I naturally reckon all représentations collectives, everything that we learn from the history of religion, and anything that has an “-ism” attached to it. The latter is only a modern variant of the denominational religions Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 125

When it is a case of morbid predispositions already present in the parents, we infer hereditary transmission through the germ-plasm Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 151

It [the anima image] is ready to spring out and project itself at the first opportunity, the moment a woman makes an impression that is out of the ordinary Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 141

Actually, nobody can stand the total loss of the archetype. When that happens, it gives rise to that frightful “discontent in our culture,” where nobody feels at home because a “father” and “mother” are missing ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 141

Younger people who have not yet reached the middle of life (around the age of 35), can bear even the total loss of the anima without injury ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 146

Such a [the homosexual’s] disposition should not be adjudged negative in all circumstances, in so far as it preserves the archetype of the Original Man, which a one-sided sexual being has, up to a point, lost ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 146

After the middle of life, however, permanent loss of the anima means a diminution of vitality, of flexibility, and of human kindness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 147

It is necessary to point out once more that archetypes are not determined as regards their content, but only as regards their form and then only to a very limited degree ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 155

The archetype in itself is empty and purely formal, nothing but a facultas praeformandi, a possibility of representation which is given a priori ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 155

The representations [Of Archetypes] themselves are not inherited, only the forms, and in that respect they correspond in every way to the instincts, which are also determined in form only ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 155

The existence of the instincts can no more be proved than the existence of the archetypes, so long as they do not manifest themselves concretely ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 155

They [archetypes] form the “treasure in the realm of shadowy thoughts” of which Kant spoke, and of which we have ample evidence in the countless treasure motifs of mythology ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 160

An archetype is in no sense just an annoying prejudice; it becomes so only when it is in the wrong place ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 160

In themselves, archetypal images are among the highest values of the human psyche; they have peopled the heavens of all races from time immemorial. To discard them as valueless would be a distinct loss ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 160

Our task is not, therefore, to deny the archetype, but to dissolve the projections, in order to restore their contents to the individual who has involuntarily lost them by projecting them outside himself ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 160

It is an open question whether a mother-complex can develop without the mother having taken part in its formation as a demonstrable causal factor ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 161

My own experience leads me to believe that the mother always plays an active part in the origin of the disturbance, especially in infantile neuroses or in neuroses whose aetiology undoubtedly dates back to early childhood ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 161

In homosexuality, the son’s entire heterosexuality is tied to the mother in an unconscious form ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 162

In Don Juanism, the son unconsciously seeks his mother in every woman he meets ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 162

The effects of a mother-complex on the son may be seen in the ideology of the Cybele-Attis type self-castration, madness, and early death ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 162

Thus a man with a mother-complex may have a finely differentiated Eros instead of, or in addition to, homosexuality. (Something of this sort is suggested by Plato in his Symposium) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 164

The less conscious such a mother is of her own personality, the greater and the more violent is her unconscious will to power ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 167

For many such women Baubo rather than Demeter would be the appropriate symbol ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 167

The mind is not cultivated for its own sake but usually remains in its original condition, altogether primitive, unrelated, and ruthless, but also as true, and sometimes as profound as Nature herself ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 167

This instinct [maternal] may be wiped out altogether. As a substitute, an overdeveloped Eros results, and this almost invariably leads to an unconscious incestuous relationship with the father ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 168

The intensified Eros places an abnormal emphasis on the personality of others ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 168

Jealousy [the daughter’s] of the mother and the desire to outdo her become the leitmotifs of subsequent undertakings, which are often disastrous ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 168

A woman of this type directs the burning ray of her Eros upon a man whose life is stifled by maternal solicitude, and by doing so she arouses a moral conflict. Yet without this there can be no consciousness of personality ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 177

The intensified Eros places an abnormal emphasis on the personality of others ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 168

Jealousy [the daughter’s] of the mother and the desire to outdo her become the leitmotifs of subsequent undertakings, which are often disastrous ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 168

I believe that, after thousands and millions of years, someone had to realize that this wonderful world of mountains and oceans, suns and moons, galaxies and nebulae, plants and animals, exists ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 177

All Nature seeks this goal and finds it fulfilled in man, but only in the most highly developed and most fully conscious man. Every advance, even the smallest, along this path of conscious realization adds that much to the world ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 177

Divine curiosity yearns to be born and does not shrink from conflict, suffering, or sin. Unconsciousness is the primal sin, evil itself, for the Logos ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 178

Consciousness can only exist through continual recognition of the unconscious, just as everything that lives must pass through many deaths. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 178

Conflict engenders fire, the fire of affects and emotions, and like every other fire it has two aspects, that of combustion and that of creating light ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 179

On the one hand, emotion is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes (omnes superfluitates comburit) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 179

If a mother-complex in a woman does not produce an overdeveloped Eros, it leads to identification with the mother and to paralysis of the daughter’s feminine initiative ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 169

But on the other hand, emotion is the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light or from inertia to movement without emotion ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 179

As a sort of superwoman (admired involuntarily by the daughter), the mother lives out for her [the daughter] beforehand all that the girl might have lived for herself ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 169

These bloodless maidens are by no means immune to marriage. On the contrary, despite their shadowiness and passivity, they command a high price on the marriage market ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 169

She [the mother] is the psychic as well as the physical precondition of the child ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 188

The transition from mother to grandmother means that the archetype is elevated to a higher rank. This is clearly demonstrated in a notion held by the Bataks ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 188

In Western antiquity and especially in Eastern cultures the opposites often remain united in the same figure, though this paradox does not disturb the primitive mind in the least ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 189

The morally ambiguous Yahweh became an exclusively good God, while everything evil was united in the devil ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 189

It seems as if the development of the feeling function in Western man forced a choice on him which led to the moral splitting of the divinity into two halves ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 189

Thanks to the development of feeling-values, the splendor of the “light” god has been enhanced beyond measure, but the darkness supposedly represented by the devil has localized itself in man ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 189

The richly varied allegories of the Mother of God have nevertheless retained some connection with her pagan prefiguration in Isis (Io) and Semele ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 195

Not only are Isis and the Horus-child iconological exemplars [the Virgin Mary and her child], but the ascension of Semele, the originally mortal mother of Dionysus, likewise anticipates the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 195

Further, this son of Semele [Dionysus] is a dying and resurgent god and the youngest of the Olympians. Semele herself seems to have been an earth-goddess, just as the Virgin Mary is the earth from which Christ was born ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 195

Her Assumption has actually been interpreted as a deliberate counterstroke to the materialistic doctrinairism that provoked the chthonic powers into revolt ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 195

Understood symbolically, however, the Assumption of the body is a recognition and acknowledgement of matter, which in the last resort was identified with evil only because of an overwhelmingly “pneumatic” tendency in man ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 197

In themselves, spirit and matter are neutral, or rather, “utriusque capax” that is, capable of what man calls good or evil ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 197

The dogma of the Assumption, proclaimed in an age suffering from the greatest political schism history has ever known [1950], is a compensating symptom that reflects the strivings of science for a uniform world-picture ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 197

There must be psychic events underlying these affirmations which it is the business of psychology to discusswithout entering into all the metaphysical and philosophical assumptions regarding their significance ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 207

By the “transcendence of life” I mean those experiences of the initiate who takes part in a sacred rite which reveals to him the perpetual continuation of life through transformation and renewal ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 208

In these mystery-dramas the transcendence of life, as distinct from its momentary concrete manifestations, is usually represented by the fateful transformations death and rebirth of a god or a godlike hero ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 208

The experience of the Mass is therefore a participate on in the transcendence of life, which overcomes all bounds of space and time. It is a moment of eternity in time ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 209

All that the mystery drama represents and brings about in the spectator may also occur in the form of a spontaneous, ecstatic, or visionary experience, without any ritual ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 210

Nietzsche’s Noontide Vision is a classic example of this kind. Nietzsche, as we know, substitutes for the Christian mystery the myth of Dionysus-Zagreus, who was dismembered and came to life again ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 210

Even the “golden ring,” the “ring of return,” appears to him as a promise of resurrection and life. It is just as if Nietzsche had been present at a performance of the mysteries ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 210

Many mystic experiences have a similar character: they represent an action in which the spectator becomes involved though his nature is not necessarily changed ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 211

Abaissement is a slackening of the intensity of consciousness, which might be compared to a low barometric reading, presaging bad weather ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 213

One of the most important forms is the phenomenon of possession: some content, an idea or a part of the personality, obtains mastery of the individual for one reason or another ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 220

In Christianity the development was carried still further when the outer God or Christ gradually became the inner Christ of the individual believer, remaining one and the same though dwelling in many ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 229

Instead of the transformation experience coming to one through participation in the rite, the rite is used for the express purpose of effecting the transformation. It thus becomes a sort of technique to which one submits oneself ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 229

It is a transformation experience induced by technical means. The exercises known in the East as yoga and in the West as exercitia spiritualia come into this category ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 232

This is true both of Eastern yoga and of the methods practised in the West. They are, therefore, technical procedures in the fullest sense of the word; elaborations of the originally natural processes of transformation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 232

Nature herself demands a death and a rebirth. As the alchemist Democritus says: “Nature rejoices in nature, nature subdues nature, nature rules over nature” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 234

Our attitude towards this inner voice alternates between two extremes: it is regarded either as undiluted nonsense or as the voice of God. It does not seem to occur to any one that there might be something valuable in between ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 237

The “other” may be just as one-sided in one way as the ego is in another. And yet the conflict between them may give rise to truth and meaning but only if the ego is willing to grant the other its rightful personality ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 237

It [the `other’] has, of course, a personality anyway, just as have the voices of insane people; but a real colloquy becomes possible only when the ego acknowledges the existence of a partner to the discussion ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 237

The cave is the place of rebirth, that secret cavity in which one is shut up in order to be incubated and renewed ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 240

The Koran says of it: “You might have seen the rising sun decline to the right of their cavern, and as it set, go past them on the left, while they [the Seven Sleepers] stayed in the middle” The “middle” is the center where the jewel reposes, where the incubation or sacrificial rite or the transformation takes place. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 240

The most beautiful development of this symbolism [`middle’] is to be found on Mithraic altar-pieces and in alchemical pictures of the transformative substance, which is always shown between the sun and the moon ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 240

Representations of the crucifixion frequently follow the same type, and a similar symbolical arrangement is also found in the transformation or healing ceremonies of the Navahos ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 240

The Koran commentaries state that on the island thus formed Khidr was sitting, in the place of the middle. A mystical interpretation says that he [Khidr] was sitting “on a throne consisting of light, between the upper and the lower sea,” again in the middle position. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 246

Khidr symbolizes not only the higher wisdom but also a way of acting which is in accord with this wisdom and transcends reason. Moses accepts him [Khidr] as a higher consciousness and looks up to him for instruction. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 247

Khidr symbolizes not only the higher wisdom but also a way of acting which is in accord with this wisdom and transcends reason. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 247

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

The nourishing character of the transformative substance or deity is borne out by numerous cult-legends: Christ is the bread, Osiris the wheat, Mondamin the maize ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 248

But religion is a vital link with psychic processes independent of and beyond consciousness, in the dark hinterland of the psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 261

The child archetype is an excellent example of mythological components which, because of their typical nature, we can call “motifs,” “primordial images,” types, or as I have named them archetypes ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 260

The archetype of the “child god” is extremely widespread and intimately bound up with all other mythological aspects of the child motif ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 268

The mystical character of the experience is also confirmed in Part II of Goethe’s Faust, where Faust himself is transformed into a boy and admitted into the “choir of blessed youths,” this being the “larval stage” of Dr. Marianus ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 268

The child motif not infrequently occurs in the field of psychopathology. The “imaginary” child is common among women with mental disorders and is usually interpreted in a Christian sense ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 270

But the clearest and most significant manifestation of the child motif in the therapy of neuroses is in the maturation process of personality induced by the analysis of the unconscious, which I have termed the process of individuation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 270

Often the child is formed after the Christian model; more often, though, it develops from earlier, altogether non-Christian levels that is to say, out of chthonic animals such as crocodiles, dragons, serpents, or monkeys. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 270

Sometimes the child appears in the cup of a flower, or out of a golden egg, or as the center of a mandala ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 270

Moreover, they [archetypes] are the unfailing causes of neurotic and even psychotic disorders, behaving exactly like neglected or maltreated physical organs or organic functional systems. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 266

With the loss of the past, now become “insignificant,” devalued, and incapable of revaluation, the saviour is lost too, for the saviour is either the insignificant thing itself or else arises out of it ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 267

These women remind me if I may be forgiven the impolite comparison of hefty great bitches who turn tail before the smallest cur simply because he is a terrible male and it never occurs to them to bite him ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 182

Understood concretely, the Assumption is the absolute opposite of materialism. Taken in this sense, is a counterstroke that does nothing to diminish the tension between the opposites, but drives it to extremes ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 196

I am not prepared to lay down any hard and fast line of demarcation between possession and paranoia. Possession can be formulated as identity of the ego-personality with a complex ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 220

If it is a very large group, the collective psyche will be more like the psyche of an animal, which is the reason why the ethical attitude of large organizations is always doubtful ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 225

Thus identification with the group is a simple and easy path to follow, but the group experience goes no deeper than the level of one’s own mind in that state. It does work a change in you, but the change does not last ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 226

This truth had already been anticipated by the psychology of totemism: many exemplars of the totem animal are killed and consumed during the totem meals, and yet it is only the One who is being eaten, just as there is only one Christ-child and one Santa Claus ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 229

Here the first form, the dromenon, is characteristic of the richly developed ritual of the Catholic Church; the second form, the recitation, the “Word” or “gospel,” is practised in the “preaching of the Word” in Protestantism. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 230

We should prefer to be always “I” and nothing else. But we are confronted with that inner friend or foe, and whether he is our friend or our foe depends on ourselves ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 235

The alchemists saw it in the transformation of the chemical substance. So if one of them sought transformation, he discovered it outside in matter, whose transformation cried out to him, as it were, “I am the transformation!” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 238

The character of the Self as a personality comes out very plainly in the Khidr legend ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 250

The 18th Sura gives an almost perfect picture of a psychic transformation or rebirth which today, with our greater psychological insight, we would recognize as an individuation process. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 258

Because of the great age of the [Khidr] legend and the Islamic prophet’s primitive cast of mind, the process takes place entirely outside the sphere of consciousness and is projected in the form of a mystery legend of a friend or a pair of friends and the deeds they perform ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 258

A tribe’s mythology is its living religion, whose loss is always and everywhere, even among the civilized, a moral catastrophe ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 261

Even the best attempts at explanation are only more or less successful translations into another metaphorical language. (Indeed, language itself is only an image.) The most we can do is to dream the myth onwards and give it a modern dress. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 271

The archetype let us never forget this is a psychic organ present in all of us. A bad explanation means a correspondingly bad attitude to this organ, which may thus be injured. But the ultimate sufferer is the bad interpreter himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 271

Hence the “explanation” should always be such that the functional significance of the archetype remains unimpaired, so that an adequate and meaningful connection between the conscious mind and the archetype is assured ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 271

For the archetype is an element of our psychic structure and thus a vital and necessary component in our psychic economy. It represents or personifies certain instinctive data of the dark, primitive psyche, the real but invisible roots of consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 271

But inasmuch as man has, in high degree, the capacity for cutting himself off from his own roots, he may also be swept uncritically to catastrophe by his dangerous one-sidedness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 277

The retarding ideal is always more primitive, more natural (in the good sense as in the bad) and more “moral” in that it keeps faith with law and tradition ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 277

The progressive ideal is always more abstract, more unnatural, and less “moral” in that it demands disloyalty to tradition. Progress enforced by will is always convulsive ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 277

Backwardness may be closer to naturalness, but in its turn it is always menaced by painful awakenings ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 277

The child is potential future. Hence the occurrence of the child motif in the psychology of the individual signifies as a rule an anticipation of future developments, even though at first sight it may seem like a retrospective configuration ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 278

But in so far as the individuation process occurs, empirically speaking, as a synthesis, it looks, paradoxically enough, as if something already existent were being put together. From this point of view, the term “synthesis” is also applicable ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 278

If, however, the child motif appears in the form of a unity, we are dealing with an unconscious and provisionally complete synthesis of the personality, which in practice, like everything unconscious, signifies no more than a possibility ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 280

More especially the threat to one’s inmost Self from dragons and serpents points to the danger of the newly acquired consciousness being swallowed up again by the instinctive psyche, the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 282

The lower vertebrates have from earliest times been favourite symbols of the collective psychic substratum, which is localized anatomically in the subcortical centres, the cerebellum and the spinal cord. These organs constitute the snake. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 282

Higher vertebrates symbolize mainly affects ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 282

Snake-dreams usually occur, therefore, when the conscious mind is deviating from its instinctual basis ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 282

The coming of consciousness was probably the most tremendous experience of primeval times, for with it a world came into being whose existence no one had suspected before ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 284

“And God said: `Let there be light!’” is the projection of that immemorial experience of the separation of the conscious from the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 284

Even among primitives today the possession of a soul is a precarious thing, and the “loss of soul” a typical psychic malady which drives primitive medicine to all sorts of psychotherapeutic measures ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 284

Higher consciousness, or knowledge going beyond our present-day consciousness, is equivalent to being all alone in the world. This loneliness expresses the conflict between the bearer or symbol of higher consciousness and his surroundings ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 288

The size and invincibility of the “child” are bound up in Hindu speculation with the nature of the atman, which corresponds to the “smaller than small yet bigger than big” motif ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

To the twilight consciousness of primitive man it seems as if the egg came out of the womb of the wide world and were, accordingly, a cosmic, objective, external occurrence ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 290

Present-day medical psychology, however, thinks somewhat differently about these “phantasms.” It knows only too well what dire disturbances of the bodily functions and what devastating psychic consequences can flow from “mere” fantasies ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 290

“Fantasies” are the natural expressions of the life of the unconscious. But since the unconscious is the psyche of all the body’s autonomous functional complexes, its “fantasies” have an aetiological significance that is not to be despised ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 290

From the psychopathology of the individuation process we know that the formation of symbols is frequently associated with physical disorders of a psychic origin, which in some cases are felt as decidedly “real” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 290

In medicine, fantasies are real things with which the psychotherapist has to reckon very seriously indeed. He cannot therefore deprive of all justification those primitive phantasms whose content is so real that it is projected upon the external world ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 290

The symbol is thus a living body, corpus et anima; hence the “child” is such an apt formula for the symbol ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 291

The uniqueness of the psyche can never enter wholly into reality, it can only be realized approximately, though it still remains the absolute basis of all consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 291

The hermaphrodite means nothing less than a union of the strongest and most striking opposites ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 292

The hermaphroditic Rebis has an important part to play in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages. And in our own day we hear of Christ’s androgyny in Catholic mysticism ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 292

As we have seen, Gnosticism, too, endeavored in all seriousness to subordinate the physiological to the metaphysical ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 297

The figure of the cucullatus points to the hooded, that is, the invisible one, the genius of the departed, who reappears in the child-like frolics of a new life, surrounded by the sea-forms of dolphins and tritons ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 298

Wholeness is never comprised within the compass of the conscious mind it includes the indefinite and indefinable extent of the unconscious as well ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 299

Consciousness hedged about by psychic powers, sustained or threatened or deluded by them, is the age-old experience of mankind. This experience has projected itself into the archetype of the child, which expresses man’s wholeness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 300

The initial stage of personal infantilism presents the picture of an “abandoned” or “misunderstood” and unjustly treated child with overweening pretensions ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 304

It is an essential characteristic of psychic figures that they are duplex or at least capable of duplication; at all events they are bipolar and oscillate between their positive and negative meanings ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 310

I understand the unconscious rather as an impersonal psyche common to all men, even though it expresses itself through a personal consciousness. When anyone breathes, his breathing is not a phenomenon to be interpreted personally ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 314

The mythological images belong to the structure of the unconscious and are an impersonal possession; in fact, the great majority of men are far more possessed by them than possessing them ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 314

Images give rise under certain conditions to corresponding disturbances and symptoms, and it is then the task of medical therapy to find out . ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 314

From ancient times any relationship to the stars has always symbolized eternity. The soul comes “from the stars” and returns to the stellar regions. “Ursanna’s” relation to the moon is indicated by the “moon-bowl” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 343

Just as in other cases the sacrifice of a child or a sheep played a part, so here the sacrifice of the maiden hanging on the “cross” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 355

The “maiden” corresponds to the anima of the man and makes use of it to gain her natural ends, in which illusion plays the greatest role imaginable ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 355

But as long as a woman is content to be a femme à homme, she has no feminine individuality. She is empty and merely glitters welcome vessel for masculine projections ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 355

In the products of unconscious activity, the anima appears equally as maiden and mother, which is why a personalistic interpretation always reduces her to the personal mother or some other female person ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 356

The real meaning of the figure naturally gets lost in the process, as is inevitably the case with all these reductive interpretations whether in the sphere of the psychology of the unconscious or of mythology ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 356

Besides this ambivalence, the anima also has “occult” connections with “mysteries,” with the world of darkness in general, and for that reason she often has a religious tinge ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 356

To the young boy a clearly discernible anima-form appears in his mother, and this lends her the radiance of power and superiority or else a daemonic aura of even greater fascination ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 357

In men, a positive father-complex very often produces a certain credulity with regard to authority and a distinct willingness to bow down before all spiritual dogmas and values Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 396

In both sexes the spirit can also take the form of a boy or a youth. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 396

The figure of the wise old man can appear so plastically, not only in dreams but also in visionary meditation (or what we call “active imagination”), that, as is sometimes apparently the case in India, it takes over the role of a guru ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 398

The wise old man appears in dreams in the guise of a magician, doctor, priest, teacher, professor, grandfather, or any other person possessing authority ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 398

I have often encountered motifs which made me think that the unconscious must be the world of the infinitesimally small. ~Carl Jung, CW 0i, Para 408

In the same way, the archetype of the wise old man is quite tiny, almost imperceptible, and yet it possesses a fateful potency, as anyone can see when he gets down to fundamentals ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 408

Apart from his cleverness, wisdom, and insight, the old man, as we have already mentioned, is also notable for his moral qualities; what is more, he even tests the moral qualities of others and makes his gifts dependent on this test ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 410

The figure of the superior and helpful old man tempts one to connect him somehow or other with God ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 412

The description of our archetype of the spirit would not be complete if we omitted to consider one special form of its manifestation, namely its animal form ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 419

Something of this contradictoriness also inheres in the medieval description of the devil as simia dei (the ape of God), and in his characterization in folklore as the “simpleton” who is “fooled” or “cheated” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 456

A curious combination of typical trickster motifs can be found in the alchemical figure of Mercurius; for instance ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 456

In picaresque tales, in carnivals and revels, in magic rites of healing, in man’s religious fears and exaltations, this phantom of the trickster haunts the mythology of all ages, sometimes in quite unmistakable form, sometimes in strangely modulated guise ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 465

As Radin points out, the civilizing process [of the trickster] begins within the framework of the trickster cycle itself, and this is a clear indication that the original state has been overcome ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 477

If we take the trickster as a parallel of the individual shadow, then the question arises whether that trend towards meaning, which we saw in the trickster myth, can also be observed in the subjective and personal shadow ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 485

The egg is a germ of life with a lofty symbolical significance. It is not just a cosmogonic symbol it is also a “philosophical” one ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 529

Associations to the tree led to its maternal significance. The tree would explain the plant motif in the mandala, and its sudden growth represents the higher level or freeing of consciousness induced by the movement to the right ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 570

For the same reason the “philosophical” tree is a symbol of the alchemical opus, which as we know is an individuation process ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 570

The Heracles myth has in fact all the characteristic features of an individuation process: the journeys to the four directions, four sons, submission to the feminine principle (Omphale) that symbolizes the unconscious, and the self-sacrifice and rebirth caused by Deianeira’s robe ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 571

A leftward or backward movement, on the other hand, means the “rising” movement of life. A “deliverance from outward things” occurs and the spirit obtains control over the anima ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 564

This idea agrees with my findings, but it does not take account of the fact that a person can easily have the spirit outside and the anima inside ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 564

In Tibet, the leftward-moving swastika is a sign of the Bön religion, of black magic. Stupas and chörtens must therefore be circumambulated clockwise. The leftward-spinning eddies spin into the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 564

The rightward-spinning ones spin out of the unconscious chaos. The rightward-moving swastika in Tibet is therefore a Buddhist emblem ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 564

This dream describes the change: the patient is no longer identical with her animus. The animus has, so to speak, become her patient, since he has eye trouble. As a matter of fact the animus usually sees things “cock-eyed” and often very unclearly ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 592

The eye is also a well-known symbol for God. Hence Böhme calls his “Philosophique Globe” the “Eye of Eternity,” the “Essence of all Essences,” the “Eye of God” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 594

As a zodiacal sign Cancer signifies resurrection, because the crab sheds its shell. The ancients had in mind chiefly Pagurus bernhardus, the hermit crab. It hides in its shell and cannot be attacked. Therefore it signifies caution and foresight, knowledge of coming events ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 604

Foreseeing the flooding of the Nile, the crabs (like the tortoises and crocodiles) bring their eggs in safety to a higher place. “They foresee the future in their mind long before it comes” (Caussin, Polyhistor symbolicus (1618), p. 442) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 604

It “depends on the moon, and waxes with it.” It is worth noting that the crab appears just in the mandala in which we see the phases of the moon for the first time ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 604

In astrology, Cancer is a feminine and watery sign, and the summer solstice takes place in it. In the melothesiae it is correlated with the breast. It rules over the Western sea ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 605

Here the many animals are affective states to which man is prone. The individuation process, clearly alluded to in this passage, subordinates the many to the One. But the One is God, and that which corresponds to him in us is the imago dei, the God-image ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 626

Elaborate mandalas, executed in red chalk, can also be found on the whitewashed walls of many huts. The best and most significant mandalas are found in the sphere of Tibetan Buddhism. I shall use as an example a Tibetan mandala, to which my attention was drawn by Richard Wilhelm ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 629

The wheel is held by the god of death, Yama. It is understandable that the sorrowful world of old age, sickness, and death should be held in the claws of the death-demon ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 644

Usually the mandalas express religious, i.e., numinous, thoughts and ideas, or, in their stead, philosophical ones ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 645

They [mandala figures] therefore possess a “magical” significance, like icons, whose possible efficacy was never consciously felt by the patient. In fact, it is from the effect of their own pictures that patients discover what icons can mean ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 645

In a painting, done by a young woman patient, we see at the cardinal points four creatures: a bird, a sheep, a snake, and a lion with a human face. Together with the four colours in which the four regions are painted, they embody four principles ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 660

But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 3

Over and over again in the “metamorphosis of the gods,” he rises up as the prophet or first-born of a new generation and appears unexpectedly in the unlikeliest places (sprung from a stone, tree, furrow, water, etc.) and in ambiguous form (Tom Thumb, dwarf, child, animal, and so on). ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 267

Nothing can exist without its opposite; the two were one in the beginning and will be one again in the end. Consciousness can only exist through continual recognition of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 158.

In India, “the loving and mother” is the paradoxical Kali. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, para 158

The hero’s main feat is to overcome the monster of darkness: it is the long-hoped-for and expected triumph of consciousness over the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 283.

The paternal principle, the Logos,… eternally struggles to extricate itself from the primal warmth and primal darkness of the maternal womb; in a word, from unconsciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 283.

the Church severed the coniunctio from the physical realm altogether, and natural philosophy turned it into an abstract theoria. These developments meant the gradual transformation of the archetype into a psychological process which, in theory, we can call a combination of conscious and unconscious processes. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 295.

Myths are miracle tales . . . In the everyday world of consciousness such things hardly exist; that is to say, until 1933. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Page 66.

Christ… “An historical personage is uni-temporal and unique; is God, universal and eternal.” Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 116.

The man’s Eros does not lead upward only but downward into that uncanny dark world of Hecate and Kali. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 186.

More especially the threat to one’s inmost self from dragons and serpents points to the danger of the newly acquired consciousness being swallowed up again by the instinctive psyche, the unconscious. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; para. 282.

A man who is possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own light and falling into his own traps. Whenever possible, he prefers to make an unfavorable impression on others. . . ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222f.

Turned towards the world, the anima is fickle, capricious, moody, uncontrolled and emotional, sometimes gifted with daemonic intuitions, ruthless, malicious, untruthful, bitchy, double-faced, and mystical. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222f.

Masses are always breeding grounds of psychic epidemics. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; Par. 227.

The anima also has affinities with animals, which symbolize her characteristics. Thus she can appear as a snake or a tiger or a bird. ~ Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 358

Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche . . . . Many of these unconscious processes may be indirectly occasioned by consciousness, but never by conscious choice. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Par 261.

The animus is obstinate, harping on principles, laying down the law, dogmatic, world-reforming, theoretic, word-mongering, argumentative, and domineering. Both alike have bad taste: the anima surrounds herself with inferior people, and the animus lets himself be taken in by second-rate thinking. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222f.

Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings, and anything but allegories of physical processes. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 261.
The primitive mentality does not invent myths, it experiences them. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 261.

One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, para 221.

Divine curiosity yearns to be born and does not shrink from conflict, suffering, or sin. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 283.

The darkness which clings to every personality is the door into the unconscious and the gateway of dreams, from which those two twilight figures, the shadow and the anima, step into our nightly visions or, remaining invisible, take possession of our ego-consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222.

Genesis represents the act of becoming conscious as a taboo infringement, as though knowledge meant that a sacrosanct barrier had been impiously overstepped. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 243

These fantasy-images undoubtedly have their closest analogues in mythological types. We must therefore assume that they correspond to certain collective (and not personal) structural elements of the human psyche…. These cases are so numerous that we are obliged to assume the existence of a collective psychic substratum. I have called this the collective unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 9I, para. 262.

Common is the view that spirit and psyche are essentially the same and can be separated only arbitrarily. Wundt takes spirit as “the inner being, regardless of any connection with an outer being. ~ Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 386

Spirit has the further connotation of sprightliness, when we say that a person is “spirited,” meaning that he is versatile and full of ideas, with a brilliant, witty, and surprising turn of mind.~ Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 386.

A very widespread view conceives spirit as a higher and psyche as a lower principle of activity, and conversely the alchemists thought of spirit as the ligamentum animae et corporis, regarding it as a spiritus vegetativus (the later life-spirit or nerve-spirit). ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 386.

Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings… But religion is a vital link with psychic processes independent of and beyond consciousness, in the dark hinterland of the psyche. ~Carl Jung CW 9i, para. 261.

Possession caused by the anima or animus presents a different picture. . . .In the state of possession both figures lose their charm and their values; they retain them only when they are turned away from the world, in the introverted state, when they serve as bridges to the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222f.

Others restrict spirit to certain psychic capacities or functions or qualities, such as the capacity to think and reason in contradistinction to the more “soulful” sentiments. Here spirit means the sum-total of all the phenomena of rational thought, or of the intellect, including the will, memory, imagination, creative power, and aspirations motivated by ideals. ~ Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 386.

The word “spirit” possesses such a wide range of application that it requires considerable effort to make clear to oneself all the things it can mean. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 385.

There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 178.

Because of its unconscious component the self is so far removed from the conscious mind that it can only be partially expressed by human figures; the other part of it has to be expressed by objective, abstract symbols. The human figures are father and son, mother and daughter, king and queen, god and goddess…. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 314-315.

The goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the self. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i, Page 278.

The arcane substance is one and the same, whether it is found within man or outside him. ~Carl Jung [citing Gerhard Dorn] CW 9i, Para 249.

The symbols of the self arise in the depths of the body and they express its materiality every bit as much as the structure of the perceiving consciousness. The symbol is thus a living body, corpus et anima. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; para 291.

[The trickster] is a forerunner of the savior . . . . He is both subhuman and superhuman, a bestial and divine being, whose chief and most alarming characteristic is his unconsciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, para 472.

Children are educated by what the grownup is and not by what he says. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Page 174.

In the dream, … there are numberless inter-connections to which one can find parallels only in mythological associations of ideas (or perhaps in certain poetic creations which are often characterized by a borrowing, not always conscious, from myths. ~Carl Jung; CW 9I; para. 259.

…a symbol of the unity of personality, a symbol of the self, where the war of opposites finds peace. In this way the primordial being becomes the distant goal of man’s self-development. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i, para. 292-4.

In keeping with its original wind-nature, spirit is always an active, winged, swift-moving being as well as that which vivifies, stimulates, incites, fires, and inspires. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; para. 390.

. . . the anima is bipolar and can therefore appear positive one moment and negative the next; now young, now old; now mother, now maiden; now a good fairy, now a witch; now a saint, now a whore. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i, Page 356.

The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Page 14.

To put it in modern language, spirit is the dynamic principle, forming for that very reason the classical antithesis of matter-the antithesis, that is, of its stasis and inertia. Basically it is the contrast between life and death. The subsequent differentiation of this contrast leads to the actually very remarkable opposition of spirit and nature. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; Para 390.

Even though spirit is regarded as essentially alive and enlivening, one cannot really feel nature as unspiritual and dead. We must therefore be dealing here with the (Christian) postulate of a spirit whose life is so vastly superior to the life of nature that in comparison with it the latter is no better than death. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; Para 390.

The hermaphrodite means nothing less than a union of the strongest and most striking opposites… The primordial idea has become a symbol of the creative union of opposites, “uniting symbol” in the literal sense. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; Para 293.

The alchemists projected the inner event into an outer figure, so for them the inner friend appeared in the form of the “Stone,” of which the Tractatus aureus : “Understand, ye sons of the wise, what this exceeding precious Stone crieth out to you: Protect me and I will protect thee. Give me what is mine that I may help thee.” To this a scholiast adds: “The seeker after truth hears both the Stone and the Philosopher speaking as if out of one mouth.” The Philosopher is Hermes, and the Stone is identical with Mercurius, the Latin Hermes. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; Para 283

From the earliest times, Hermes was the mystagogue and psycho pomp of the alchemists, their friend and counselor, who leads them to the goal of their work. He is “like a teacher mediating between the stone and the disciple.” To others the friend appears in the shape of Christ or Khidr or a visible or invisible guru, or some other personal guide or leader figure. ~Carl Jung, CW 9I, para. 283

One clings to possessions that have once meant wealth; and the more ineffective, incomprehensible, and lifeless they become the more obstinately people cling to them. (Naturally it is only sterile ideas that they cling to; living ideas have content and riches enough, so there is no need to cling to them.) Thus in the course of time the meaningful turns into the meaningless. This is unfortunately the fate of metaphysical ideas. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 65.

Our unconscious, on the other hand, hides living water, spirit that has become nature, and that is why it is disturbed. Heaven has become for us the cosmic space of the physicists, and the divine empyrean a fair memory of things that once were. But ‘the heart glows,’ and a secret unrest gnaws at the roots of our being. Dealing with the Unconscious has become a question of life for us. ~Carl Jung, CW, 9i, Para 50.

Unconsciousness is the primal sin, evil itself, for the Logos. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 178.

Notwithstanding its monstrosity, the hermaphrodite has gradually turned into a subduer of conflicts and a bringer of healing, ….its power to unite opposites, mediates between the unconscious substratum and the conscious mind. It throws a bridge between present-day consciousness, always in danger of losing its roots, and the natural, unconscious, instinctive wholeness of primeval times. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i, para. 292-4

First, fantasies (including dreams) of a personal character, which go back unquestionably to personal experiences, things forgotten or repressed, and can thus be completely explained by individual anamnesis. Second, fantasies (including dreams) of an impersonal character, which cannot be reduced to experiences in the individual’s past, and thus cannot be explained as something individually acquired. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i

What comes to us from outside, and, for that matter, everything that rises up from within, can only be made our own if we are capable of an inner amplitude equal to that of the incoming content. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 215

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 126.

The urge and compulsion to self-realization is a law of nature and thus of invincible power, even though its effect, at the outset, is insignificant and improbable. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

Because the anima wants life, she wants both good and bad. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 59.

Psychology does not know what good and evil are in themselves; it knows them only as judgments about relationships. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Page 53.

The God-image in man was not destroyed by the Fall but was only damaged and corrupted (‘deformed’), and can be restored through God’s grace. The scope of the integration is suggested by the descent of Christ’s soul to hell, its work of redemption embracing even the dead. The psychological equivalent of this is the integration of the collective unconscious which forms an essential part of the individuation process. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 72.

But the man who is inwardly great will know that the long expected friend of his soul, the immortal one, has now really come, “to lead captivity captive” [Ephesians 4:8]; that is, to seize hold of him by whom this immortal had always been confined and held prisoner, and to make his life flow into that greater life—a moment of deadliest peril! ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 217

Rebirth is an affirmation that must be counted among the primordial affirmations of mankind. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 207

In its psychological meaning, individuation is an opus contra naturam, which creates a horror vacui in the collective layer and is only too likely to collapse under the impact of the collective forces of the psyche. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Page 147

It is not storms, not thunder and lightning, not rain and cloud that remain as images in the psyche, but the fantasies caused by the affects they arouse. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 331

All ages before us have believed in gods in some form or other. Only an unparalleled impoverishment of symbolism could enable us to rediscover the gods as psychic factors, that is, as archetypes of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 50

Shall we be able to put on, like a new suit of clothes, ready-made symbols grown on foreign soil, saturated with foreign blood, spoken in a foreign tongue, nourished by a foreign culture, interwoven with foreign history, and so resemble a beggar who wraps himself in kingly raiment, a king who disguises himself as a beggar? ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 26.

The mere fact that people talk about rebirth, and that there is such a concept at all, means that a store of psychic experiences designated by that term must actually exist. What these experiences are like we can only infer from the statements that have been made about them. So, if we want to find out what rebirth really is, we must turn to history in order to ascertain what “rebirth” has been understood to mean. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 206

Rebirth is an affirmation that must be counted among the primordial affirmations of mankind. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 207

Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man still drags behind him. Carefully amputated, it becomes the healing serpent of the mysteries. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 93

For the artificial sundering of true and false wisdom creates a tension in the psyche, and from this there arises a loneliness and a craving like that of the morphine addict, who always hopes to find companions in his vice. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 31

There is thus no ground at all for regarding the psyche as something secondary or as an epiphenomenon; on the contrary, there is every reason to regard it, at least hypothetically, as a factor sui generis, and to go on doing so until it has been sufficiently proved that psychic processes can be fabricated in a retort. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Pages 7-8

As soon as people get together in masses and submerge the individual, the shadow is mobilized, and, as history shows, may even be personified and incarnated. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 478.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 66.

The spirit may legitimately claim the patria potestas over the soul; not so the earth-born intellect, which is man’s sword or hammer, and not a creator of spiritual worlds, a father of the soul. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 32

It [Shadow] is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living, begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 45

Can it be possible that a man only thinks or says or does what he himself is? ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 150

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by what he says. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 293

Through the Christ crucified between the two thieves, man gradually attained knowledge of his shadow and its duality. This duality had already been anticipated by the double meaning of the serpent. Just as the serpent stands for the power that heals as well as corrupts, so one of the thieves is destined upwards, the other downwards, and so likewise the shadow is on one side regrettable and reprehensible weakness, on the other side healthy instinctively and the prerequisite for higher consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 402.

The “other” may be just as one-sided in one way as the ego is in another. And yet the conflict between them may give rise to truth and meaning—but only if the ego is willing to grant the other its rightful personality. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 237

Life is a flux, a flowing into the future, and not a stoppage or a backwash. It is therefore not surprising that so many of the mythological saviours are child gods. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 278

It is quite impossible to conceive how “experience” in the widest sense, or, for that matter, anything psychic, could originate exclusively in the outside world. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Pages 101-102

The pain of this loneliness is the vengeance of the gods, for never again can he return to mankind. He is, as the myth says, chained to the lonely cliffs of the Caucasus, forsaken of God and man. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 243

Emptiness is a great feminine secret. It is something absolutely alien to man; the chasm, the unplumbed depths, the yin. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 183

Spirit and matter may well be forms of one and the same transcendental being. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; ¶ 392.

Symbols are spirit from above, and under those conditions the spirit is above too. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 50

But this “inside,” which modern rationalism is so eager to derive from “outside,” has an a priori structure of its own that antedates all conscious experience. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 187.

It is quite impossible to conceive how “experience” in the widest sense, or, for that matter, anything psychic, could originate exclusively in the outside world. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 187.

The psyche is part of the inmost mystery of life, and it has its own peculiar structure and form like every other organism. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 187.

I am of the opinion that the psyche is the most tremendous fact of human life. Indeed, it is the mother of all human facts; of civilization and of its destroyer, war. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 206.

Emotions are instinctive, involuntary reactions which upset the rational order of consciousness by their elemental outbursts. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 497.

One thinks here of a Noah’s Ark that crosses over the waters of death and leads to a rebirth of all life. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Page 353, FN 178

The archetype—let us never forget this—is a psychic organ present in all of us. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 271

To have soul is the whole venture of life, for soul is a life-giving daemon who plays his elfin game above and below human existence, for which reason—in the realm of dogma—he is threatened and propitiated with superhuman punishments and blessings that go far beyond the possible deserts of human beings. Heaven and hell are the fates meted out to the soul and not to civilized man, who in his nakedness and timidity would have no idea of what to do with himself in a heavenly Jerusalem. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 56

The indefinite extent of the unconscious component makes a comprehensive description of the human personality impossible. Accordingly, the unconscious supplements the picture with living figures ranging from the animal to the divine, as the two extremes outside man, and rounds out the animal extreme, through the addition of and inorganic abstractions, into a microcosm. These addenda have a high frequency in anthropomorphic divinities, where they appear as “attributes.” ~Carl Jung; Carl Jung, CW 9i, para. 314-315

A living example of the mystery drama representing the permanence as well as the transformation of life is the Mass. If we observe the congregation during this sacred rite we note all degrees of participation, from mere indifferent attendance to the profoundest emotion. The groups of men standing about near the exit, who are obviously engaged in every sort of worldly conversation, crossing themselves and genuflecting in a purely mechanical way—even they, despite their inattention, participate in the sacral action by their mere presence in this place where grace abounds. The Mass is an extramundane and extratemporal act in which Christ is sacrificed and then resurrected in the transformed substances; and this rite of his sacrificial death is not a repetition of the historical event but the original, unique, and eternal act. The experience of the Mass is therefore a participation in the transcendence of life, which overcomes all bounds of space and time. It is a moment of eternity in time. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 209

When a summit of life is reached, when the bud unfolds and from the lesser the greater emerges, then, as Nietzsche says, “One becomes Two,” and the greater figure, which one always was but which remained invisible, appears to the lesser personality with the force of a revelation. He who is truly and hopelessly little will always drag the revelation of the greater down to the level of his littleness, and will never understand that the day of judgment for his littleness has dawned. But the man who is inwardly great will know that the long expected friend of his soul, the immortal one, has now really come, “to lead captivity captive” [Ephesians 4:8]; that is, to seize hold of him by whom this immortal had always been confined and held prisoner, and to make his life flow into that greater life—a moment of deadliest peril! ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 217

This leads to a restoration or apocatastasis of the lives of her ancestors, who now, through the bridge of the momentary individual, pass down into the generations of the future. An experience of this kind gives the individual a place and a meaning in the life of the generations, so that all unnecessary obstacles are cleared out of the way of the life stream that is to flow through her. At the same time the individual is rescued from her isolation and restored to wholeness. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 316

The “supraordinate personality” is the total man, i.e., man as he really is, not as he appears to himself. . . . I usually describe the supraordinate personality as the “self,” thus making a sharp distinction between the ego, which, as is well known, extends only as far as the conscious mind, and the whole of the personality, which includes the unconscious as well as the conscious component. The ego is thus related to the self as part to whole. To that extent the self is supraordinate. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, pars. 314f.

Our dreams are continually saying things beyond our conscious comprehension. We have intimations and intuitions from unknown sources. Fears, moods, plans, and hopes come to us with no visible causation. These concrete experiences are at the bottom of our feeling that we know ourselves very little; at the bottom, too, of the painful conjecture that we might have surprises in store for ourselves. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i para. 299.

Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious. The lake in the valley is the unconscious, which lies, as it were, underneath consciousness, so that it is often referred to as the ‘subconscious,’ usually with the pejorative connotation of an inferior consciousness. Water is the ‘valley spirit,’ the water dragon of Tao, whose nature resembles water- a yang in the yin, therefore, water means spirit that has become unconscious.” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 40

There is no position without its negation. In or just because of their extreme opposition, neither can exist without the other. It is exactly as formulated in classical Chinese philosophy: yang (the light, warm, dry, masculine principle) contains within it the seed of yin (the dark, cold, moist, feminine principle), and vice versa. Matter therefore would contain the seed of spirit and spirit the seed of matter…. Nevertheless, the symbol has the great advantage of being able to unite heterogeneous or even incommensurable factors in a single image. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i; para. 197.

The mystery of the Virgin Birth, or the homoousia of the Son with the Father, or the Trinity which is nevertheless not a triad—these no longer lend wings to any philosophical fancy. They have stiffened into mere objects of belief. So it is not surprising if the religious need, the believing mind, and the philosophical speculations of the educated European are attracted by the symbols of the East—those grandiose conceptions of divinity in India and the abysms of Taoist philosophy in China—just as once before the heart and mind of the men of antiquity were gripped by Christian ideas. There are many Europeans who began by surrendering completely to the influence of the Christian symbol until they landed themselves in a Kierkegaardian neurosis, or whose relation to God, owing to the progressive impoverishment of symbolism, developed into an unbearably sophisticated I-You relationship—only to fall victims in their turn to the magic and novelty of Eastern symbols. This surrender is not necessarily a defeat; rather it proves the receptiveness and vitality of the religious sense. We can observe much the same thing in the educated Oriental, who not infrequently feels drawn to the Christian symbol or to the science that is so unsuited to the Oriental mind, and even develops an enviable understanding of them. That people should succumb to these eternal images is entirely normal, in fact it is what these images are for. They are meant to attract, to convince, to fascinate, and to overpower. They are created out of the primal stuff of revelation and reflect the ever-unique experience of divinity. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para II

The primitive mentality does not invent myths, it experiences them. Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings, and anything but allegories of physical processes. Such allegories would be an idle amusement for an unscientific intellect. Myths, on the contrary, have a vital meaning. Not merely do they represent, they are the mental life of the primitive tribe, which immediately falls to pieces and decays when it loses its mythological heritage, like a man who has lost his soul. A tribe’s mythology is its living religion, whose loss is always and everywhere, even among the civilized, a moral catastrophe. But religion is a vital link with psychic processes independent of and beyond consciousness, in the dark hinterland of the psyche. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 261

The history of Protestantism has been one of chronic iconoclasm. One wall after another fell. And the work of destruction was not too difficult once the authority of the Church had been shattered. We all know how, in large things as in small, in general as well as in particular, piece after piece collapsed, and how the alarming poverty of symbols that is now the condition of our life came about. With that the power of the Church has vanished too—a fortress robbed of its bastions and casemates, a house whose walls have been plucked away, exposed to all the winds of the world and to all dangers. Although this is, properly speaking, a lamentable collapse that offends our sense of history, the disintegration of Protestantism into nearly four hundred denominations is yet a sure sign that the restlessness continues. The Protestant is cast out into a state of defencelessness that might well make the natural man shudder. His enlightened consciousness, of course, refuses to take cognizance of this fact, and is quietly looking elsewhere for what has been lost to Europe. We seek the effective images, the thought-forms that satisfy the restlessness of heart and mind, and we find the treasures of the East. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 31

I am convinced that the growing impoverishment of symbols has a meaning. It is a development that has an inner consistency. Everything that we have not thought about, and that has therefore been deprived of a meaningful connection with our developing consciousness, has got lost. If we now try to cover our nakedness with the gorgeous trappings of the East, as the theosophists do, we would be playing our own history false. A man does not sink down to beggary only to pose afterwards as an Indian potentate. It seems to me that it would be far better stoutly to avow our spiritual poverty, our symbol-lessness, instead of feigning a legacy to which we are not the legitimate heirs at all. We are, surely, the rightful heirs of Christian symbolism, but somehow we have squandered this heritage. We have let the house our fathers built fall into decay, and now we try to break into Oriental palaces that our fathers never knew. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 28

The fact is that archetypal images are so packed with meaning in themselves that people never think of asking what they really do mean. That the gods die from time to time is due to man’s sudden discovery that they do not mean anything, that they are made by human hands, useless idols of wood and stone. In reality, however, he has merely discovered that up till then he has never thought about his images at all. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 22

Man must remain conscious of the world of the archetypes, because in it he is still a part of Nature and is connected with his own roots. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 174

It is a vessel which we can never empty, and never fill. It has a potential existence only, and when it takes shape in matter it is no longer what it was. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 301

The archetypes are imperishable elements of the unconscious, but they change their shape continually. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 301

A complex can be really overcome only if it is lived out to the full. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 184

The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 44.

For a woman, the typical danger emanating from the unconscious comes from above, from the “spiritual” sphere personified by the animus, whereas for a man it comes from the chthonic realm of the “world and woman,” i.e., the anima projected on to the world. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 559

The “child” is born out of the womb of the unconscious, begotten out of the depths of human nature, or rather out of living Nature herself. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

An unconscious Eros always expresses itself as will to power. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 167

The urge and compulsion to self-realization is a law of nature and thus of invincible power, even though its effect, at the start, is insignificant and improbable. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

The “eternal” child in man is an indescribable experience, an incongruity, a handicap, and a divine prerogative; an imponderable that determines the ultimate worth or worthlessness of a personality. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 300

For the conscious mind knows nothing beyond the opposites and, as a result, has no knowledge of the thing that unites them. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 285

The grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia, and what good may very possibly lead to evil. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 397

In the history of symbols this tree is described as the way of life itself, a growing into that which eternally is and does not change; which springs from the union of opposites and, by its eternal presence, also makes that union possible. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 198

It seems as if it were only through an experience of symbolic reality that man, vainly seeking his own “existence” and making a philosophy out of it, can find his way back to a world in which he is no longer a stranger. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 198

For the alchemists the process of individuation represented by the opus was an analogy of the creation of the world, and the opus itself an analogy of God’s work of creation. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 550

How often in the critical moments of life everything hangs on what appears to be a mere nothing! ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 408

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

The souls or spirits of the dead are identical with the psychic activity of the living; they merely continue it. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 38

Masses are always breeding grounds of psychic epidemics. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 227

The mass is swayed by participation mystique, which is nothing other than an unconscious identity. Supposing, for example, you go to the theatreglance meets glance, everybody observes everybody else, so that all those who are present are caught up in an invisible web of mutual unconscious relationship. If this condition increases, one literally feels borne along by the universal wave of identity with others. It may be a pleasant feeling—one sheep among ten thousand! Again, if I feel that this crowd is a great and wonderful unity, I am a hero, exalted along with the group. When I am myself again, I discover that I am Mr. So-and-So, and that I live in such and such a street, on the third floor. I also find that the whole affair was really most delightful, and I hope it will take place again tomorrow so that I may once more feel myself to be a whole nation, which is much better than being just plain Mr. X. Since this is such an easy and convenient way of raising one’s personality to a more exalted rank, mankind has always formed groups which made collective experiences of transformation—often of an ecstatic nature—possible. The regressive identification with lower and more primitive states of consciousness is invariably accompanied by a heightened sense of life. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 226

What depths of despair are still needed to open the eyes of the world’s responsible leaders, so that at least they can refrain from leading themselves into temptation? ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 455

We are in reality unable to borrow or absorb anything from outside, from the world, or from history. What is essential to us can only grow out of ourselves. When the white man is true to his instincts, he reacts defensively against any advice that one might give him. What he has already swallowed he is forced to reject again as if it were a foreign body, for his blood refuses to assimilate anything sprung from foreign soil. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 31

The meeting with ourselves is one of the more unpleasant things that may be avoided as long as we possess living symbolic figures into which everything unknown in ourselves is projected. The figure of the devil, in particular, is a most valuable possession and a great convenience, for as long as he goes about outside in the form of a roaring lion we know where the evil lurks in that incarnate Old Harry where it has been in this or that form since primeval times. With the rise of consciousness since the Middle Ages he has been considerably reduced in stature, but in his stead there are human beings to whom we gratefully surrender our shadows. With what pleasure, for instance, we read newspaper reports of crime! A bona fide criminal becomes a popular figure because he unburdens in no small degree the conscience of his fellow men, for now they know once more where the evil is to be found. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 69

Whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his own face. Whoever goes to himself risks a confrontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor. But the mirror lies behind the mask and shows the true face. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 43

Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man still drags behind him. Carefully amputated, it becomes the healing serpent of the mysteries. Only monkeys parade with it. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 93

The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It is the world of water, here all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living, begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 45

Even on the highest peak we shall never be “beyond good and evil,” and the more we experience of their inextricable entanglement the more uncertain and confused will our moral judgment be.

It is in my view a great mistake to suppose that the psyche of a new-born child is a tabula rasa in the sense that there is absolutely nothing in it. In so far as the child is born with a differentiated brain that is predetermined by heredity and therefore individualized, it meets sensory stimuli coming from outside not with any aptitudes, but with specific ones, and this necessarily results in a particular, individual choice and pattern of apperception. These aptitudes can be shown to be inherited instincts and preformed patterns, the latter being the a priori and formal conditions of apperception that are based on instinct. Their presence gives the world of the child and the dreamer its anthropomorphic stamp. They are the archetypes, which direct all fantasy activity into its appointed paths and in this way produce, in the fantasy-images of children’s dreams as well as in the delusions of schizophrenia, astonishing mythological parallels such as can also be found, though in lesser degree, in the dreams of normal persons and neurotics. It is not, therefore, a question of inherited ideas but of inherited possibilities of ideas. ~Carl Jung, CW, 9i, Para 136

It is a figure comparable to Hiranyagarbha, Purusha, Atman, and the mystic Buddha. For this reason I have elected to call it the “self,” by which I understand a psychic totality and at the same time a centre, neither of which coincides with the ego but includes it, just as a larger circle encloses a smaller one. ~Carl Jung, CW 9I, 247.

Archetypes were, and still are, living psychic forces that demand to be taken seriously, and they have a strange way of making sure of their effect. Always they were the bringers of protection and salvation, and their violation has as its consequence the “perils of the soul” known to us from the psychology of primitives. Moreover, they are the infallible causes of neurotic and even psychotic disorders, behaving exactly like neglected or maltreated physical organs or organic functional systems. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 266

All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes. This is particularly true of religious ideas, but the central concepts of science, philosophy, and ethics are no exception to this rule. In their present form they are variants of archetypal ideas, created by consciously applying and adapting these ideas to reality. For it is the function of consciousness not only to recognize and assimilate the external world through the gateway of the senses, but to translate into visible reality the world within us. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 342

The symbol is a living body, corpus et anima; hence the “child” is such an apt formula for the symbol. The uniqueness of the psyche can never enter wholly into reality, it can only be realized approximately, though it still remains the absolute basis of all consciousness. The deeper “layers” of the psyche lose their individual uniqueness as they retreat farther and farther into darkness. “Lower down,” that is to say as they approach the autonomous functional systems, they become increasingly collective until they are universalized and extinguished in the body’s materiality, i.e., in chemical substances. The body’s carbon is simply carbon. Hence “at bottom” the psyche is simply “world.” In this sense I hold Kerenyi to be absolutely right when he says that in the symbol the world itself is speaking. The more archaic and “deeper,” that is the more physiological, the symbol is, the more collective and universal, the more “material” it is. The more abstract, differentiated, and specific it is, and the more its nature approximates to conscious uniqueness and individuality, the more it sloughs off its universal character. Having finally attained full consciousness, it runs the risk of becoming a mere allegory which nowhere oversteps the bounds of conscious comprehension, and is then exposed to all sorts of attempts at rationalistic and therefore inadequate explanation. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 291

Not for a moment dare we succumb to the illusion that an archetype can be finally explained and disposed of. Even the best attempts at explanation are only more or less successful translations into another metaphorical language. (Indeed, language itself is only an image.) The most we can do is to dream the myth onwards and give it a modern dress. And whatever explanation or interpretation does to it, we do to our own souls as well, with corresponding results for our own well-being. The archetype—let us never forget this—is a psychic organ present in all of us. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 271

In reality we can never legitimately cut loose from our archetypal foundations unless we are prepared to pay the price of a neurosis, any more than we can rid ourselves of our body and its organs without committing suicide. If we cannot deny the archetypes or otherwise neutralize them, we are confronted, at every new stage in the differentiation of consciousness to which civilization attains, with the task of finding a new interpretation appropriate to this stage, in order to connect the life of the past that still exists in us with the life of the present, which threatens to slip away from it. If this link-up does not take place, a kind of rootless consciousness comes into being no longer oriented to the past, a consciousness which succumbs helplessly to all manner of suggestions and, in practice, is susceptible to psychic epidemics. With the loss of the past, now become “insignificant,” devalued, and incapable of revaluation, the saviour is lost too, for the saviour either is the insignificant thing itself or else arises out of it. Over and over again in the “metamorphosis of the gods,” he rises up as the prophet or first-born of a new generation and appears unexpectedly in the unlikeliest places (sprung from a stone, tree, furrow, water, etc.) and in ambiguous form (Tom Thumb, dwarf, child, animal, and so on). ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 267

All psychic events are so deeply grounded in the archetype and are so much interwoven with it that in every case considerable critical effort is needed to separate the unique from the typical with any certainty. Ultimately, every individual life is at the same time the eternal life of the species. The individual is continuously “historical” because strictly time-bound; the relation of the type to time, on the other hand, is irrelevant.

The Catholic way of life is completely unaware of psychological problems in this sense. Almost the entire life of the collective unconscious has been channeled into the dogmatic archetypal ideas and flows along like a well-controlled stream in the symbolism of creed and ritual. It manifests itself in the inwardness of the Catholic psyche. The collective unconscious, as we understand it today, was never a matter of “psychology,” for before the Christian Church existed there were the antique mysteries, and these reach back into the grey mists of Neolithic prehistory. Mankind has never lacked powerful images to lend magical aid against all the uncanny things that live in the depths of the psyche. Always the figures of the unconscious were expressed in protecting and healing images and in this way were expelled from the psyche into cosmic space. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 2121

The gods of Greece and Rome perished from the same disease as did our Christian symbols people discovered then, as today, that they had no thoughts whatever on the subject. On the other hand, the gods of the strangers still had unexhausted mana. Their names were weird and incomprehensible and their deeds portentously dark—something altogether different from the hackneyed chronique scandaleuse of Olympus. At least one couldn’t understand the Asiatic symbols, and for this reason they were not banal like the conventional gods. The fact that people accepted the new as unthinkingly as they had rejected the old did not become a problem at that time. Is it becoming a problem today? Shall we be able to put on, like a new suit of clothes, ready-made symbols grown on foreign soil, saturated with foreign blood, spoken in a foreign tongue, nourished by a foreign culture, interwoven with foreign history, and so resemble a beggar who wraps himself in kingly raiment, a king who disguises himself as a beggar? No doubt this is possible.

Or is there something in ourselves that commands us to go in for no mummeries, but perhaps even to sew our garment ourselves? ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 26.

Anyone who has lost the historical symbols and cannot be satisfied with substitutes is certainly in a very difficult position today before him there yawns the void, and he turns away from it in horror. What is worse, the vacuum gets filled with absurd political and social ideas, which one and all are distinguished by their spiritual bleakness. But if he cannot get along with these pedantic dogmatisms, he sees himself forced to be serious for once with his alleged trust in God, though it usually turns out that his fear of things going wrong if he did so is even more persuasive. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 28

How else could it have occurred to man to divide the cosmos, on the analogy of day and night, summer and winter, into a bright day-world and a dark night-world peopled with fabulous monsters, unless he had the prototype of such a division in himself, in the polarity between the conscious and the invisible and unknowable unconscious? Primitive man’s perception of objects is conditioned only partly by the objective behaviour of the things themselves, whereas a much greater part is often played by intrapsychic facts which are not related to the external objects except by way of projection. This is due to the simple fact that the primitive has not yet experienced that ascetic discipline of mind known to us as the critique of knowledge. To him the world is a more or less fluid phenomenon within the stream of his own fantasy, where subject and object are undifferentiated and in a state of mutual interpenetration. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 187

The primitive cannot assert that he thinks; it is rather that “something thinks in him.” The spontaneity of the act of thinking does not lie, causally, in his conscious mind, but in his unconscious. Moreover, he is incapable of any conscious effort of will; he must put himself beforehand into the “mood of willing,” or let himself be put—hence his rites d’entree et de sortie. His consciousness is menaced by an almighty unconscious hence his fear of magical influences which may cross his path at any moment; and for this reason, too, he is surrounded by unknown forces and must adjust himself to them as best he can. Owing to the chronic twilight state of his consciousness, it is often next to impossible to find out whether he merely dreamed something or whether he really experienced it. The spontaneous manifestation of the unconscious and its archetypes intrudes everywhere into his conscious mind, and the mythical world of his ancestors—for instance, the aljira or bugari of the Australian aborigines—is a reality equal if not superior to the material world. It is not the world as we know it that speaks out of his unconscious, but the unknown world of the psyche, of which we know that it mirrors out empirical world only in part, and that, for theother part, it moulds this empirical world in accordance with its own psychic assumptions. The archetype does not proceed from physical facts but describes how the psyche experiences the physical fact, and in so doing the psyche often behaves so autocratically that it denies tangible reality
or makes statements that fly in the face of it. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 260

Since the stars have fallen from heaven and our highest symbols have paled, a secret life holds sway in the unconscious. That is why we have a psychology today, and why we speak of the unconscious. All this would be quite superfluous in an age or culture that possessed symbols. Symbols are spirit from above, and under those conditions the spirit is above too. Therefore it would be a foolish and senseless undertaking for such people to wish to experience or investigate an unconscious that contains nothing but the silent, undisturbed sway of nature. Our unconscious, on the other hand, hides living water, spirit that has become nature, and that is why it is disturbed. Heaven has become or us the cosmic space of the physicists, and the divine empyrean a fair memory of things that once were. But “the heart glows,” and a secret unrest gnaws at the roots of our being. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 50

Psychic processes therefore behave like a scale along which consciousness “slides.” At one moment it finds itself in the vicinity of instinct, and falls under its influence; at another, it slides along to the other end where spirit predominates and even assimilates the instinctual processes most opposed to it. 53 408

The reason why consciousness exists, and why there is an urge to widen and deepen it, is very simple without consciousness things go less well. This is obviously the reason why Mother Nature deigned to produce consciousness, that most remarkable of all nature’s curiosities.

Genesis represents the act of becoming conscious as a taboo infringement, as though knowledge meant that a sacrosanct barrier had been impiously overstepped. I think that Genesis is right in so far as every step towards greater consciousness is a kind of Promethean guilt through knowledge, the gods are as it were robbed of their fire, that is, something that was the property of the unconscious powers is torn out of its natural context and subordinated to the whims of the conscious mind. The man who has usurped the new knowledge suffers, however, a transformation or enlargement of consciousness, which no longer resembles that of his fellow men. He has raised himself above the human level of his age (“ye shall become like unto God”), but in so doing has alienated himself from humanity. The pain of this loneliness is the vengeance of the gods, for never again can he return to mankind. He is, as the myth says, chained to the lonely cliffs of the Caucasus, forsaken of God and man. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 243

Everything that man should, and yet cannot, be or do be it in a positive or negative sense—lives on as a mythological figure and anticipation alongside his consciousness, either as a religious projection or—what is still more dangerous—as unconscious contents which then project themselves spontaneously into incongruous objects, e.g., hygienic and other “Salvationist” doctrines or practices. All these are so many rationalized substitutes for mythology, and their unnaturalness does more harm than good. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 287

The stirring up of conflict is a Luciferian virtue in the true sense of the word. Conflict engenders fire, the fire of affects and emotions, and like every other fire it has two aspects, that of combustion and that of creating light. On the one hand, emotion is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes {pmnes superfiuitates comburii) . But on the other hand, emotion is the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light or from inertia to movement without emotion. ~Carl Jung CW 9i, 179

“But why on earth,” you may ask, “should it be necessary for man to achieve, by hook or by crook, a higher level of consciousness?” This is truly the crucial question, and I do not find the answer easy. Instead of a real answer I can only make a confession of faith. I believe that, after thousands and millions of years, someone had to realize that this wonderful world of mountains and oceans, suns and moons, galaxies and nebulae, plants and animals, exists. From a low hill in the Athi plains of East Africa I once watched the vast herds of wild animals grazing in soundless stillness, as they had done from time immemorial, touched only by the breath of a primeval world. I felt then as if I were the first man, the first creature, to know that all this is. The entire world round me was still in its primeval state; it did not know that it was. And then, in that one moment in which I came to know, the world sprang into being; without that moment it would never have been. All Nature seeks this goal and finds it fulfilled in man, but only in the most highly developed and most fully conscious man. ~Carl Jung CW 9i, Para 177

Who must God have made love to in order to have given birth to all this sound, to this sacred spectrum of colors, scents, and music from wind’s body and existence’s plea for mercy – that plea for the real mercy, unbearable joy? ~Carl Jung, Selected Writings, Page 97

“All that is outside, also is inside,” we could say with Goethe. But this “inside,” which modern rationalism is so eager to derive from “outside,” has an a priori structure of its own that antedates all conscious experience. It is quite impossible to conceive how “experience” in the widest sense, or, for that matter, anything psychic, could originate exclusively in the outside world. The psyche is part of the inmost mystery of life, and it has its own peculiar structure and form like every other organism. Whether this psychic structure and its elements, the archetypes, ever “originated” at all is a metaphysical question and therefore unanswerable. The structure is something given, the precondition that is found to be present in every case. And this is the mother, the matrix—the form into which all experience is poured. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Pages 101-102

Despite the materialistic tendency to understand the psyche as a mere reflection or imprint of physical and chemical processes, there is not a single proof of this hypothesis. Quite the contrary, innumerable facts prove that the psyche translates physical processes into sequences of images which have hardly any recognizable connection with the objective process. The materialistic hypothesis is much too bold and flies in the face of experience with almost metaphysical presumption. The only thing that can be established with certainty, in the present state of our knowledge, is our ignorance of the nature of the psyche. There is thus no ground at all for regarding the psyche as something secondary or as an epiphenomenon; on the contrary, there is every reason to regard it, at least hypothetically, as a factor sui generis, and to go on doing so until it has been sufficiently proved that psychic processes can be fabricated in a retort. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Pages 7-8

Every science is descriptive at the point where it can no longer proceed experimentally, without on that account ceasing to be scientific. But an experimental science makes itself impossible when it delimits its field of work in accordance with theoretical concepts. The psyche does not come to an end where some physiological assumption or other stops. In other words, in each individual case that we observe scientifically, we have to consider the manifestations of the psyche in their totality. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 113

Affects usually occur where adaptation is weakest, and at the same time they reveal the reason for its weakness, namely a certain degree of inferiority and the existence of a lower level of personality. On this lower level with its uncontrolled or scarcely controlled emotions one behaves more or less like a primitive, who is not only the passive victim of his affects but also singularly incapable of moral judgment. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 15

It is through the “affect” that the subject becomes involved and so comes to feel the whole weight of reality. The difference amounts roughly to that between a severe illness which one reads about in a text-book and the real illness which one has. In psychology one possesses nothing unless one has experienced it in reality. Hence a purely intellectual insight is not enough, because one knows only the words and not the substance of the thing from inside. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 61

That the greatest effects come from the smallest causes has become patently clear not only in physics but in the field of psychological research as well. How often in the critical moments of life everything hangs on what appears to be a mere nothing! ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 408

To strive for perfection is a high ideal. But I say: “Fulfil something you are able to fulfil rather than run after what you will never achieve.” Nobody is perfect. Remember the saying: “None is good but God alone” [Luke 18:19], nobody can be. It is an illusion.

We are that pair of Dioscuri, one of whom is mortal and the other immortal, and who, though always together, can never be made completely one. The transformation processes strive to approximate them to one another, but our consciousness is aware of resistances, because the other person seems strange and uncanny, and because we cannot get accustomed to the idea that we are not absolute master in our own house. We should prefer to be always “I” and nothing else. But we are confronted with that inner friend or foe, and whether he is our friend or our foe depends on ourselves. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 235

Our intellect has achieved the most tremendous things, but in the meantime our spiritual dwelling has fallen into disrepair. We are absolutely convinced that even with the aid of the latest and largest reflecting telescope, now being built in America, men will discover behind the farthest nebulae no fiery empyrean; and we know that our eyes will wander despairingly through the dead emptiness of interstellar space. Nor is it any better when mathematical physics reveals to us the world of the infinitely small. In the end we dig up the wisdom of all ages and peoples, only to find that everything most dear and precious to us has already been said in the most superb language. Like greedy children we stretch out our hands and think that, if only we could grasp it, we would possess it too. But what we possess is no longer valid, and our hands grow weary from the grasping, for riches lie everywhere, as far as the eye can reach. All these possessions turn to water, and more than one sorcerer’s apprentice has been drowned in the waters called up by himself—if he did not first succumb to the saving delusion that this wisdom was good and that was bad. It is from these adepts that there come those terrifying invalids who think they have a prophetic mission. For the artificial sundering of true and false wisdom creates a tension in the psyche, and from this there arises a loneliness and a craving like that of the morphine addict, who always hopes to find companions in his vice. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 31

When our natural inheritance has been dissipated, then the spirit too, as Heraclitus says, has descended from its fiery heights. But when spirit becomes heavy it turns to water, and with Luciferian presumption the intellect usurps the seat where once the spirit was enthroned. The spirit may legitimately claim the patria potestas over the soul; not so the earth-born intellect, which is man’s sword or hammer, and not a creator of spiritual worlds, a father of the soul. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 32

The irrationality of events is shown by what we call chance, which we are obviously compelled to deny because we cannot in principle think of any process that is not causal and necessary, whence it follows that it cannot happen by chance. In practice, however, chance reigns everywhere, and so obtrusively that we might as well put our causal philosophy in our pocket. The plenitude of life is governed by law and yet not governed by law, rational and yet irrational. Hence reason and the will that is grounded in reason are valid only up to a point. The further we go in the direction selected by reason, the surer we may be that we are excluding the irrational possibilities of life which have just as much right to be lived. It was indeed highly expedient for man to become somewhat more capable of directing his life. It may justly be maintained that the acquisition of reason is the greatest achievement of humanity; but that is not to say that things must or will always continue in that direction. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 2

I am far from wishing to belittle the divine gift of reason, man’s highest faculty. But in the role of absolute tyrant it has no meaning—no more than light would have in a world where its counterpart, darkness, was absent. Man would do well to heed the wise counsel of the mother and obey the inexorable laws of nature which sets limits to every being. He ought never to forget that the world exists only because opposing forces are held in equilibrium. So, too, the rational is counterbalanced by the irrational, and what is planned and purposed by what is. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 174

It is just the most unexpected, the most terrifyingly chaotic things which reveal a deeper meaning. . . . Gradually breakwaters are built against the surging of chaos, and the meaningful divides itself from the meaningless. When sense and nonsense are no longer identical, the force of chaos is weakened by their ubtraction; sense is then endued with the force of meaning, and nonsense with the force of meaninglessness. In this way a new cosmos arises. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 64

There is not a single important idea or view that does not possess historical antecedents. Ultimately they are all founded on primordial archetypal forms whose concreteness dates from a time when consciousness did not thin, but only perceived. “Thoughts” were objects of inner perception, not thought at all, but sensed as external phenomena—seen or heard, so to speak. Thought was essentially revelation, not invented but forced upon us or bringing conviction through its immediacy and actuality. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 69

The religions should constantly recall to us the origin and original character of the spirit, lest man should forget what he is drawing into himself and with what he is filling his consciousness. He himself did not create the spirit, rather the spirit makes him creative, always spurring him on, giving him lucky ideas, staying power, “enthusiasm” and “inspiration,” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 393

Progress and development are ideals not lightly to be rejected, but they lose all meaning if man only arrives at his new state as a fragment of himself, having left his essential hinterland behind him in the shadow of the unconscious, in a state of primitivity of, indeed, barbarism. The conscious mind, split off from its origins, incapable of realizing the meaning of the new state, then relapses all too easily into a situation far worse than the one from which the innovation was intended to free it —exempla sunt odiosal ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 293

There is a temperament which regards ideas as real entities and not merely as nomina. It so happens—by the merest accident, one might say—that for the past two hundred years we have been living in an age in which it has become unpopular or even unintelligible to suppose that ideas could be anything but nomina. Anyone who continues to think as Plato did must pay for his anachronism by seeing the “supracelestial,” i.e., metaphysical, essence of the Idea relegated to the unverifiable realm of faith and superstition, or charitably left to the poet.

Once again, in the age-old controversy over universals, the nominalistic standpoint has triumphed over the realistic, and the Idea has evaporated into a mere fiatus vocis. This change was accompanied—and, indeed, to a considerable degree caused —by the marked rise of empiricism, the advantages of which were only too obvious to the intellect. Since that time the Idea is no longer something a priori, but is secondary and derived. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 149

Man conquers not only nature, but spirit also, without realizing what he is doing. To the man of enlightened intellect it seems like the correction of a fallacy when he recognizes that what he took to be spirits is simply the human spirit and ultimately his own spirit. All the superhuman things, whether good or bad, that former ages predicated of the daimonia, are reduced to “reasonable” proportions as though they were pure exaggeration, and everything seems to be in the best possible order. But were the unanimous convictions of the past really and truly only exaggerations? If they were not, then the integration of the spirit means nothing less than its demonization, since the superhuman spiritual agencies that were formerly tied up in nature are introjected into human nature, thus endowing it with a power which extends the bounds of the personality ad infinitum, in the most perilous way. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 454

After the last World War we hoped for reason: we go on hoping. But already we are fascinated by the possibilities of atomic fission and promise ourselves a Golden Age the surest guarantee that the abomination of desolation will grow to limitless dimensions. And who or what is it that causes all this.? It is none other than that harmless (!), ingenious, inventive, and sweetly reasonable human spirit who unfortunately is abysmally unconscious of the demonism that still clings to him. Worse, this spirit does everything to avoid looking himself in the face, and we all help him like mad. Only, heaven preserve us from psychology —that depravity might lead to self-knowledge! Rather let us have wars, for which somebody else is always to blame, nobody seeing that all the world is driven to do just what all the world flees from in terror. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 454

Primitive man, being closer to his instincts, like the animal, is characterized by fear of novelty and adherence to tradition. To our way of thinking he is painfully backward, whereas we exalt progress. But our progressiveness, though it may result in a great many delightful wish-fulfillments, piles up an equally gigantic Promethean debt, which has to be paid off from time to time in the form of hideous catastrophes. For ages man has dreamed of flying, and all we have got for it is saturation bombing! We smile today at the Christian hope of a life beyond the grave, and yet we often fall into chiliasms a hundred times more ridiculous than the notion of a happy Hereafter. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 276

Being that has soul is living being. Soul is the living thing in man, that which lives of itself and causes life. Therefore God breathed into Adam a living breath, that he might live. With her cunning play of illusions the soul lures into life the inertness of matter that does not want to live. She makes us believe incredible things, that life may be lived. She is full of snares and traps, in order that man should fall, should reach the earth, entangle himself there, and stay caught, so that life should be lived; as Eve in the garden of Eden could not rest content until she had convinced Adam of the goodness of the forbidden apple. Were it not for the leaping and twinkling of the soul, man would rot away in his greatest passion, idleness. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 56

The best cannot be told, anyhow, and the second best does not strike home. One mut be able to let things happen. I have learned from the East what is meant by wu-wei: “not-doing,” “letting be,” which is quite different from doing nothing. Some Occidentals, also, have known what this not-doing means; for instance, Meister Eckhart, who speaks of sich lassen, “letting go.” The region of darkness into which one falls is not empty; it is the “lavishing mother” of Lao-tzu, the “images” and the “seed.” When the surface has been cleared, things can grow out of the depths. People always suppose that they have lost their way when they come up against these depths of experience. But if they do not know how to go on, the only answer, the only advice that makes any sense is “Wait for what the unconscious has to say about the situation.” A way is only the way when one finds it and follows it oneself. There is no general prescription for “how to do it.” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 31

The splendour of the “light” god has been enhanced beyond measure, but the darkness supposedly represented by the devil has localized itself in man. This strange development was precipitated chiefly by the fact that Christianity, terrified of Manichaean dualism, strove to preserve its monotheism by main force. But since the reality of darkness and evil could not be denied, there was no alternative but to make man responsible for it. Even the devil was largely, if not entirely, abolished, with the result that this metaphysical figure, who at one time was an integral part of the Deity, was introjected into man, who thereupon became the real carrier of the mysterium iniqtiitatis ‘. “omne bonum a Deo, omne malum ab homine.” In recent times this development has suffered a diabolical reverse, and the wolf in sheep’s clothing now goes about whispering in our ear that evil is really nothing but a misunderstanding of good and an effective instrument of progress. We think that the world of darkness has thus been abolished for good and all, and nobody realizes what a poisoning this is of man’s soul. In this way he turns himself into the devil, for the devil is half of the archetype whose irresistible power makes even unbelievers ejaculate “Oh God!” on every suitable and unsuitable occasion. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 189

But if we step through the door of the shadow we discover with terror that we are the objects of unseen factors. To know this is decidedly unpleasant, for nothing is more disillusioning than the discovery of our own inadequacy. It can even give rise to primitive panic, because, instead of being believed in, the anxiously guarded supremacy of consciousness which is in truth one of the secrets of human success-is questioned in the most dangerous way. But since ignorance is no guarantee of security, and in fact only makes our insecurity still worse, it is probably better despite our fear to know where the danger lies. To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem. At any rate we then know that the greatest danger threatening us comes from the unpredictability of the psyche’s reactions. Discerning persons have realized for some time that external historical conditions, of whatever kind, are only occasions, jumping-off grounds, for the real dangers that threaten our lives. These are the present politico-social delusional systems. We should not regard them causally, as necessary consequences of external conditions, but as decisions precipitated by the collective unconscious. ~Carl Jung CW 9i, Para 49

The personality is seldom, in the beginning, what it will be later on. For this reason the possibility of enlarging it exists, at least during the first half of life. The enlargement may be effected through an accretion from without, by new vital contents finding their way into the personality from outside and being assimilated. In this way a considerable increase of personality may be experienced. We therefore tend to assume that this increase comes only from without, thus justifying the prejudice that one becomes a personality by stuffing into oneself as much as possible from outside. But the more assiduously we follow this recipe, and the more stubbornly we believe that all increase has to come from without, the greater becomes our inner poverty. Therefore, if some great idea takes hold of us from outside, we must understand that it takes hold of us only because something in us responds to it and goes out to meet it. Richness of mind consists in mental receptivity, not in the accumulation of possessions. What comes to us from outside, and, for that matter, everything that rises up from within, can only be made our own if we are capable of an inner amplitude equal to that of the incoming content. Real increase of personality means consciousness of an enlargement that flows from inner sources. Without psychic depth we can never be adequately related to the magnitude of our object. It has therefore been said quite truly that a man grows with the greatness of his task. But he must have within himself the capacity to grow; otherwise even the most difficult task is of no benefit to him. More likely he will be shattered by it. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 215

The dream has for the primitive an incomparably higher value than it has for civilized man. Not only does he talk a great deal about his dreams, he also attributes an extraordinary importance to them, so that it often seems as though he were unable to distinguish between them and reality. To the civilized man dreams as a rule appear valueless, though there are some people who attach great significance to certain dreams on account of their weird and impressive character. As against Freud’s view that the dream is essentially a wish-fulfillment, I hold . . . that the dream is a spontaneous self-portrayal, in symbolic form, of the actual situation in the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 9 Para 505

Together the patient and I address ourselves to the 2,000,000-year-old man that is in all of us. In the last analysis, most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old unforgotten wisdom stored up in us.
And where do we make contact with this old man in us? In our dreams. ~Carl Jung, New York Times, 4 October 1936.

Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. We would do well to abandon from the start any attempt to apply ready-made solutions and warmed-up generalities of which the patient knows just as much as the doctor. Long experience has taught me not to know anything in advance and not to know better, but to let the unconscious take precedence. Our instincts have ridden so infinitely many times, unharmed, over the problems that arise [in later] life that we may be sure the transformation processes which make the transition possible have long been prepared in the unconscious and are only waiting to be released. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 528

The object of therapy is not the neurosis but the man who has the neurosis. We have long known, for instance, that a cardiac neurosis comes not from the heart, as the old medical mythology would have it, but from the mind of the sufferer. No does it come from some obscure corner of the unconscious, as many psychotherapists still struggle to believe; it comes from the totality of a man’s life and from all the experiences that have accumulated over the years and decades, and finally, not merely from his life as an individual but from his psychic experience within the family or even the social group. 95-337

There is hope of repairing a breakdown whenever a patient has neurotic symptoms. They indicate that he is not at one with himself, and the neurotic symptoms usually diagnose what is wrong. Those who have no neurotic symptoms are probably beyond help by anyone. ~Carl Jung, NY Times 29 Sept 1912

The doctor has to cope with actual suffering for better or worse, and ultimately has nothing to rely on except the mystery of divine Providence. ~Carl Jung, Para 18, Para 693

A mother-complex is not got rid of by blindly reducing the mother to human proportions. Besides that we run the risk of dissolving the experience “Mother” into atoms, thus destroying something supremely valuable and throwing away the golden key which a good fairy laid in our cradle. That is why mankind has always instinctively added the pre-existent divine pair to the personal parents—the “god”- father and “god”-mother of the newborn child—so that, from sheer unconsciousness or shortsighted rationalism, he should never forget himself so far as to invest his own parents with divinity. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 172

The overdevelopment of the maternal instinct is identical with that well-known image of the mother which has been glorified in all ages and all tongues. This is the motherlove which is one of the most moving and unforgettable memories of our lives, the mysterious root of all growth and change; the love that means homecoming, shelter, and the long silence from which everything begins and in which everything ends. Intimately known and yet strange like Nature, lovingly tender and yet cruel like fate, joyous and untiring giver of life —mater dolorosa and mute implacable portal that closes upon the dead. Mother is motherlove, my experience and my secret. Why risk saying too much, too much that is false and inadequate and beside the point, about that human being who was our mother, the accidental carrier of that great experience which includes herself and myself and all mankind, and indeed the whole of created nature, the experience of life whose children we are? The attempt to say these things has always been made, and probably always will be; but a sensitive person cannot in all fairness load that enormous burden of meaning, responsibility, duty, heaven and hell, on to the shoulders of one frail and fallible human being—so deserving of love, indulgence, understanding, and forgiveness—who was our mother. He knows that the mother carries for us that inborn image of the mater natura and mater spiritualis, of the totality of life of which we are a small and helpless part. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 172

Anyone who overlooks the instincts will be ambuscaded by them. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 620

As long as a woman is content to be a jemme a homme, she has no feminine individuality. She is empty and merely glitters—a welcome vessel for masculine projections. Woman as a personality, however, is a very different thing here illusion no longer works. So that when the question of personality arises, which is as a rule the painful fact of the second half of life, the childish form of the self disappears too. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 355

The woman who fights against her father still has the possibility of leading an instinctive, feminine existence, because she rejects only what is alien to her. But when she fights against the mother she may, at the risk of injury to her instincts, attain to greater consciousness, because in repudiating the mother she repudiates all that is obscure, instinctive, ambiguous, and unconscious in her own nature. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 186

Archetypes are complexes of experience that come upon us like fate, and their effects are felt in our most personal life. The anima no longer crosses our path as a goddess, but, it may be, as an intimately personal misadventure, or perhaps as our best venture. When, for instance, a highly esteemed professor in his seventies abandons his family and runs off with a young red-headed actress, we know that the gods have claimed another victim. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 62

All that feminine indefiniteness is the longed-for counterpart of male decisiveness and single-mindedness, which can be satisfactorily achieved only if a man can get rid of everything doubtful, ambiguous, vague, and muddled by projecting it upon some charming example of feminine innocence. Because of the woman’s characteristic passivity, and the feelings of inferiority which make her continually play the injured innocent, the man finds himself cast in an attractive role he has the privilege of putting up with the familiar feminine foibles with real superiority, and yet with forbearance, like a true knight. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 169

Emptiness is a great feminine secret. It is something absolutely alien to man; the chasm, the unplumbed depths, the yin. The pitifulness of this vacuous nonentity goes to his heart (I speak here as a man), and one is tempted to say that this constitutes the whole “mystery” of woman. Such a female is fate itself. A man may say what he likes about it; be for it or against it, or both at once; in the end he falls, absurdly happy, into this pit, or, if he doesn’t, he has missed and bungled his only chance of making a man of himself. In the first case one cannot disprove his foolish good luck to him, and in the second one cannot make his misfortune seem plausible. “The Mothers, the Mothers, how eerily it sounds!” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 183

The girl’s notorious helplessness is a special attraction. She is so much an appendage of her mother that she can only flutter confusedly when a man approaches. She just doesn’t know a thing. She is so inexperienced, so terribly in need of help, that even the gentlest swain becomes a daring abductor who brutally robs a loving mother of her daughter. Such a marvellous opportunity to pass himself off as a gay Lothario does not occur every day and therefore acts as a strong incentive. This was how Pluto abducted Persephone from the inconsolable Demeter. But, by a decree of the gods, he had to surrender his wife every year to his mother-in-law for the summer season. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 169

[In America] the men and women are giving their vital energy to everything except the relation between themselves. In that relation all is confusion. The women are the mothers of their husbands as well as of their children, yet at the same time there is in them the old primitive desire to be possessed, to yield, to surrender. And there is nothing in the man for her to surrender to except his kindness, his courtesy, his generosity, his chivalry. His competitor, his rival in business must yield, but she need not. ~Carl Jung, NY Times, 30 Sept 1912

I therefore suspect that the juror paedogogictis is a god-sent method of by-passing the central problem touched on by Schiller, namely the education of the educator. Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by what he says. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 293

We see colours but not wave-lengths. This well-known fact must nowhere be taken to heart more seriously than in psychology. The effect of the personal equation begins already in the act of observation. One sees what one can best see oneself. Thus, first and foremost, one sees the mote in one’s brother’s eye. No doubt the mote is there, but the beam sits in one’s own—and may considerably hamper the act of seeing. I mistrust the principle of “pure observation” in so-called objective psychology unless one confines oneself to the eyepieces of chronoscopes and tachistoscopes and suchlike “psychological” apparatus. With such methods one also guards against too embarrassing a yield of empirical psychological facts. But the personal equation asserts itself even more in the presentation and communication of one’s own observations, to say nothing of the interpretation and abstract exposition of the empirical material. Nowhere is the basic requirement so indispensable as in psychology that the observer should be adequate to his object, in the sense of being able to see not only subjectively but also objectively.

Today we are convinced that in all fields of knowledge psychological premises exist which exert a decisive influence upon the choice of material, the method of investigation, the nature of the conclusions, and the formulation of hypotheses and theories. We have even come to believe that Kant’s personality was a decisive conditioning factor of his Critique of Pure Reason. Not only our philosophers, but our own predilections in philosophy, and even what we are fond of calling our “best” truths are affected, if not dangerously undermined, by this recognition of a personal premise. All creative freedom, we cry out, is taken away from us! What? Can it be possible that a man only thinks or says or does what he himself is} ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 150

Every victory contains the germ of future defeat. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 150

Psychology, as one of the many expressions of psychic life, operates with ideas which in their turn are derived from archetypal structures and thus generate a somewhat more abstract kind of myth. Psychology therefore translates the archaic speech of myth into a modern mythologem not yet, of course, recognized as such—which constitutes one element of the myth “science.” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 302

Although common prejudice still believes that the sole essential basis of our knowledge is given exclusively from outside, and that “nihil est in intellectu quod non antea fuerit in sensu,” it nevertheless remains true that the thoroughly respectable atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus was not based on any observations of atomic fission but on a “mythological” conception of smallest particles, which, as the smallest animated parts, the soul-atoms, are known even to the still Paleolithic inhabitants of central Australia. How much “soul” is projected into the unknown in the world of external appearances is, of course, familiar to anyone acquainted with the natural science and natural philosophy of the ancients. It is, in fact, so much that we are absolutely incapable of saying how the world is constituted in itself—and always shall be, since we are obliged to convert physical events into psychic processes as soon as we want to say anything about knowledge. But who can guarantee that this conversion produces anything like an adequate “objective” picture of the world? ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 116.

So far mythologists have always helped themselves out with solar, lunar, meteorological, vegetal, and other ideas of the kind. The fact that myths are first and foremost psychic phenomena that reveal the nature of the soul is something they have absolutely refused to see until now. Primitive man is not much interested in objective explanations of the obvious, but he has an imperative need—or rather, his unconscious psyche has an irresistible urge—to assimilate all outer sense experiences to inner, psychic events. It is not enough for the primitive to see the sun rise and set; this external observation must at the same time be a psychic happening the sun in its course must represent the fate of a god or hero who, in the last analysis, dwells nowhere except in the soul of man. All the mythologized processes of nature, such as summer and winter, the phases of the moon, the rainy seasons, and so forth, are in no sense allegories of these objective occurrences; rather they are symbolic expressions of the inner, unconscious drama of the psyche which becomes accessible to man’s consciousness by way of projection—that is, mirrored in the events of nature. ~Carl Jung, CW 9, Para 7

It is not storms, not thunder and lightning, not rain and cloud that remain as images in the psyche, but the fantasies caused by the affects they arouse. I once experienced a violent earthquake, and my first, immediate feeling was that I no longer stood on the solid and familiar earth, but on the skin of a gigantic animal that was heaving under my feet. It was this image that impressed itself on me, not the physical fact. Man’s curses against devastating thunderstorms, his terror of the unchained elements—these affects anthropomorphize the passion of nature, and the purely physical element becomes an angry god. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 331

Life is crazy and meaningful at once. And when we do not laugh over the one aspect and speculate about the other, life is exceedingly drab, and everything is reduced to the littlest scale. There is then little sense and little nonsense either. When you come to think about it, nothing has any meaning, for when there was nobody to think, there was nobody to interpret what happened. Interpretations are only for those who don’t understand; it is only the things we don’t understand that have any meaning. Man woke up in a world he did not understand, and that is why he tries to interpret it. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 65

But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 3

This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious. I have chosen the term “collective” because this part of the unconscious is not individual but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents and modes of behaviour that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals. It is, in other words, identical in all men and thus constitutes a common psychic substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is present in every one of us Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 3

Psychic existence can be recognized only by the presence of contents that are capable of consciousness. We can therefore speak of an unconscious only in so far as we are able to demonstrate its contents. The contents of the personal unconscious are chiefly the feeling-toned complexes, as they are called; they constitute the personal and private side of psychic life. The contents of the collective unconscious, on the other hand, are known as archetypes ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 4

The term “archetype” occurs as early as Philo Judaeus [1st century A.D.], with reference to the Imago Dei (God-image) in man. It can also be found in Irenaeus [1st century A.D.], who says: “The creator of the world did not fashion these things directly from himself but copied them from archetypes outside himself.” (Adversus haereses II, 7, 5. Cf. Roberts / Rambaut trans., I, p. 139.) Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 5

Primitive tribal lore is concerned with archetypes that have been modified in a special way. They are no longer contents of the unconscious but have already been changed into conscious formulae taught according to tradition, generally in the form of esoteric teaching. This last is a typical means of expression for the transmission of collective contents originally derived from the unconscious Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 5

The term “archetype” thus applies only indirectly to the “représentations collectives,” since it designates only those psychic contents which have not yet been submitted to conscious elaboration and are therefore an immediate datum of psychic experience. In this sense there is a considerable difference between the archetype and the historical formula that has evolved. Especially on the higher levels of esoteric teaching the archetypes appear in a form that reveals quite unmistakably the critical and evaluating influence of conscious elaboration Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 6

Their immediate manifestation, as we encounter it in dreams and visions, is much more individual, less understandable, and more naïve than in myths, for example. The archetype is essentially an unconscious content that is altered by becoming conscious and by being perceived, and it takes its colour from the individual consciousness in which it happens to appear Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 6

What the word “archetype” means in the nominal sense is clear enough, then, from its relations with myth, esoteric teaching, and fairytale. But if we try to establish what an archetype is psychologically, the matter becomes more complicated. So far mythologists have always helped themselves out with solar, lunar, meteorological, vegetal, and other ideas of the kind Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 7

The fact that myths are first and foremost psychic phenomena that reveal the nature of the soul is something they have absolutely refused to see until now. Primitive man is not much interested in objective explanations of the obvious, but he has an imperative need or rather, his unconscious psyche has an irresistible urge to assimilate all outer sense experiences to inner, psychic events Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 7

All the mythologized processes of nature, such as summer and winter, the phases of the moon, the rainy seasons, and so forth, are in no sense allegories of these objective occurrences; rather they are symbolic expressions of the inner, unconscious drama of the psyche which becomes accessible to man’s consciousness by way of projection that is, mirrored in the events of nature. The projection is so fundamental that it has taken several thousand years of civilization to detach it in some measure from its outer object Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 7

In the case of astrology, for instance, this age-old “scientia intuitiva” came to be branded as rank heresy because man had not yet succeeded in making the psychological description of character independent of the stars. Even today, people who still believe in astrology fall almost without exception for the old superstitious assumption of the influence of the stars. And yet anyone who can calculate a horoscope should know that, since the days of Hipparchus of Alexandria, the spring-point has been fixed at 0 degrees Aries, and that the zodiac on which every horoscope is based is therefore quite arbitrary, the spring-point having gradually advanced, since then, into the first degrees of Pisces, owing to the precession of the equinoxes Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 7

Simply because we had a religious formula for everything psychic and one that is far more beautiful and comprehensive than immediate experience. Though the Christian view of the world has paled for many people, the symbolic treasure-rooms of the East are still full of marvels that can nourish for a long time to come the passion for show and new clothes. What is more, these images be they Christian or Buddhist or what you will are lovely, mysterious, richly intuitive Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 11

Naturally, the more familiar we are with symbols the more does constant usage polish them smooth, so that what remains is only banal superficiality and meaningless paradox. The mystery of the Virgin Birth, or the homoousia of the Son with the Father, or the Trinity which is nevertheless not a triad these no longer lend wings to any philosophical fancy. They have stiffened into mere objects of belief Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 11

So it is not surprising if the religious need, the believing mind, and the philosophical speculations of the educated European are attracted by the symbols of the East those grandiose conceptions of divinity in India and the abysms of Taoist philosophy in China just as once before the heart and mind of the men of antiquity were gripped by Christian ideas 11

There are many Europeans who began by surrendering completely to the influence of the Christian symbol until they landed themselves in a Kierkegaardian neurosis, or whose relation to God, owing to the progressive impoverishment of symbolism, developed into an unbearably sophisticated I-You relationship only to fall victims in their turn to the magic and novelty of Eastern symbols Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 11

This surrender is not necessarily a defeat; rather it proves the receptiveness and vitality of the religious sense. We can observe much the same thing in the educated Oriental, who not infrequently feels drawn to the Christian symbol or to the science that is so unsuited to the Oriental mind, and even develops an enviable understanding of them Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 11

I can best illustrate my meaning by taking as an example the Swiss mystic and hermit, Brother Nicholas of Flüe, who has recently been canonized. Probably his most important religious experience was the so-called Trinity Vision, which preoccupied him to such an extent that he painted it, or had it painted, on the wall of his cell Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 12

Probably his most important religious experience was the so-called Trinity Vision, which preoccupied him to such an extent that he painted it, or had it painted, on the wall of his cell. The painting is still preserved in the parish church at Sachseln. It is a mandala divided into six parts, and in the centre is the crowned countenance of God Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 12

Now we know that Brother Klaus investigated the nature of his vision with the help of an illustrated devotional booklet by a German mystic, and that he struggled to get his original experience into a form he could understand. He occupied himself with it for years. This is what I call the “elaboration” of the symbol Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 12

His reflections on the nature of the vision, influenced as they were by the mystic diagrams he used as a guiding thread, inevitably led him to the conclusion that he must have gazed upon the Holy Trinity itself the summum bonum, eternal love. This is borne out by the “expurgated” version now in Sachseln Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 12

Traditionally this great vision was brought into connection with the Trinity picture in the church at Sachseln, and so, likewise, was the wheel symbolism in the so-called “Pilgrim’s Tract.” Brother Klaus, we are told, showed the picture of the wheel to a visiting pilgrim. Evidently this picture had preoccupied him for some time. Blanke is of the opinion that, contrary to tradition, there is no connection between the vision and the Trinity picture. This scepticism seems to me to go too far. There must have been some reason for Brother Klaus’s interest in the wheel Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 16

It is therefore only too clear why Brother Klaus was fascinated by the symbol of the wheel. The interpretation of the terrifying vision as an experience of God need not be so wide of the mark either. The connection between the great vision and the Trinity picture, and of both with the wheel-symbol, therefore seems to me very probable on psychological grounds Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 16

In the visions that marked his initiation into the state of adoption by God, God appeared in dual form, once as a majestic father and once as a majestic mother. This representation could not be more unorthodox, since the Church had eliminated the feminine element from the Trinity a thousand years earlier as heretical Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 131

Brother Klaus was a simple unlettered peasant who doubtless had received none but the approved Church teaching, and was certainly not acquainted with the Gnostic interpretation of the Holy Ghost as the feminine and motherly Sophia Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 131

His so-called Trinity Vision is at the same time a perfect example of the intensity of projected contents. Brother Klaus’s psychological situation was eminently suited to a projection of this kind, for his conscious idea of God was so little in accord with the unconscious content that the latter had to appear in the form of an alien and shattering experience Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 131

We must conclude from this that it was not the traditional idea of God but, on the contrary, an “heretical” image that realized itself in visionary form; an archetypal interpretation which came to life again spontaneously, independently of tradition. It was the archetype of the divine pair, the syzygy Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 131

This content is the syzygy motif, and it expresses the fact that a masculine element is always paired with a feminine one. The wide distribution and extraordinary emotionality of this motif prove that it is a fundamental psychic factor of great practical importance, no matter whether the individual psychotherapist or psychologist understands where and in what way it influences his special field of work. Microbes, as we know, played their dangerous role long before they were discovered Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 134

As I have said, it is natural to suspect the parental pair in all syzygies. The feminine part, the mother, corresponds to the anima. But since, for the reasons discussed above, consciousness of the object prevents its projection, there is nothing for it but to assume that parents are also the least known of all human beings, and consequently that an unconscious reflection of the parental pair exists which is as unlike them, as utterly alien and incommensurable, as a man compared with a god 135

It would be conceivable, and has as we know been asserted, that the unconscious reflection is none other than the image of father and mother that was acquired in early childhood, overvalued, and later repressed on account of the incest-fantasy associated with it. This hypothesis presupposes that the image was once conscious, otherwise it could not have been “repressed.” It also presupposes that the act of moral repression has itself become unconscious, for otherwise the act would remain preserved in consciousness together with the memory of the repressive moral reaction, from which the nature of the thing repressed could easily be recognized 135

I do not want to enlarge on these misgivings, but would merely like to emphasize that there is general agreement on one point: that the parental imago comes into existence not in the pre-puberal period or at a time when consciousness is more or less developed, but in the initial stages between the first and fourth year, when consciousness does not show any real continuity and is characterized by a kind of island-like discontinuity 135

The ego-relationship that is required for continuity of consciousness is present only in part, so that a large proportion of psychic life at this stage runs on in a state which can only be described as relatively unconscious. At all events it is a state which would give the impression of a somnambulistic dream, or twilight state if observed in an adult. These states, as we know from the observation of small children, are always characterized by an apperception of reality filled with fantasies. The fantasy-images outweigh the influence of sensory stimuli and mould them into conformity with a pre-existing psychic image Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 135

Mankind has never lacked powerful images to lend magical aid against all the uncanny things that live in the depths of the psyche. Always the figures of the unconscious were expressed in protecting and healing images and in this way were expelled from the psyche into cosmic space Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 21

They [sacred images] became dubious, for they conflicted with awakening reason. Besides, people had long since forgotten what they meant. Or had they really forgotten? Could it be that men had never really known what they meant, and that only in recent times did it occur to the Protestant part of mankind that actually we haven’t the remotest conception of what is meant by the Virgin Birth, the divinity of Christ, and the complexities of the Trinity? Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 22

It almost seems as if these images had just lived, and as if their living existence had simply been accepted without question and without reflection, much as everyone decorates Christmas trees or hides Easter eggs without ever knowing what these customs mean Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 22

In reality, however, he has merely discovered that up till then he has never thought about his images at all. And when he starts thinking about them, he does so with the help of what he calls “reason “which in point of fact is nothing more than the sum total of all his prejudices and myopic views Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 22

He stood on a mountain slope with a deep valley below, and in it a dark lake. He knew in the dream that something had always prevented him from approaching the lake. This time he resolved to go to the water. As he approached the shore, everything grew dark and uncanny, and a gust of wind suddenly rushed over the face of the water. He was seized by a panic fear, and awoke Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 34

This dream shows us the natural symbolism. The dreamer descends into his own depths, and the way leads him to the mysterious water. And now there occurs the miracle of the pool of Bethesda: an angel comes down and touches the water, endowing it with healing power Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 35

But when it [spirit] happens spontaneously it is a spookish thing, and primitive fear seizes the naïve mind. The elders of the Elgonyi tribe in Kenya gave me exactly the same description of the nocturnal god whom they call the “maker of fear.” “He comes to you,” they said, “like a cold gust of wind, and you shudder, or he goes whistling round in the tall grass “an African Pan who glides among the reeds in the haunted noontide hour, playing on his pipes and frightening the shepherds Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 35

The way of the soul in search of its lost father like Sophia seeking Bythos leads to the water, to the dark mirror that reposes at its bottom. Whoever has elected for the state of spiritual poverty, the true heritage of Protestantism carried to its logical conclusion, goes the way of the soul that leads to the water. This water is no figure of speech, but a living symbol of the dark psyche. This is best illustrated by the foregoing dream Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 33

We must surely go the way of the waters, which always trend downward, if we would raise up the treasure, the precious heritage of the father. In the Gnostic hymn to the soul, the son is sent forth by his parents to seek the pearl that fell from the King’s crown. It lies at the bottom of a deep well, guarded by a dragon, in the land of the Egyptians that land of fleshpots and drunkenness with all its material and spiritual riches. The son and heir sets out to fetch the jewel but forgets himself and his task in the orgies of Egyptian worldliness, until a letter from his father reminds him what his duty is. He then sets out for the water and plunges into the dark depths of the well, where he finds the pearl on the bottom, and in the end offers it to the highest divinity Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 37

Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious. The lake in the valley is the unconscious, which lies, as it were, underneath consciousness, so that it is often referred to as the “subconscious,” usually with the pejorative connotation of an inferior consciousness. Water is the “valley spirit,” the water dragon of Tao, whose nature resembles water a yang embraced in the yin. Psychologically, therefore, water means spirit that has become unconscious Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 40

Here again the dreamer, thirsting for the shining heights, had first to descend into the dark depths, and this proves to be the indispensable condition for climbing any higher. The prudent man avoids the danger lurking in these depths, but he also throws away the good which a bold but imprudent venture might bring Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 40

The fact that this theologian dreamed a dream like that of another theologian [Dream: Seized by Panic Fear CW9.1: par. 34] is not so surprising, since priests and clergymen have a professional interest in the motif of “ascent.” They have to speak of it so often that the question naturally arises as to what they are doing about their own spiritual ascent Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 40

The statement made by the dream meets with violent resistance from the conscious mind, which knows “spirit” only as something to be found in the heights. “Spirit” always seems to come from above, while from below comes everything that is sordid and worthless Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 41

The unconscious is the psyche that reaches down from the daylight of mentally and morally lucid consciousness into the nervous system that for ages has been known as the “sympathetic.” This does not govern perception and muscular activity like the cerebrospinal system, and thus control the environment; but, though functioning without sense-organs, it maintains the balance of life and, through the mysterious paths of sympathetic excitation, not only gives us knowledge of the innermost life of other beings but also has an inner effect upon them Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 41

In this sense it is an extremely collective system, the operative basis of all participation mystique, whereas the cerebrospinal function reaches its high point in separating off the specific qualities of the ego, and only apprehends surfaces and externals always through the medium of space. It experiences everything as an outside, whereas the sympathetic system experiences everything as an inside Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 41

True, whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his own face. Whoever goes to himself risks a confrontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor. But the mirror lies behind the mask and shows the true face Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 43

For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently not inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad 4 Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 5

It is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living, begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 45

His consciousness is still uncertain, wobbling on its feet. It is still childish, having just emerged from the primal waters. A wave of the unconscious may easily roll over it, and then he forgets who he was and does things that are strange to him Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 47

All man’s strivings have therefore been directed towards the consolidation of consciousness. This was the purpose of rite and dogma; they were dams and walls to keep back the dangers of the unconscious, the “perils of the soul” Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 47

Primitive rites consist accordingly in the exorcizing of spirits, the lifting of spells, the averting of the evil omen, propitiation, purification, and the production by sympathetic magic of helpful occurrences Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 47

It is these barriers, [to keep back the unconscious], erected in primitive times, that later became the foundations of the Church. It is also these barriers that collapse when the symbols become weak with age. Then the waters rise and boundless catastrophes break over mankind Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 48

The nixie is an even more instinctive version of a magical feminine being whom I call the anima. She can also be a siren, melusina (mermaid), wood-nymph, Grace, or Erlking’s daughter, or a lamia or succubus, who infatuates young men and sucks the life out of them Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 53

Moralizing critics will say that these figures are projections of soulful emotional states and are nothing but worthless fantasies. One must admit that there is a certain amount of truth in this. But is it the whole truth? Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 53

Is the nixie really nothing but a product of moral laxity? Were there not such beings long ago, in an age when dawning human consciousness was still wholly bound to nature? Surely there were spirits of forest, field, and stream long before the question of moral conscience ever existed. What is more, these beings were as much dreaded as adored, so that their rather peculiar erotic charms were only one of their characteristics Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 53

An alluring nixie from the dim bygone is today called an “erotic fantasy,” and she may complicate our psychic life in a most painful way. She comes upon us just as a nixie might; she sits on top of us like a succubus; she changes into all sorts of shapes like a witch, and in general displays an unbearable independence that does not seem at all proper in a psychic content 54

Even in a state of reasonable introjection the nixie has not laid aside her roguery. The witch has not ceased to mix her vile potions of love and death; her magic poison has been refined into intrigue and self-deception, unseen though none the less dangerous for that Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 54

But how do we dare to call this elfin being the “anima”? Anima means soul and should designate something very wonderful and immortal. Yet this was not always so. We should not forget that this kind of soul is a dogmatic conception whose purpose it is to pin down and capture something uncannily alive and active. The German word Seele is closely related, via the Gothic form saiwalô, to the Greek word, which means quick-moving,'changeful of hue’, `twinkling,’ something like a butterfly in Greek which reels drunkenly from flower to flower and lives on honey and love. In Gnostic typology the ‘psychic man,’ is inferior to the ‘spiritual man,’ and finally there are wicked souls who must roast in hell for all eternity. Even the quite innocent soul of the unbaptized newborn babe is deprived of the contemplation of God Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 55

With her cunning play of illusions the soul lures into life the inertness of matter that does not want to live. She makes us believe incredible things, that life may be lived. She is full of snares and traps, in order that man should fall, should reach the earth, entangle himself there, and stay caught, so that life should be lived; as Eve in the garden of Eden could not rest content until she had convinced Adam of the goodness of the forbidden apple Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 56

Were it not for the leaping and twinkling of the soul, man would rot away in his greatest passion, idleness. A certain kind of reasonableness is its advocate, and a certain kind of morality adds its blessing. But to have soul is the whole venture of life, for soul is a life-giving daemon who plays his elfin game above and below human existence, for which reason in the realm of dogma he is threatened and propitiated with superhuman punishments and blessings that go far beyond the possible deserts of human beings Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 56

The anima is not the soul in the dogmatic sense, not an anima rationalis, which is a philosophical conception, but a natural archetype that satisfactorily sums up all the statements of the unconscious, of the primitive mind, of the history of language and religion. It is a “factor” in the proper sense of the word. Man cannot make it; on the contrary, it is always the a priori element in his moods, reactions, impulses, and whatever else is spontaneous in psychic life Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 57

It is something that lives of itself, that makes us live; it is a life behind consciousness that cannot be completely integrated with it, but from which, on the contrary, consciousness arises. For, in the last analysis, psychic life is for the greater part an unconscious life that surrounds consciousness on all sides a notion that is sufficiently obvious when one considers how much unconscious preparation is needed, for instance, to register a sense-impression Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 57

She is only one of its aspects. This is shown by the very fact of her femininity. What is not-I, not masculine, is most probably feminine, and because the not-I is felt as not belonging to me and therefore as outside me, the anima-image is usually projected upon women Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 58

Either sex is inhabited by the opposite sex up to Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para a point, for, biologically speaking, it is simply the greater number of masculine genes that tips the scales in favour of masculinity. The smaller number of feminine genes seems to form a feminine character, which usually remains unconscious because of its subordinate position Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 58

The paradox of this marriage of ideas troubled the ancients as little as it does the primitives. The anima is conservative and clings in the most exasperating fashion to the ways of earlier humanity. She likes to appear in historic dress, with a predilection for Greece and Egypt. In this connection we would mention the classic anima stories of Rider Haggard and Pierre Benoît. Poliphilo conjured up Queen Venus, Goethe, Helen of Troy. Aniela Jaffé has sketched a lively picture of the anima in the age of Biedermeier and the Romantics Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 60

If you want to know what happens when the anima appears in modern society, I can warmly recommend John Erskine’s Private Life of Helen of Troy. She is not a shallow creation, for the breath of eternity lies over everything that is really alive Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 60

The anima lives beyond all categories and can therefore dispense with blame as well as with praise. Since the beginning of time man, with his wholesome animal instinct, has been engaged in combat with his soul and its daemonism Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 60

The relation with the anima is again a test of courage, an ordeal by fire for the spiritual and moral forces of man. We should never forget that in dealing with the anima we are dealing with psychic facts which have never been in man’s possession before, since they were always found “outside” his psychic territory, so to speak, in the form of projections Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 61

For the son, the anima is hidden in the dominating power of the mother, and sometimes she leaves him with a sentimental attachment that lasts throughout life and seriously impairs the fate of the adult. On the other hand, she may spur him on to the highest flights Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 61

The desymbolized world of the Protestant produced first an unhealthy sentimentality and then a sharpening of the moral conflict, which, because it was so unbearable, led logically to Nietzsche’s “beyond good and evil.” In centres of civilization this state shows itself in the increasing insecurity of marriage Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 61

This fact, largely because of its pathological consequences, has led to the growth of modern psychology, which in its Freudian form cherishes the belief that the essential cause of all disturbances is sexuality a view that only exacerbates the already existing conflict. There is a confusion here between cause and effect Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 61

The anima no longer crosses our path as a goddess, but, it may be, as an intimately personal misadventure, or perhaps as our best venture. When, for instance, a highly esteemed professor in his seventies abandons his family and runs off with a young red-headed actress, we know that the gods have claimed another victim. This is how daemonic power reveals itself to us. Until not so long ago it would have been an easy matter to do away with the young woman as a witch Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 62

He was standing in the presence of a handsome old man dressed entirely in black. He knew it was the white magician. This personage had just addressed him at considerable length, but the dreamer could no longer remember what it was about. He had only retained the closing words: “And for this we need the help of the black magician.” At that moment the door opened and in came another old man exactly like the first, except that he was dressed in white. He said to the white magician, “I need your advice,” but threw a sidelong, questioning look at the dreamer, whereupon the white magician answered: “You can speak freely, he is an innocent.” The black magician then began to relate his story. He had come from a distant land where something extraordinary had happened. The country was ruled by an old king who felt his death near. He the king had sought out a tomb for himself. For there were in that land a great number of tombs from ancient times, and the king had chosen the finest for himself. According to legend, a virgin had been buried in it. The king caused the tomb to be opened, in order to get it ready for use. But when the bones it contained were exposed to the light of day, they suddenly took on life and changed into a black horse, which at once fled into the desert and there vanished. The black magician had heard of this story and immediately set forth in pursuit of the horse. After a journey of many days, always on the tracks of the horse, he came to the desert and crossed to the other side, where the grasslands began again. There he met the horse grazing, and there also he came upon the find on whose account he now needed the advice of the White Magician. For he had found the lost keys of paradise, and he did not know what to do with them. At this exciting moment the dreamer awoke Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 71

In the light of our earlier remarks the meaning of the dream is not hard to guess: the old king is the ruling symbol that wants to go to its eternal rest, and in the very place where similar “dominants” lie buried. His choice falls, fittingly enough, on the grave of anima, who lies in the death trance of a Sleeping Beauty so long as the king is alive that is, so long as a valid principle (Prince or princeps) regulates and expresses life. But when the king draws to his end, she comes to life again and changes into a black horse, which in Plato’s parable stands for the unruliness of the passions. Anyone who follows this horse comes into the desert, into a wild land remote from men an image of spiritual and moral isolation. But there lie the keys of paradise Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 72

Now what is paradise? Clearly, the Garden of Eden with its two-faced tree of life and knowledge and its four streams. In the Christian version it is also the heavenly city of the Apocalypse, which, like the Garden of Eden, is conceived as a mandala. But the mandala is a symbol of individuation. So it is the black magician who finds the keys to the solution of the problems of belief weighing on the dreamer, the keys that open the way of individuation. The contrast between desert and paradise therefore signifies isolation as contrasted with individuation, or the becoming of the Self Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 73

This part of the dream is a remarkable paraphrase of the Oxyrhynchus sayings of Jesus, in which the way to the kingdom of heaven is pointed out by animals, and where we find the admonition: “Therefore know yourselves, for you are the city, and the city is the kingdom.” It is also a paraphrase of the serpent of paradise who persuaded our first parents to sin, and who finally leads to the redemption of mankind through the Son of God. As we know, this causal nexus gave rise to the Ophitic identification of the serpent with the Saviour Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 74

The two magicians are, indeed, two aspects of the wise old man, the superior master and teacher, the archetype of the spirit, who symbolizes the pre-existent meaning hidden in the chaos of life. He is the father of the soul, and yet the soul, in some miraculous manner, is also his virgin mother, for which reason he was called by the alchemists the “first son of the mother.” The black magician and the black horse correspond to the descent into darkness Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 74

What an unbearably hard lesson for a young student of theology! Fortunately he was not in the least aware that the father of all prophets had spoken to him in the dream and placed a great secret almost within his grasp. One marvels at the inappropriateness of such occurrences. Why this prodigality? But I have to admit that we do not know how this dream affected the student in the long run, and I must emphasize that to me, at least, the dream had a very great deal to say. It was not allowed to get lost, even though the dreamer did not understand it Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 75

The old man in this dream is obviously trying to show how good and evil function together, presumably as an answer to the still unresolved moral conflict in the Christian psyche. With this peculiar relativization of opposites we find ourselves approaching nearer to the ideas of the East, to the nirdvandva of Hindu philosophy, the freedom from opposites, which is shown as a possible way of solving the conflict through reconciliation Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 76

Our dream is by no means unique in this respect, for the tendency to relativize opposites is a notable peculiarity of the unconscious. One must immediately add, however, that this is true only in cases of exaggerated moral sensibility; in other cases the unconscious can insist just as inexorably on the irreconcilability of the opposites Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 77

As a rule, the standpoint of the unconscious is relative to the conscious attitude. We can probably say, therefore, that our dream presupposes the specific beliefs and doubts of a theological consciousness of Protestant persuasion. This limits the statement of the dream to a definite set of problems. But even with this paring down of its validity the dream clearly demonstrates the superiority of its standpoint Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 77

Fittingly enough, it expresses its meaning in the opinion and voice of a wise magician, who goes back in direct line to the figure of the medicine man in primitive society. He is, like the anima, an immortal daemon that pierces the chaotic darknesses of brute life with the light of meaning. He is the enlightener, the master and teacher, a psychopomp whose personification even Nietzsche, that breaker of tablets, could not escape for he had called up his reincarnation in Zarathustra, the lofty spirit of an almost Homeric age, as the carrier and mouthpiece of his own “Dionysian” enlightenment and ecstasy. For him God was dead, but the driving daemon of wisdom became as it were his bodily double Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 77

Hermes Trismegistus or the Thoth of Hermetic literature, Orpheus, the Poimandres (shepherd of men) and his near relation the Poimen of Hermes, are other formulations of the same experience [such as the wise old man]. If the name “Lucifer” were not prejudicial, it would be a very suitable one for this archetype Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 79

But I have been content to call it the archetype of the wise old man, or of meaning. Like all archetypes it has a positive and a negative aspect, though I don’t want to enter into this here. The reader will find a detailed exposition of the two-facedness of the wise old man in “The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales” Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 79

The archetypes are true and genuine symbols that cannot be exhaustively interpreted, either as signs or as allegories. They are genuine symbols precisely because they are ambiguous, full of half-glimpsed meanings, and in the last resort inexhaustible Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 80

The ground principles, the archai, [as model, pattern, form] of the unconscious are indescribable because of their wealth of reference, although in themselves recognizable Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 80

The discriminating intellect naturally keeps on trying to establish their singleness of meaning and thus misses the essential point; for what we can above all establish as the one thing consistent with their nature is their manifold meaning, their almost limitless wealth of reference, which makes any unilateral formulation impossible Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 80

As regards the time factor, the [symbolic] process may be compressed into a single dream or into a short moment of experience, or it may extend over months and years, depending on the nature of the initial situation, the person involved in the process, and the goal to be reached. The wealth of symbols naturally varies enormously from case to case Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 82

Although everything is experienced in image form, i.e., symbolically, it is by no means a question of fictitious dangers but of very real risks upon which the fate of a whole life may depend. The chief danger is that of [the patient] succumbing to the fascinating influence of the archetypes, and this is most likely to happen when the archetypal images are not made conscious Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 82

If there is already a predisposition to psychosis, it may even happen that the archetypal figures, which are endowed with a certain autonomy anyway on account of their natural numinosity, will escape from conscious control altogether and become completely independent, thus producing the phenomena of possession Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 82

In the case of anima-possession, for instance, the patient will want to change himself into a woman through self-castration, or he is afraid that something of the sort will be done to him by force Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 82

There is any amount of literary and historical evidence to prove that in the case of these archetypes we are dealing with normal types of fantasy that occur practically everywhere and not with the monstrous products of insanity Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 83

Accordingly, the therapeutic method of complex psychology consists on the one hand in making as fully conscious as possible the constellated unconscious contents, and on the other hand in synthesizing them with consciousness through the act of recognition Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 84

Since, however, civilized man possesses a high degree of dissociability and makes continual use of it in order to avoid every possible risk, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that recognition will be followed by the appropriate action Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 84

The collective unconscious is a part of the psyche which can be negatively distinguished from a personal unconscious by the fact that it does not, like the latter, owe its existence to personal experience and consequently is not a personal acquisition. While the personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at one time been conscious but which have disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten or repressed, the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to heredity Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 88

From these references it should be clear enough that my idea of the archetype literally a pre-existent form does not stand alone but is something that is recognized and named in other fields of knowledge Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 89

My thesis, then, is as follows: In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 90

Medical psychology, growing as it did out of professional practice, insists on the personal nature of the psyche. By this I mean the views of Freud and Adler. It is a psychology of the person, and its aetiological or causal factors are regarded almost wholly as personal in nature. Nonetheless, even this psychology is based on certain general biological factors, for instance on the sexual instinct or on the urge for self-assertion, which are by no means merely personal peculiarities. It is forced to do this because it lays claim to being an explanatory science Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 91

Neither of these views would deny the existence of a priori instincts common to man and animals alike, or that they have a significant influence on personal psychology. Yet instincts are impersonal, universally distributed, hereditary factors of a dynamic or motivating character, which very often fail so completely to reach consciousness that modern psychotherapy is faced with the task of helping the patient to become conscious of them Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 91

Moreover, the instincts are not vague and indefinite by nature, but are specifically formed motive forces which, long before there is any consciousness, and in spite of any degree of consciousness later on, pursue their inherent goals. Consequently they form very close analogies to the archetypes, so close, in fact, that there is good reason for supposing that the archetypes are the unconscious images of the instincts themselves, in other words, that they are patterns of instinctual behaviour Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 91

The hypothesis of the collective unconscious is, therefore, no more daring than to assume there are instincts. One admits readily human activity is influenced to a high degree by instincts, quite apart from the rational motivations of the conscious mind. So if the assertion is made that our imagination, perception, and thinking are likewise influenced by inborn and universally present formal elements, it seems to me that a normally functioning intelligence can discover in this idea just as much or just as little mysticism as in the theory of instincts Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 92

Although this reproach of mysticism has frequently been levelled at my concept, I must emphasize yet again that the concept of the collective unconscious is neither a speculative nor a philosophical but an empirical matter. The question is simply this: are there or are there not unconscious, universal forms of this kind? If they exist, then there is a region of the psyche which one can call the collective unconscious Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 92

It is true that the diagnosis of the collective unconscious is not always an easy task. It is not sufficient to point out the often obviously archetypal nature of unconscious products, for these can just as well be derived from acquisitions through language and education Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 92

Cryptomnesia should also be ruled out, which it is almost impossible to do in certain cases. In spite of all these difficulties, there remain enough individual instances showing the autochthonous revival of mythological motifs to put the matter beyond any reasonable doubt. But if such an unconscious exists at all, psychological explanation must take account of it and submit certain alleged personal aetiologies to sharper criticism Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 92

You have probably read Freud’s discussion of a certain picture by Leonardo da Vinci: St. Anne with the Virgin Mary and the Christ-child. Freud interprets this remarkable picture in terms of the fact that Leonardo himself had two mothers. This causality is personal. We shall not linger over the fact that this picture is far from unique, nor over the minor inaccuracy that St. Anne happens to be the grandmother of Christ and not, as required by Freud’s interpretation, the mother, but shall simply point out that interwoven with the apparently personal psychology there is an impersonal motif well known to us from other fields. This is the motif of the dual mother, an archetype to be found in many variants in the field of mythology and comparative religion and forming the basis of numerous “représentations collectives” Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 93

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

In the birth chambers of the Egyptian temples Pharaoh’s second, divine conception and birth is depicted on the walls; he is “twice-born.” It is an idea that underlies all rebirth mysteries, Christianity included. Christ himself is “twice-born:” through his baptism in the Jordan he was regenerated and reborn from water and spirit Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 93

Further, according to an early Christian-Gnostic idea, the spirit which appeared in the form of a dove was interpreted as Sophia-Sapientia Wisdom and the Mother of Christ. Thanks to this motif of the dual birth, children today, instead of having good and evil fairies who magically “adopt” them at birth with blessings or curses, are given sponsorsa “godfather” and a “godmother” Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 93

The idea of a second birth is found at all times and in all places. In the earliest beginnings of medicine it was a magical means of healing; in many religions it is the central mystical experience; it is the key idea in medieval, occult philosophy, and, last but not least, it is an infantile fantasy occurring in numberless children, large and small, who believe that their parents are not their real parents but merely foster-parents to whom they were handed over. Benvenuto Cellini also had this idea, as he himself relates in his autobiography Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 94

The vulture symbol (which Freud also discusses in the work mentioned) makes this view all the more plausible. With some justification he quotes as the source of the symbol the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo (Cf. the trans. by George Boas, pp. 63ff., and Freud, Leonardo, sec. II. Editors), a book much in use in Leonardo’s time. There you read that vultures are female only and symbolize the mother. They conceive through the wind (pneuma). This word took on the meaning of “spirit” chiefly under the influence of Christianity. Even in the account of the miracle at Pentecost the pneuma still has the double meaning of wind and spirit Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 95

This fact, in my opinion, points without doubt to Mary, who, a virgin by nature, conceived through the pneuma, like a vulture. Furthermore, according to Horapollo, the vulture also symbolizes Athene, who sprang, unbegotten, directly from the head of Zeus, was a virgin, and knew only spiritual motherhood. All this is really an allusion to Mary and the rebirth motif Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 95

There is not a shadow of evidence that Leonardo meant anything else by his picture. Even if it is correct to assume that he identified himself with the Christ-child, he was in all probability representing the mythological dual-mother motif and by no means his own personal prehistory. And what about all the other artists who painted the same theme? Surely not all of them had two mothers. Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 95

The archetype corresponding to the situation is activated, and as a result those explosive and dangerous forces hidden in the archetype come into action, frequently with unpredictable consequences Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 98

There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life. Endless repetition has engraved these experiences into our psychic constitution, not in the form of images filled with content, but at first only as forms without content, representing merely the possibility of a certain type of perception and action Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 99

When a situation occurs which corresponds to a given archetype that archetype, becomes activated and a compulsiveness appears, which, like an instinctual drive, gains its way against all reason and will, or else produces a conflict of pathological dimensions, that is to say, a neurosis Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 99

By this I mean a sequence of fantasies produced by deliberate concentration. I have found that the existence of unrealized, unconscious fantasies increases the frequency and intensity of dreams, and that when these fantasies are made conscious the dreams change their character and become weaker and less frequent Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 101

The sources of dreams are often repressed instincts which have a natural tendency to influence the conscious mind. In cases of this sort, the patient is simply given the task of contemplating any one fragment of fantasy that seems significant to him a chance idea, perhaps, or something he has become conscious of in a dream until its context becomes visible, that is to say, the relevant associative material in which it is embedded Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 101

It is not a question of the “free association” recommended by Freud for the purpose of dream-analysis, but of elaborating the fantasy by observing the further fantasy material that adds itself to the fragment in a natural manner Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 101

It nevertheless remains true that the thoroughly respectable atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus was not based on any observations of atomic fission but on a “mythological” conception of smallest particles, which, as the smallest animated parts, the soul-atoms, are known even to the still Paleolithic inhabitants of central Australia Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 116

How much “soul” is projected into the unknown in the world of external appearances is, of course, familiar to anyone acquainted with the natural science and natural philosophy of the ancients. It is, in fact, so much that we are absolutely incapable of saying how the world is constituted in itself and always shall be, since we are obliged to convert physical events into psychic processes as soon as we want to say anything about knowledge Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 116

But who can guarantee that this conversion produces anything like an adequate “objective” picture of the world? That could only be if the physical event were also a psychic one. But a great distance still seems to separate us from such an assertion Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 116

These forms are generally supposed to be transmitted by tradition, so that we speak of “atoms” today because we have heard, directly or indirectly, of the atomic theory of Democritus. But where did Democritus, or whoever first spoke of minimal constitutive elements, hear of atoms? Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 117

I have named the archetype anima, a Latin expression meant to connote something that should not be confused with any dogmatic Christian idea of the soul or with any of the previous philosophical conceptions of it. If one wishes to form anything like a concrete conception of what this term covers, one would do better to go back to a classical author like Macrobius, or to classical Chinese philosophy, where the anima (p’o or kuei) is regarded as the feminine and chthonic part of the soul Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 119

A parallel of this kind always runs the risk of metaphysical concretism, which I do my best to avoid, though any attempt at graphic description is bound to succumb to it up to a point. For we are dealing here not with an abstract concept but with an empirical one, and the form in which it appears necessarily clings to it, so that it cannot be described at all except in terms of its specific phenomenology Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 119

We encounter the anima historically above all in the divine syzygies, the male-female pairs of deities. These reach down, on the one side, into the obscurities of primitive mythology, and up, on the other, into the philosophical speculations of Gnosticism and of classical Chinese philosophy, where the cosmogonic pair of concepts are designated yang (masculine) and yin (feminine) Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 120

We can safely assert that these syzygies are as universal as the existence of man and woman. From this fact we may reasonably conclude that man’s imagination is bound by this motif, so that he was largely compelled to project it again and again, at all times and in all places Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 120

The anima is a factor of the utmost importance in the psychology of a man wherever emotions and affects are at work. She intensifies, exaggerates, falsifies, and mythologizes all emotional relations with his work and with other people of both sexes. The resultant fantasies and entanglements are all her doing Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 144

When the anima is strongly constellated, she softens the man’s character and makes him touchy, irritable, moody, jealous, vain, and unadjusted. He is then in a state of “discontent” and spreads discontent all around him. Sometimes the man’s relationship to the woman who has caught his anima accounts for the existence of this syndrome Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 144

After the middle of life, however, permanent loss of the anima means a diminution of vitality, of flexibility, and of human kindness. The result, as a rule, is premature rigidity, crustiness, stereotypy, fanatical one-sidedness, obstinacy, pedantry, or else resignation, weariness, sloppiness, irresponsibility, and finally a childish ramollissement [softening] with a tendency to alcohol. After middle life, therefore, the connection with the archetypal sphere of experience should if possible be re-established ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 147

The projection ceases the moment it becomes conscious, that is to say when it is seen as belonging to the subject Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 121

There are of course cases where, in spite of the patient’s seemingly sufficient insight, the reactive effect of the projection does not cease, and the expected liberation does not take place Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 121

If we let practical experience speak, it tells us that, apart from the incest-fantasy, religious ideas are associated with the parental imagos. I do not need to cite historical proofs of this, as they are known to all. But what about the alleged objectionableness of religious associations? Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 123

In reality, however, it is just the parental imagos that seem to be projected most frequently, a fact so obvious that one could almost draw the conclusion that it is precisely the conscious contents which are projected. This can be seen most plainly in cases of transference, where it is perfectly clear to the patient that the father-imago (or even the mother-imago) is projected onto the analyst Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 122

He [the patient] even sees through the incest-fantasies bound up with them [parental imagos], without, however, being freed from the reactive effect of his projection, i.e., from the transference. In other words, he behaves exactly as if he had not seen through his projection at all Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 122

Experience shows that projection is never conscious: projections are always there first and are recognized afterwards. We must therefore assume that, over and above the incest-fantasy, highly emotional contents are still bound up with the parental imagos and need to be made conscious. They are obviously more difficult to make conscious than the incest-fantasies, which are supposed to have been repressed through violent resistance and to be unconscious for that reason Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 122

Supposing this view is correct, we are driven to the conclusion that besides the incest-fantasy there must be contents which are repressed through a still greater resistance. Since it is difficult to imagine anything more repellent than incest, we find ourselves rather at a loss to answer this question Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 122

If the corresponding projections cannot be withdrawn through insight, then we have every reason to suspect the presence of emotional contents of a religious nature, regardless of the rationalistic resistance of the patient Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 127

The représentations collectives have a dominating power, so when repressed, they do not hide behind any trifling thing, but behind ideas and figures that have already become problematical for other reasons, intensifying and complicating their dubious nature Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 130

For instance, everything we would like (in an infantile fashion) to attribute to our parents or blame them for, is blown up to fantastic proportions from this secret source, and for this reason it remains an open question how much of the ill-reputed incest fantasy is to be taken seriously Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 130

Indeed, for many people it is more bearable to admit their sexual fantasies than to be forced to confess that their analyst is a saviour, for the former are biologically legitimate, whereas the latter instance is definitely pathological, and this is something we greatly fear Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 124

It seems to me, however, that we make too much of “resistance.” The phenomena in question can be explained just as easily by lack of imagination and reflectiveness, which makes the act of conscious realization so difficult for the patient Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 124

He may perhaps have no particular resistance to religious ideas, only the thought has never occurred to him that he could seriously regard his analyst as a God or saviour. Mere reason alone is sufficient to protect him from such illusions Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 124

But he is less slow to assume that his analyst thinks himself one. When one is dogmatic oneself, it is notoriously easy to take other people for prophets and founders of religions Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 124

Religious ideas, as history shows, are charged with an extremely suggestive, emotional power. Among them I naturally reckon all représentations collectives, everything that we learn from the history of religion, and anything that has an “ism” attached to it. The latter is only a modern variant of the denominational religions Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 125

A man may be convinced in all good faith that he has no religious ideas, but no one can fall so far away from humanity that he no longer has any dominating représentation collective. His very materialism, atheism, communism, socialism, liberalism, intellectualism, existentialism, or what not, testifies against his innocence. Somewhere or other, overtly or covertly, he is possessed by a supraordinate idea Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 125

The only thing we know positively from psychological experience is that theistic ideas are associated with the parental imagos, and that our patients are mostly unconscious of them. If the corresponding projections cannot be withdrawn through insight, then we have every reason to suspect the presence of emotional contents of a religious nature, regardless of the rationalistic resistance of the patient Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 127

The représentations collectives have a dominating power, so it is not surprising that they are repressed with the most intense resistance. When repressed, they do not hide behind any trifling thing but behind ideas and figures that have already become problematical for other reasons, and intensify and complicate their dubious nature Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 130

For instance, everything that we would like, in infantile fashion, to attribute to our parents or blame them for is blown up to fantastic proportions from this secret source, and for this reason it remains an open question how much of the ill-reputed incest-fantasy is to be taken seriously Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 130

Behind the parental pair, or pair of lovers, lie contents of extreme tension which are not apperceived in consciousness and can therefore become perceptible only through projection. That projections of this kind do actually occur and are not just traditional opinions is attested by historical documents Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 130

These show that syzygies were projected which were in complete contradiction to the traditional beliefs, and that they were often experienced in the form of a vision Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 130

We can hardly get round the hypothesis that an emotionally charged content is lying ready in the unconscious and springs into projection at a certain moment Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 134

As I have said, it is natural to suspect the parental pair in all syzygies. The feminine part, the mother, corresponds to the anima. But since, for the reasons discussed above, consciousness of the object prevents its projection, there is nothing for it but to assume that parents are also the least known of all human beings, and consequently that an unconscious reflection of the parent a pair exists which is as unlike them, as utterly alien and incommensurable, as a man compared with a god Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 135

An emotionally charged content lies ready in the unconscious and springs into projection at a certain moment the content being the syzygy motif which expresses the fact that a masculine element is always paired with a feminine one Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 134

The wide distribution and extraordinary emotionality of this motif prove that it is a fundamental psychic factor of great practical importance to the individual psychotherapist or psychologist a condition not unlike microbes which have played their dangerous role long before they were discovered Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 134

It is natural to suspect the parental pair in all syzygies. The feminine part, the mother, corresponds to the anima Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 135

Since consciousness of the object [i.e., the parents] prevents its projection, there is nothing for it [consciousness] but to assume that parents are also the least known of all human beings, and consequently that an unconscious reflection of the parental pair exists which is as unlike them, as utterly alien and incommensurable, as a man compared to a god Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 135

This hypothesis presupposes that the image was once conscious, otherwise it could not have been “repressed.” It also presupposes that the act of moral repression has itself become unconscious, for otherwise the act would remain preserved in consciousness together with the memory of the repressive moral reaction, from which the nature of the thing repressed could easily be recognized Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 135

Fantasy can overrun the facts of the outer world, a condition undoubtedly present in the child during the first years of its life, therefore, it seems probable that the archetypal form of the syzygy first covers up and assimilates the image of the real parents until with the increasing consciousness the real figures of the parents are perceived often to the child’s disappointment Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 137

The parental imago comes into existence not in the pre-pubertal period or at any time when consciousness is more or less developed, but in the initial stages between the first and fourth year, when consciousness does not show any real continuity and is characterized by a kind of island-like discontinuity Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 135

These states, as we know from the observation of small children, are always characterized by an apperception of reality filled with fantasies. The fantasy-images outweigh the influence of sensory stimuli and mould them into conformity with a pre-existing psychic image Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 135

n so far as the child is born with a differentiated brain that is predetermined by heredity and therefore individualized, it meets sensory stimuli coming from outside not with any aptitudes, but with specific ones, and this necessarily results in a particular, individual choice and pattern of apperception Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 136

These aptitudes can be shown to be inherited instincts and preformed patterns, the latter being the a priori and formal conditions of apperception that are based on instinct. Their presence gives the world of the child and the dreamer its anthropomorphic stamp Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 136

The pre-conscious psyche of a new-born infant is not an empty vessel into which, under favorable conditions, practically anything can be poured. On the contrary, it is a tremendously complicated, sharply defined individual entity which appears indeterminate to us only because we cannot see it directly Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 151

But the moment the first visible manifestations of psychic life begin to appear, one would have to be blind not to recognize their individual character, that is, the unique personality behind them Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 151

It therefore seems to me more probable that the archetypal form of the divine syzygy first covers up and assimilates the image of the real parents until, with increasing consciousness, the real figures of the parents are perceived often to the child’s disappointment. Nobody knows better than the psychotherapist that the mythologizing of the parents is often pursued far into adulthood and is given up only with the greatest resistance Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 137

Because people have always feared that the connection with the instinctive, archetypal stage of consciousness might get lost in the course of life, the custom has long since been adopted of giving the new-born child, in addition to his bodily parents, two godparents, a “godfather” and a “godmother,” who are supposed to be responsible for the spiritual welfare of their godchild Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 140

The love life of a man reveals the psychology of this archetype in the form either of boundless fascination, overvaluation, and infatuation, or of misogyny in all its gradations and variants, none of which can be explained by the real nature of the “object” in question, but only by a transference of the mother complex Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 141

The [mother] complex, however, was caused in the first place by the assimilation of the mother (in itself a normal and ubiquitous phenomenon) to the pre-existent, feminine side of an archetypal “male-female” pair of opposites, and secondly by an abnormal delay in detaching from the primordial image of the mother Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 141

Everyone knows the provisions that religion has always made in this respect. Unfortunately there are very many people who thoughtlessly go on asking whether these provisions are “true,” when it is really a question of a psychological need. Nothing is achieved by explaining them away rationalistically Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 141

It [the male-female syzygy] has numerous connections with other pairs which do not display any sex differences at all and can therefore be put into the sexual category only by main force Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 142

These connections, with their manifold shades of meaning, are found more particularly in Kundalini yoga, in Gnosticism, and above all in alchemical philosophy, quite apart from the spontaneous fantasy-products in neurotic and psychotic case material Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 142

The psychological findings show that it is rather a matter of incomplete detachment from the hermaphroditic archetype, coupled with a distinct resistance to identify with the role of a one-sided sexual being ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 146

Such a disposition should not be adjudged negative in all circumstances, in so far as it preserves the archetype of the Original Man, which a one-sided sexual being has, up to a point, lost ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 146

Also homosexuality, which is usually characterized by identity with the anima. In view of the recognized frequency of this phenomenon, its interpretation as a pathological perversion is very dubious. The psychological findings show that it is rather a matter of incomplete detachment from the hermaphroditic archetype, coupled with a distinct resistance to identify with the role of a one-sided sexual being ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 146

The result, as a rule, is premature rigidity, crustiness, stereotypy, fanatical one-sidedness, obstinacy, pedantry, or else, resignation, weariness, sloppiness, irresponsibility, and finally a childish ramollissement [softening] with a tendency to alcohol therefore, after middle life, the connection with the archetypal sphere of experience should if possible be re-established ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 147

The symbol is obviously a derivative of the mother archetype. If we venture to investigate the background of the Great Mother image from the standpoint of psychology, then the mother archetype, as the more inclusive of the two, must form the basis of our discussion ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 148

In so far as the child is born with a differentiated brain that is predetermined by heredity and therefore individualized, it meets sensory stimuli coming from outside not with any aptitudes, but with specific ones, and this necessarily results in a particular, individual choice and pattern of apperception ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 136

When it is a case of morbid predispositions already present in the parents, we infer hereditary transmission through the germ-plasm ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 151

They are the archetypes, which direct all fantasy activity into its appointed paths and in this way produce, in the fantasy-images of children’s dreams as well as in the delusions of schizophrenia, astonishing mythological parallels such as can also be found, though in lesser degree, in the dreams of normal persons and neurotics. It is not, therefore, a question of inherited ideas but of inherited possibilities of ideas. Nor are they individual acquisitions but, in the main, common to all, as can be seen from the universal occurrence of the archetypes ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 136

With regard to the definiteness of the form, our comparison with the crystal is illuminating inasmuch as the axial system determines only the stereometric structure but not the concrete form of the individual crystal. This may be either large or small, and it may vary endlessly by reason of the different size of its planes or by the growing together of two crystals ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 155

The same is true of the archetype. In principle, it can be named and has an invariable nucleus of meaning but always only in principle, never as regards its concrete manifestation. In the same way, the specific appearance of the mother-image at any given time cannot be deduced from the mother archetype alone, but depends on innumerable other factors ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 155

In treating patients, one is at first impressed, and indeed arrested, by the apparent significance of the personal mother. This figure of the personal mother looms so large in all personalistic psychologies that, as we know, they never got beyond it, even in theory, to other important aetiological factors ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 159

My own view differs from that of other medico-psychological theories principally in that I attribute to the personal mother only a limited aetiological significance. That is to say, all those influences which the literature describes as being exerted on the children do not come from the mother herself, but rather from the archetype projected upon her, which gives her a mythological background and invests her with authority and numinosity ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 159

Freud himself had already seen that the real aetiology of neuroses does not lie in traumatic effects, as he at first suspected, but in a peculiar development of infantile fantasy. This is not to deny that such a development can be traced back to disturbing influences emanating from the mother ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 159

I myself make it a rule to look first for the cause of infantile neuroses in the mother, as I know from experience that a child is much more likely to develop normally than neurotically, and that in the great majority of cases definite causes of disturbances can be found in the parents, especially in the mother ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 159

The contents of the child’s abnormal fantasies can be referred to the personal mother only in part, since they often contain clear and unmistakable allusions which could not possibly have reference to human beings. This is especially true where definitely mythological products are concerned, as is frequently the case in infantile phobias where the mother may appear as a wild beast, a witch, a spectre, an ogre, a hermaphrodite, and so on ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 159

It must be borne in mind, however, that such fantasies are not always of unmistakably mythological origin, and even if they are, they may not always be rooted in the unconscious archetype but may have been occasioned by fairytales or accidental remarks. A thorough investigation is therefore indicated in each case ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 159

In any event, the child’s instincts are disturbed, and this constellates archetypes which, in their turn, produce fantasies that come between the child and its mother as an alien and often frightening element. Thus, if the children of an over-anxious mother regularly dream that she is a terrifying animal or a witch, these experiences point to a split in the child’s psyche that predisposes it to a neurosis ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 161

Because of the difference in sex, a son’s mother-complex does not appear in pure form. This is the reason why in every masculine mother-complex, side by side with the mother archetype, a significant role is played by the image of the man’s sexual counterpart, the anima ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 162

The mother is the first feminine being with whom the man-to-be comes in contact, and she cannot help playing overtly or covertly, consciously or unconsciously, upon the son’s masculinity, just as the son, in his turn grows increasingly aware of his mother’s femininity, or unconsciously responds to it by instinct ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 162

I do not mean to say that for this reason the mother-complex of a son ought to be regarded as more serious than that of the daughter. The investigation of these complex psychic phenomena is still in the pioneer stage. Comparisons will not become feasible until we have some statistics at our disposal, and of these, so far, there is no sign ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 162

Women of this type, though continually “living for others,” are, as a matter of fact, unable to make any real sacrifice. Driven by ruthless will to power and a fanatical insistence on their own maternal rights, they often succeed in annihilating not only their own personality but also the personal lives of their children ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 167

This type often develops in reaction to a mother who is wholly a thrall of nature, purely instinctive and therefore all-devouring such a mother being an anachronism, a throw-back to a primitive state of matriarchy where the man leads an insipid existence as a mere procreator and serf of the soil ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 176

A woman of this type loves romantic and sensational episodes for their own sake, and is interested in married men, less for themselves than for the fact that they are married, and so give her an opportunity to wreck a marriage, that being the whole point of her manoeuvre ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 168

The reactive intensification of the daughter’s Eros is aimed at some man who ought to be rescued from the preponderance of the female-maternal element in his life. A woman of this type instinctively intervenes when provoked by the unconscious of the married partner ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 176

She will disturb that comfortable ease so dangerous to the personality of a man, but frequently regarded by him as marital faithfulness. This complacency leads to blank unconsciousness of his own personality and to those supposedly ideal marriages where he is nothing but Dad and she is nothing but Mom, and they even call each other that ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 176

The woman whose fate it is to be a disturbing element is not solely destructive, except in pathological cases. Normally the disturber is herself caught in the disturbance; the worker of change is herself changed, and the glare of fire she ignites both illuminates and enlightens all the victims of the entanglement. What seemed a senseless upheaval becomes a process of purification ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 180

If a woman of this type remains unconscious of the meaning of her function, if she does not know that she is she will herself perish by the sword she brings. But consciousness transforms her into a deliverer and redeemer ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 181

From a low hill in the Athi plains of East Africa I [Jung] once watched the vast herds of wild animals grazing in soundless stillness, as they had done from time immemorial, touched only by the breath of a primeval world. I felt then as if I were the first man, the first creature, to know that all this is. The entire world round me was still in its primeval state; it did not know that it was ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 177

Therefore its [the Logos] first creative act of liberation is matricide, and the spirit that dared all heights and all depths must, as Synesius says, suffer the divine punishment, enchainment on the rocks of the Caucasus. Nothing can exist without its opposite; the two were one in the beginning and will be one again in the end ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 178

Everything which reminds her of motherhood, responsibility, relationships, and erotic demands arouses feelings of inferiority and compels her to run away to her mother, naturally, who lives to perfection everything that seems unattainable to her daughter ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 169

She [the daughter] is content to cling to her mother in selfless devotion, while at the same time unconsciously striving, almost against her will, to tyrannize over her [the mother], naturally under the mask of complete loyalty and devotion ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 169

This type of woman has an oddly disarming effect on her husband, but only until he discovers that the person he has married and who shares his nuptial bed is his mother-in-law ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 169

Because of the woman’s characteristic passivity, and the feelings of inferiority which make her continually play the injured innocent, the man finds himself cast in an attractive role: he has the privilege of putting up with the familiar feminine foibles with real superiority, and yet with forbearance, like a true knight ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 169

She is so inexperienced, so terribly in need of help, that even the gentlest swain becomes a daring abductor who brutally robs a loving mother of her daughter. Such a marvellous opportunity to pass himself off as a gay Lothario does not occur every day and therefore acts as a strong incentive ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 169

This was how Pluto abducted Persephone from the inconsolable Demeter. But, by a decree of the gods, he had to surrender his wife every year to his mother-in-law for the summer season. (The attentive reader will note that such legends do not come about by chance!) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 169

The woman of this type, who is so identified with the mother that her own instincts are paralyzed through projection, need not on that account remain a hopeless nonentity forever. On the contrary, if she is at all normal, there is a good chance of the empty vessel being filled by a potent anima projection. [This type is sometimes referred to as the “nothing but” daughter] ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 182

They may project the gift or talent upon a husband who lacks it himself, and then we have the spectacle of a totally insignificant man who seemed to have no chance whatsoever suddenly soaring as if on a magic carpet to the highest summits of achievement. Cherchez la femme, and you have the secret of his success ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 182

This kind of daughter knows what she does not want but is usually completely at sea as to what she would choose as her own fate. All of her instincts are concentrated on the mother in the negative form of resistance and therefore of no use to her in building her own life ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 170

Should she get as far as marrying, either the marriage will be used for the sole purpose of escaping from her mother, or else a diabolical fate will present her with a husband who shares all the essential traits of her mother’s character ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 170

All instinctive processes meet with unexpected difficulties; either sexuality does not function properly, or the children are unwanted, or maternal duties seem unbearable, or the demands of marital life are responded to with impatience or irritation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 170

This is quite natural, since none of it has anything to do with realities of life when stubborn resistance to the power of the mother in every form has come to be life’s dominating aim ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 170

The mother, as representative of the family (or clan), causes either violent resistances or complete indifference to anything that comes under the head of family, community, society, convention, and the like Resistance to the mother as uterus, often manifest itself in menstrual disturbances, failure of conception, abhorrence of pregnancy, hemorrhages and excessive vomiting during pregnancy, miscarriages, and so on ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 170

Resistance to the mother can sometimes result in a spontaneous development of intellect for the purpose of creating a sphere of interest in which the mother has no place. This development springs from the daughter’s own needs and not at all for the sake of a man whom she would like to impress or dazzle by a semblance of intellectual comradeship ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 171

Its real purpose is to break the mother’s power by intellectual criticism and superior knowledge, so as to enumerate to her all her stupidities, mistakes in logic, and educational shortcomings. Intellectual development is often accompanied by the emergence of masculine traits in general ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 171

As a pathological phenomenon, the woman with a negative mother-complex is an unpleasant, exacting and anything but satisfactory partner for her husband, since she rebels in every fibre of her being against everything that springs from the natural soil ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 184

However, there is no reason why the increasing experience of life should not teach her a thing or two, so that for a start she gives up fighting the mother in the personal and restricted sense. But even at her best she will remain hostile to all that is dark, unclear, and ambiguous, and will cultivate and emphasize everything certain and clear and reasonable ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 184

Excelling her more feminine sister in her objectivity and coolness of judgment, she may become the friend, sister, and competent adviser of her husband her own masculine aspirations making it possible for her to have a human understanding of the individuality of her husband, quite transcending the realm of the erotic ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 184

The woman with this type of mother-complex probably has the best chance of all to make her marriage an outstanding success during the second half of life ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 184

But this is only if she succeeds in overcoming the hell of “nothing but femininity,” the chaos of the maternal womb, which is her greatest danger because of her negative complex ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 184

This type started out in the world with an averted face, like Lot’s wife looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah. And all the while the world and life pass by her like a dream an annoying source of illusions, disappointments, and irritations, all of which are due solely to the fact that she cannot bring herself to look straight ahead for once ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 185

Because of her merely unconscious, reactive attitude toward reality, her life actually becomes dominated by what she fought hardest against the exclusively maternal feminine aspect ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 185

But if she should later turn her face, she will see the world for the first time, so to speak, in the light of maturity, and see it embellished with all the colors and enchanting wonders of youth, and sometimes even of childhood. It is a vision that brings knowledge and discovery of truth, the indispensable prerequisite for consciousness. A part of life was lost, but the meaning of life has been salvaged for her ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 185

Thanks to her lucidity, objectivity, and masculinity, a woman of this type is frequently found in important positions in which her tardily discovered maternal quality, guided by a cool intelligence, exerts a most beneficial influence ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 186

This rare combination of womanliness and masculine understanding proves valuable in the realm of intimate relationships as well as in practical matters. As the spiritual guide and adviser of a man, such a woman, unknown to the world, may play a highly influential part ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 186

Owing to her qualities, the masculine mind finds this type easier to understand than women with other forms of mother-complex, and for this reason men often favour her with the projection of positive mother-complexes. The excessive feminine woman terrifies men who have a mother-complex characterized by great sensitivity ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 186

Her clarity of understanding inspires him with confidence, a factor not to be underrated and one that is absent from the relationship between a man and a woman much more often than one might think. The man’s Eros does not lead upward only but downward into that uncanny dark world of Hecate and Kali, which is a horror to any intellectual man ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 186

The understanding possessed by this type of woman will be a guiding star to the man in the darkness and seemingly unending mazes of life ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 186

With the awakening of ego-consciousness the participation gradually weakens, and consciousness begins to enter into opposition to the unconscious, its own precondition. This leads to the differentiation of the ego from the mother, whose personal peculiarities gradually become more distinct ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 188

All the fabulous and mysterious qualities attaching to her image begin to fall away and are transferred to the person closest to her, for instance the grandmother. As the mother of the mother, she is “greater” than the latter; she is in truth the “grand” or “Great Mother” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 188

Not infrequently [the grandmother] assumes the attributes of wisdom as well as those of the witch. For the further the archetype recedes from consciousness and the clearer the latter [grandmother figure] becomes, the more distinctly does the archetype assume mythological features ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 188

As the distance between conscious and unconscious increases, the grandmother’s more exalted rank transforms her into a “Great Mother,” and it frequently happens that the opposites contained in this image split apart. We then get a good fairy and a wicked fairy, or a benevolent goddess and one who is malevolent and dangerous ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 189

This strange development was precipitated chiefly by the fact that Christianity, terrified of Manichaean dualism, strove to preserve its monotheism by main force. But since the reality of darkness and evil could not be denied, there was no alternative but to make man responsible for it ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 189

In recent times this development has suffered a diabolical reverse, and the wolf’s in sheep’s clothing now goes about whispering in our ear that evil is really nothing but a misunderstanding of good, and an effective instrument of progress. We think that the world of darkness has thus been abolished for good and all, and nobody realizes what a poisoning this is of man’s soul. In this way he turns himself into the devil, for the devil is half of the archetype whose irresistible power makes even unbelievers ejaculate “Oh God!” on every suitable and unsuitable occasion. If one can possible avoid it, one ought never to identify with an archetype, for, as psychopathology and certain contemporary events show, the consequences are terrifying ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 189

The Christian “Queen of Heaven” has, obviously, shed all her Olympian qualities except for her brightness, goodness, and eternality; and even her human body, the thing most prone to gross material corruption, has put on an ethereal incorruptibility ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 195

Just as Christ’s appearance in his own day created a real devil and adversary of God out of what was originally a son of God dwelling in heaven, so now, conversely, a heavenly figure [the Virgin Mary] has split off from her original chthonic realm and taken up a counter-position to the titanic forces of the earth and the underworld that have been unleashed ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 195

In the same way that the Mother of God was divested of all the essential qualities of materiality, matter became completely de-souled, and this at a time when physics is pushing forward to insights which, if they do not exactly “de-materialize” matter, at least endue it with properties of its own and make its relation to the psyche a problem that can no longer be shelved 1~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 95

These primordial affirmations are based on what I call archetypes. In view of the fact that all affirmations relating to the sphere of the suprasensual are, in the last analysis, invariably determined by archetypes, it is not surprising that a concurrence of affirmations concerning rebirth can be found among the most widely differing peoples ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 207

The initiate may either be a mere witness of the divine drama or take part in it or be moved by it, or he may see himself identified through the ritual action with the god. In this case, what really matters is that an objective substance or form of life is ritually transformed through some process going on independently, while the initiate is influenced, impressed, “consecrated,” or granted “divine grace” on the mere ground of his presence or participation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 208

The transformation process takes place not within him but outside him, although he may become involved in it. The initiate who ritually enacts the slaying, dismemberment, and scattering of Osiris, and afterwards his resurrection in the green wheat, experiences in this way the permanence and continuity of life, which outlasts all changes of form and, phoenix-like, continually rises anew from its own ashes. This participation in the ritual event gives rise, among other effects, to that hope of immortality which is characteristic of the Eleusinian mysteries ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 208

The groups of men standing about near the exit, who are obviously engaged in every sort of worldly conversation, crossing themselves and genuflecting in a purely mechanical way even they, despite their inattention, participate in the sacral action by their mere presence in this place where grace abounds ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 209

The Mass is an extramundane and extratemporal act in which Christ is sacrificed and then resurrected in the transformed substances; and this rite of his sacrificial death is not a repetition of the historical event but the original, unique, and eternal act ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 209

His [Nietzsche’s] experience has the character of a Dionysian nature myth: the Deity appears in the garb of Nature, as classical antiquity saw it, and the moment of eternity is the noonday hour, sacred to Pan: “Hath time flown away? Do I not fall? Have I not fallen hark! into the well of eternity?” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 210

In the same way, the most beautiful and impressive dreams often have no lasting or transformative effect on the dreamer. He may be impressed by them, but he does not necessarily see any problem in them. The event then naturally remains “outside,” like a ritual action performed by others ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 211

The peculiar condition covered by this term [`loss of soul’] is accounted for in the mind of the primitive by the supposition that a soul has gone off, just like a dog that runs away from his master overnight. It is then the task of the medicine-man to fetch the fugitive back. Often the loss occurs suddenly and manifests itself in a general malaise ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 213

The listlessness and paralysis of will can go so far that the whole personality falls apart, so to speak, and consciousness loses its unity; the individual parts of the personality make themselves independent and thus escape from the control of the conscious mind, as in the case of anaesthetic areas or systematic amnesias. The latter are well known as hysterical “loss of function” phenomena. This medical term is analogous to the primitive loss of soul ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 213

The contents which thus take possession appear as peculiar convictions, idiosyncrasies, stubborn plans, and so forth. As a rule, they are not open to correction. One has to be an especially good friend of the possessed person and willing to put up with almost anything if one is to attempt to deal with such a condition ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 220

A common instance of this is identity with the persona, which is the individual’s system of adaptation to, or the manner he assumes in dealing with, the world. Every calling or profession, for example, has its own characteristic persona ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 221

It is easy to study these things nowadays, when the photographs of public personalities so frequently appear in the press. A certain kind of behaviour is forced on them by the world, and professional people endeavour to come up to these expectations ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 221

Only, the danger is that they become identical with their personas the professor with his text-book, the tenor with his voice. Then the damage is done; henceforth he lives exclusively against the background of his own biography. For by that time it is written: “then he went to such and such a place and said this or that,” etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 221

The garment of Deianeira has grown fast to his skin, and a desperate decision like that of Heracles is needed if he is to tear this Nessus shirt from his body and step into the consuming fire of the flame of immortality, in order to transform himself into what he really is ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 221

One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is. In any case the temptation to be what one seems to be is great, because the persona is usually rewarded in cash ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 221

There are still other factors which may take possession of the individual, one of the most important being the so-called “inferior function.” This is not the place to enter into a detailed discussion of this problem; I should only like to point out that the inferior function is practically identical with the dark side of the human personality ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222

A man who is possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own light and falling into his own traps. Whenever possible, he prefers to make an unfavourable impression on others. In the long run luck is always against him, because he is living below his own level and at best only attains what does not suit him. And if there is no doorstep for him to stumble over, he manufactures one for himself and then fondly believes he has done something useful ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222

Possession caused by the anima or animus presents a different picture. Above all, this transformation of personality gives prominence to those traits which are characteristic of the opposite sex; in man the feminine traits, and in woman the masculine ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 223

Another form of structural change concerns certain unusual observations about which I speak only with the utmost reserve. I refer to states of possession in which the possession is caused by something that could perhaps most fitly be described as an “ancestral soul,” by which I mean the soul of some definite forebear ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 224

For all practical purposes, such cases may be regarded as striking instances of identification with deceased persons. (Naturally, the phenomena of identity only occur after the “ancestor’s” death.) Now we know that ancestral roles play a very important part in primitive psychology. Not only are ancestral spirits supposed to be reincarnated in children, but an attempt is made to implant them into the child by naming him after an ancestor ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 224

So, too, primitives try to change themselves back into their ancestors by means of certain rites. I would mention especially the Australian conception of the alcheringamijina, ancestral souls, half man and half animal, whose reactivation through religious rites is of the greatest functional significance for the life of the tribe ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 224

Ideas of this sort, dating back to the Stone Age, were widely diffused, as may be seen from numerous other traces that can be found elsewhere. It is therefore not improbable that these primordial forms of experience may recur even today as cases of identification with ancestral souls, and I believe I have seen such cases ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 224

More accurately speaking, it is the identification of an individual with a number of people who, as a group, have a collective experience of transformation. This special psychological situation must not be confused with participation in a transformation rite, which, though performed before an audience, does not in any way depend upon group identity or necessarily give rise to it ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 225

To experience transformation in a group and to experience it in oneself are two totally different things. If any considerable group of persons are united and identified with one another by a particular frame of mind, the resultant transformation experience bears only a very remote resemblance to the experience of individual transformation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 225

A group experience takes place on a lower level of consciousness than the experience of an individual. This is due to the fact that, when many people gather together to share one common emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group is below the level of the individual psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 225

The psychology of a large crowd inevitably sinks to the level of mob psychology. If, therefore, I have a so-called collective experience as a member of a group, it takes place on a lower level of consciousness than if I had the experience by myself alone. That is why this group experience is very much more frequent than an individual experience of transformation. It is also much easier to achieve, because the presence of so many people together exerts great suggestive force ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 225

The individual in a crowd easily becomes the victim of his own suggestibility. It is only necessary for something to happen, for instance a proposal backed by the whole crowd, and we too are all for it, even if the proposal is immoral. In the crowd one feels no responsibility, but also no fear ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 225

On the contrary, you must have continual recourse to mass intoxication in order to consolidate the experience and your belief in it. But as soon as you are removed from the crowd, you are a different person again and unable to reproduce the previous state of mind. The mass is swayed by participation mystique, which is nothing other than an unconscious identity ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 226

The inevitable psychological regression within the group is partially counteracted by ritual, that is to say through a cult ceremony which makes the solemn performance of sacred events the centre of group activity and prevents the crowd from relapsing into unconscious instinctuality. By engaging the individual’s interest and attention, the ritual makes it possible for him to have a comparatively individual experience even within the group and so to remain more or less conscious ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 227

But if there is no relation to a centre which expresses the unconscious through its symbolism, the mass psyche inevitably becomes the hypnotic focus of fascination, drawing everyone under its spell. That is why masses are always breeding-grounds of psychic epidemics, the events in Germany being a classic example of this ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 227

The group can give the individual a courage, a bearing, and a dignity which may easily get lost in isolation. It can awaken within him the memory of being a man among men. But that does not prevent something else from being added which he would not possess as an individual. Such unearned gifts may seem a special favour of the moment, but in the long run there is a danger of the gift becoming a loss, since human nature has a weak habit of taking gifts for granted; in times of necessity we demand them as a right instead of making the effort to obtain them ourselves. One sees this, unfortunately, only too plainly in the tendency to demand everything from the State, without reflecting that the State consists of those very individuals who make the demands ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 228

The logical development of this tendency leads to Communism, where each individual enslaves the community and the latter is represented by a dictator, the slave-owner. All primitive tribes characterized by a communistic order of society also have a chieftain over them with unlimited powers. The Communist State is nothing other than an absolute monarchy in which there are no subjects, but only serfs ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 228

Many cult ceremonies are expressly intended to bring this identity about, an obvious example being the Metamorphosis of Apuleius. The initiate, an ordinary human being, is elected to be Helios; he is crowned with a crown of palms and clad in the mystic mantle, whereupon the assembled crowd pays homage to him. The suggestion of the crowd brings about his identity with the god ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 229

The participation of the community can also take place in the following way: there is no apotheosis of the initiate, but the sacred action is recited, and then, in the course of long periods of time, psychic changes gradually occur in the individual participants ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 229

The Osiris cult offers an excellent example of this. At first only Pharaoh participated in the transformation of the god, since he alone “had an Osiris;” but later the nobles of the Empire acquired an Osiris too, and finally this development culminated in the Christian idea that everyone has an immortal soul and shares directly in the Godhead ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 229

In the mysteries, the individual undergoes an indirect transformation through his participation in the fate of the god. The transformation experience is also an indirect one in the Christian Church, inasmuch as it is brought about by participation in something acted or recited ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 230

There are natural transformation processes which simply happen to us, whether we like it or not, and whether we know it or not. These processes develop considerable psychic effects, which would be sufficient in themselves to make any thoughtful person ask himself what really happened to him ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 234

Mandalas are birth-places, vessels of birth in the most literal sense, lotus-flowers in which a Buddha comes to life. Sitting in the lotus-seat, the yogi sees himself transfigured into an immortal ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 234

Natural transformation processes announce themselves mainly in dreams. Elsewhere I have presented a series of dream-symbols of the process of individuation. They were dreams which without exception exhibited rebirth symbolism. In this particular case there was a long-drawn-out process of inner transformation and rebirth into another being ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 235

This “other being” is the other person in ourselves that larger and greater personality maturing within us, whom we have already met as the inner friend of the soul. That is why we take comfort whenever we find the friend and companion depicted in a ritual, an example being the friendship between Mithras and the sun-god ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 235

This relationship is a mystery to the scientific intellect, because the intellect is accustomed to regard these things unsympathetically. But if it made allowance for feeling, we would discover that it is the friend whom the sun-god takes with him on his chariot, as shown in the monuments ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 235

It is the representation of a friendship between two men which is simply the outer reflection of an inner fact: it reveals our relationship to that inner friend of the soul into whom Nature herself would like to change us that other person who we also are and yet can never attain to completely. We are that pair of Dioscuri, one of whom is mortal and the other immortal, and who, though always together, can never be made completely one ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 235

The transformation processes strive to approximate them to one another, but our consciousness is aware of resistances, because the other person seems strange and uncanny, and because we cannot get accustomed to the idea that we are not absolute master in our own house ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 235

You need not be insane to hear his voice [of the inner being']. On the contrary, it is the simplest and most natural thing imaginable. For instance, you can ask yourself a question to which “he” gives answer. The discussion is then carried on as in any other conversation. You can describe it as mere “associating” or “talking to oneself,” or as a “meditation” in the sense used by the old alchemists, who referred to their interlocutor as aliquem alium internum,a certain other one, within’ ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 236

This form of colloquy with the friend of the soul was even admitted by Ignatius Loyola into the technique of his Exercitia spiritualia, but with the limiting condition that only the person meditating is allowed to speak, whereas the inner responses are passed over as being merely human and therefore to be repudiated ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 236

The “voice” is explained as nothing but “associating,” pursued in a witless way and running on and on without sense or purpose, like the works of a clock that has no dial. Or we say “It is only my own thoughts!” even if, on closer inspection, it should turn out that they are thoughts which we either reject or had never consciously thought at all as if everything psychic that is glimpsed by the ego had always formed part of it! ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 236

Naturally this hybris serves the useful purpose of maintaining the supremacy of ego-consciousness, which must be safeguarded against dissolution into the unconscious. But it breaks down ignominiously if ever the unconscious should choose to let some nonsensical idea become an obsession or to produce other psychogenic symptoms, for which we would not like to accept responsibility on any account ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 236

The alchemists projected the inner event into an outer figure, so for them the inner friend appeared in the form of the “Stone,” of which the Tractatus aureus says: “Understand, ye sons of the wise, what this exceeding precious Stone crieth out to you: Protect me and I will protect thee. Give me what is mine that I may help thee.” To this a scholiast adds: “The seeker after truth hears both the Stone and the Philosopher speaking as if out of one mouth.” The Philosopher is Hermes, and the Stone is identical with Mercurius, the Latin Hermes ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 238

But some were clever enough to know, “It is my own transformation not a personal transformation, but the transformation of what is mortal in me into what is immortal. It shakes off the mortal husk that I am and awakens to a life of its own; it mounts the sun-barge and may take me with it” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 238

Just such a place of the center or of transformation is the cave in which those seven [Seven Sleepers] had gone to sleep, little thinking that they would experience there a prolongation of life verging on immortality. When they awoke, they had slept 309 years ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 240

The legend has the following meaning: Anyone who gets into that cave, that is to say into the cave which everyone has in himself, or into the darkness that lies behind consciousness, will find himself involved in an at first unconscious process of transformation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 241

The transformation is often interpreted as a prolongation of the natural span of life or as an earnest of immortality. The former is the case with many alchemists, notably Paracelsus (in his treatise De vita longa), and the latter is exemplified in the Eleusinian mysteries ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 241

Those seven sleepers indicate by their sacred number that they are gods, who are transformed during sleep and thereby enjoy eternal youth. This helps us to understand at the outset that we are dealing with a mystery legend. The fate of the numinous figures in it grips the hearer, because the story gives expression to parallel processes in his own unconscious which in that way are integrated with consciousness again ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 242

The seven are the planetary gods of the ancients. (Cf. Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, pp. 23ff.) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 242

The repristination of the original state is tantamount to attaining once more the freshness of youth ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 242

On this pilgrimage he [Moses] is accompanied by his “shadow,” the “servant” or “lower” man (pneumatikos and sarkikos in two individuals). Joshua is the son of Nun, which is a name for “fish,” suggesting that Joshua had his origin in the depths of the waters, in the darkness of the shadow-world ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 244

The critical place is reached “where the two seas meet,” which is interpreted as the isthmus of Suez, where the Western and the Eastern Seas come close together ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 244

In other words, it is that “place of the middle” which we have already met in the symbolic preamble, but whose significance was not recognized at first by the man [Moses] and his shadow [Joshua]. They had “forgotten their fish,” the humble source of nourishment ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 244

For the fish came alive again and leapt out of the basket in order to find its way back to its homeland, the sea. In other words, the animal ancestor and creator of life separates himself from the conscious man, an event which amounts to the loss of the instinctive psyche, [loss of soul] ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 244

Moses and his servant soon notice what has happened. Moses had sat down, “worn out” and hungry. Evidently he had a feeling of insufficiency, for which a physiological explanation is given ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 245

Fatigue is one of the most regular symptoms of loss of energy or libido. The entire process represents something very typical, namely the failure to recognize a moment of crucial importance, a motif which we encounter in a great variety of mythical forms ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 245

Moses realizes that he has unconsciously found the source of life and then lost it again, which we might well regard as a remarkable intuition. The fish they had intended to eat is a content of the unconscious, by which the connection with the origin is re-established ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 245

On the island thus formed Khidr was sitting, in the place of the middle. A mystical interpretation says that he was sitting “on a throne consisting of light, between the upper and the lower sea,” again in the middle position (Vollers, p. 250). The appearance of Khidr seems to be mysteriously connected with the disappearance of the fish ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 246

It looks almost as if he [Khidr] himself had been the fish. This conjecture is supported by the fact that the commentaries relegate the source of life to the “place of darkness” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 246

Moses says to Khidr, “Shall I follow you that you may teach me for my guidance some of the wisdom you have Khadr replies, “You will not bear with me, for how should you bear patiently with things you cannot comprehend?” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 243

Khidr finally relents, securing Moses’ promise to ask no questions about anything till he speaks to Moses concerning it ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 243

The two set forth, but as soon as they embarked, Moses’ companion [Khidr] bored a hole in the bottom of the ship. “A strange thing you have done!” exclaimed Moses. “Is it to drown her passengers that you have bored a hole in her?” “Did I not tell you,” he [Khidr] replied, “that you would not bear with me?” “Pardon my forgetfulness,” said Moses. “Do not be angry with me on this account” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 243

They journeyed on until they fell in with a certain youth. Moses’ companion [Khidr] slew him, and Moses said, “You have killed an innocent man who has done no harm. Surely you have committed a wicked crime.” “Did I not tell you,” he [Khidr] replied, “that you would not bear with me?” Moses said “If ever I question you again, abandon me; for then I should deserve it” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 243

These symbols coincide with a psychic fact which obviously, from the point of view of consciousness, has the significance merely of something to be assimilated, but whose real nature is overlooked ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 248

The fish symbol shows immediately what this is: it is the “nourishing” influence of unconscious contents, which maintain the vitality of consciousness by a continual influx of energy, for consciousness does not produce energy by itself ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 248

That is why [the 18th Sura] is all so allusive and lacking in logical sequence. Nevertheless, the [Khidr] legend expresses the obscure archetype of transformation so admirably that the passionate religious eros of the Arab finds it completely satisfying ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 258

It is for this reason that the figure of Khidr plays such an important part in Islamic mysticism ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 258

The intuition is connected with the peculiar nature of the unconscious. It is [the intuition], in a sense, non-spatial and non-temporal. The empirical proof of this is the occurrence of so-called telepathic phenomena, which are still denied by hypersceptical critics, although in reality they are much more common than is generally supposed ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 249

Myths on this [primitive] level are as a rule tribal history handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 260

The primitive mentality does not invent myths, it experiences them. Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about psychic happenings, and anything but allegories of physical processes. Such allegories would be an idle amusement for an unscientific intellect ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 261

Myths, on the contrary, have a vital meaning. Not merely do they represent, they are the psychic life of the primitive tribe, which immediately falls to pieces and decays when it loses its mythological heritage, like a man who has lost his soul ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 261

In folklore the child motif appears in the guise of the dwarf or the elf as personifications of the hidden forces of nature. To this sphere also belongs the little metal man of late antiquity, the anthroparion, who, till far into the Middle Ages, on the one hand inhabited the mine-shafts, and on the other represented the alchemical metals, above all Mercurius reborn in perfect form (as the hermaphrodite, filius sapientiae, or infans noster) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 268

Thanks to the religious interpretation of the “child,” a fair amount of evidence has come down to us from the Middle Ages showing that the “child” was not merely a traditional figure, but a vision spontaneously experienced (as a so-called “irruption of the unconscious”) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 268

I would mention Meister Eckhart’s vision of the “naked boy”. Interesting accounts of these spontaneous experiences are also to be found in English ghost-stories, where we read of the vision of a “Radiant Boy” said to have been seen in a place where there are Roman remains ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 268

In dreams it [the child] often appears as the dreamer’s son or daughter, or as a boy, youth, or young girl; occasionally it seems to be of exotic origin, Indian or Chinese, with a dusky skin, or appearing more cosmically, surrounded by stars with a starry coronet; or as the king’s son, or the witch’s child with daemonic attributes ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 270

Seen as a special instance of “the treasure hard to attain” motif, the child motif is extremely variable and assumes all manner of shapes, such as the jewel, the pearl, the flower, the chalice, the golden egg, the quaternity, the golden ball, and so on. It can be interchanged with these and similar images almost without limit ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 270

These fantasy-images undoubtedly have their closest analogues in mythological types. We must therefore assume that they correspond to certain collective (and not personal) structural elements of the human psyche in general, and, like the morphological elements of the human body, are inherited ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 262

Contents of an archetypal character are manifestations of processes in the collective unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 265

Hence they do not refer to anything that is or has been conscious, but to something essentially unconscious. In the last analysis, therefore, it is impossible to say what they refer to. Every interpretation necessarily remains an “as-if.” The ultimate core of meaning may be circumscribed, but not described 2~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 65

Even so, the bare circumscription denotes an essential step forward in our knowledge of the pre-conscious structure of the psyche, which was already in existence when there was as yet no unity of personality (even today the primitive is not securely possessed of it) and no consciousness at all ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 265

If, then, we proceed in accordance with the above principle, there is no longer any question whether a myth refers to the sun or the moon, the father or the mother, sexuality or fire or water; all it does is to circumscribe and give an approximate description of an unconscious core of meaning. The ultimate meaning of this nucleus was never conscious and never will be ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 266

It was, and still is, only interpreted, and every interpretation that comes anywhere near the hidden sense (or, from the point of view of scientific intellect, nonsense, which comes to the same thing) has always, right from the beginning, laid claim not only to absolute truth and validity but to instant reverence and religious devotion ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 266

An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors. If such a content should speak of the sun and identify with it the lion, the king, the hoard of gold guarded by the dragon, or the power that makes for the life and health of man, it is neither the one thing nor the other, but the unknown third thing that finds more or less adequate expression in all these similes, yet to the perpetual vexation of the intellect remains unknown and not to be fitted into a formula 267

For this reason the scientific intellect is always inclined to put on airs of enlightenment in the hope of banishing the spectre once and for all 267

Whether its endeavours were called euhemerism, or Christian apologetics, or Enlightenment in the narrow sense, or Positivism, there was always a myth hiding behind it, in new and disconcerting garb, which then, following the ancient and venerable pattern, gave itself out as ultimate truth 267

If we cannot deny the archetypes or otherwise neutralize them, we are confronted, at every new stage in the differentiation of consciousness to which civilization attains, with the task of finding a new interpretation appropriate to this stage, in order to connect the life of the past that still exists in us with the life of the present, which threatens to slip away from it 267

Over and over again in the “metamorphosis of the gods” he rises up as the prophet or first-born of a new generation and appears unexpectedly in the unlikeliest places (sprung from a stone, tree, furrow, water, etc.) and in ambiguous form (Tom Thumb, dwarf, child, animal, and so on) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 267

Of what elementary importance the connection with these roots is, we see from the preoccupation of the primitive mentality with certain “magic” factors, which are nothing less than what we would call archetypes. This original form of religio (“linking back”) is the essence, the working basis of all religious life even today, and always will be, whatever future form this life may take ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 271

There is no “rational” substitute for the archetype any more than there is for the cerebellum or the kidneys. We can examine the physical organs anatomically, histologically, and embryologically. This would correspond to an outline of archetypal phenomenology and its presentation in terms of comparative history. But we only arrive at the meaning of a physical organ when we begin to ask teleological questions Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 272

Hence the query arises: What is the biological purpose of the archetype? Just as physiology answers such a question for the body, so it is the business of psychology to answer it for the archetype ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 272

“The child motif is a picture of certain forgotten things in our childhood, “Since, however, the archetype is always an image belonging to the whole human race and not merely to the individual, we might put it better this way: “The child motif represents the preconscious, childhood aspect of the collective psyche” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 273

We shall not go wrong if we take this statement for the time being historically, on the analogy of certain psychological experiences which show that certain phases in an individual’s life can become autonomous, can personify themselves to the extent that they result in a vision of oneself for instance, one sees oneself as a child ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 274

Visionary experiences of this kind, whether they occur in dreams or in the waking state, are, as we know, conditional on a dissociation having previously taken place between past and present ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 274

Such dissociations come about because of various incompatibilities, f.i., a man’s present state may have come into conflict with his childhood state, or he may have violently sundered himself from his original character in the interests of some arbitrary persona more in keeping with his ambitions ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 274

He has thus become unchildlike and artificial and has lost his roots. All this presents a favourable opportunity for an equally vehement confrontation with the primary truth ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 274

The child motif represents not only something that existed in the distant past but also something that exists now; that is to say, it is not just a vestige but a system functioning in the present whose purpose is to compensate or correct, in a meaningful manner, the inevitable one-sided nesses and extravagances of the conscious mind ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 276

It is in the nature of the conscious mind to concentrate on relatively few contents and to raise them to the highest pitch of clarity. A necessary result and precondition is the exclusion of other potential contents of consciousness. The exclusion is bound to bring about a certain one-sidedness of the conscious contents ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 276

Since the differentiated consciousness of civilized man has been granted an effective instrument for the practical realization of its contents through the dynamics of his will, there is all the more danger, the more he trains his will, of his getting lost in one-sidedness and deviating further and further from the laws and roots of his being ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 276

This means, on the one hand, the possibility of human freedom, but on the other it is a source of endless transgressions against one’s instincts ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 276

Accordingly, primitive man, being closer to his instincts, like the animal, is characterized by fear of novelty and adherence to tradition. To our way of thinking he is painfully backward, whereas we exalt progress ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 276

But our progressiveness, though it may result in a great many delightful wish-fulfilments, piles up an equally gigantic Promethean debt which has to be paid off from time to time in the form of hideous catastrophes. For ages man has dreamed of flying, and all we have got for it is saturation bombing! ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 276

We smile today at the Christian hope of a life beyond the grave, and yet we often fall into chiliasms a hundred times more ridiculous than the notion of a happy Hereafter. Our differentiated consciousness is in continual danger of being uprooted; hence it needs compensation through the still existing state of childhood ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 276

In the individuation process, [the child] anticipates the figure that comes from the synthesis of conscious and unconscious elements in the personality. It [the child] is therefore a symbol which unites the opposites; a mediator, bringer of healing, that is, one who makes whole ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 278

Because it has this meaning, the child motif is capable of the numerous transformations mentioned above: it can be expressed by roundness, the circle or sphere, or else by the quaternity as another form of wholeness. I have called this wholeness that transcends consciousness the “Self.” The goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the Self ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 278

From another point of view the term “entelechy” might be preferable to “synthesis.” There is an empirical reason why “entelechy” is, in certain conditions, more fitting: the symbols of wholeness frequently occur at the beginning of the individuation process; indeed they can often be observed in the first dreams of early infancy. This observation says much for the a priori existence of potential wholeness, and on this account the idea of entelechy instantly recommends itself ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 278

Where, for instance, numerous homunculi, dwarfs, boys, etc., appear, having no individual characteristics at all, there is the probability of a dissociation. Such forms are therefore found especially in schizophrenia, which is essentially a fragmentation of personality. The many children then represent the products of its dissolution ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 279

But if the plurality occurs in normal people, then it is the representation of an as yet incomplete synthesis of personality. The personality (viz., the “Self”) is still in the plural stage, i.e., an ego may be present, but it cannot experience its wholeness within the framework of its own personality, only within the community of the family, tribe, or nation; it is still in the stage of unconscious identification with the plurality of the group ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 279

While the god, especially in his close affinity with the symbolic animal, personifies the collective unconscious which is not yet integrated into a human being, the hero’s supernaturalness includes human nature and thus represents a synthesis of the (“divine,” i.e., not yet humanized) unconscious and human consciousness. Consequently [the hero] signifies the potential anticipation of an individuation process which is approaching wholeness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 281

For this reason the various “child”-fates may be regarded as illustrating the kind of psychic events that occur in the entelechy or genesis of the “Self.” The “miraculous birth” tries to depict the way in which this genesis is experienced. Since it is a psychic genesis, everything must happen non-empirically, e.g., by means of a virgin birth, or by miraculous conception, or by birth from unnatural organs ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 282

The motifs of “insignificance,” exposure, abandonment, danger, etc. try to show how precarious is the psychic possibility of wholeness, that is, the enormous difficulties to be met with in attaining this “highest good” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 282

[These motifs] also signify the powerlessness and helplessness of the life-urge which subjects every growing thing to the law of maximum self-fulfillment, while at the same time the environmental influences place all sorts of insuperable obstacles in the way of individuation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 282

Abandonment, exposure, danger, etc. are all elaborations of the “child’s” insignificant beginnings and of its mysterious and miraculous birth. This statement describes a certain psychic experience of a creative nature, whose object is the emergence of a new and as yet unknown content ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 285

In the psychology of the individual there is always, at such moments, an agonizing situation of conflict from which there seems to be no way out at least for the conscious mind, since as far as this is concerned, tertium non datur ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 285

But out of this collision of opposites the unconscious psyche always creates a third thing of an irrational nature, which the conscious mind neither expects nor understands. It presents itself in a form that is neither a straight “yes” nor a straight “no,” and is consequently rejected by both. For the conscious mind knows nothing beyond the opposites and, as a result, has no knowledge of the thing that unites them ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 285

Since, however, the solution of the conflict through the union of opposites is of vital importance, and is moreover the very thing that the conscious mind is longing for, some inkling of the creative act, and of the significance of it, nevertheless gets through ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 285

From this comes the numinous character of the “child.” A meaningful but unknown content always has a secret fascination for the conscious mind. The new configuration is a nascent whole; it is on the way to wholeness, at least in so far as it excels in “wholeness” the conscious mind when torn by opposites and surpasses it in completeness. For this reason all uniting symbols have a redemptive significance ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 285

Out of this situation the abandoned “child” emerges as a symbolic content, manifestly separated or even isolated from its background (the mother), but sometimes including the mother in its perilous situation, threatened on the one hand by the negative attitude of the conscious mind and on the other by the horror vacui of the unconscious, which is quite ready to swallow up all its progeny, since it produces them only in play, and destruction is an inescapable part of its play ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 286

Nothing in all the world welcomes this new birth, although it is the most precious fruit of Mother Nature herself, the most pregnant with the future, signifying a higher stage of self-realization. That is why Nature, the world of the instincts, takes the “child” under its wing: it is nourished or protected by animals ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 286

`Because the symbol of the “child” fascinates and grips the conscious mind, its redemptive effect passes over into consciousness and brings about that separation from the conflict-situation which the conscious mind by itself was unable to achieve ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 287

The [child] symbol anticipates a nascent state of consciousness. So long as this is not actually in being, the “child” remains a mythological projection which requires religious repetition and renewal by ritual. The Christ Child, for instance, is a religious necessity only so long as the majority of men are incapable of giving psychological reality to the saying: “Except ye become as little children” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 287

Since all such developments and transitions are extraordinarily difficult and dangerous, it is no wonder that figures of this kind persist for hundreds or even thousands of years. Everything that man should, and yet cannot, be or done it in a positive or negative sense lives on as a mythological figure and anticipation alongside his consciousness, either as a religious projection or what is still more dangerous as unconscious contents which then project themselves spontaneously into incongruous objects, e.g., hygienic and other “salvationist” doctrines or practices. All these are so many rationalized substitutes for mythology, and their unnaturalness does more harm than good ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 287

The conflict-situation that offers no way out, the sort of situation that produces the “child” as the irrational third, is of course a formula appropriate only to a psychological, that is, modern stage of development. It is not strictly applicable to the psychic life of primitives, if only because primitive man’s childlike range of consciousness still excludes a whole world of possible psychic experiences. Seen on the nature-level of the primitive, our modern moral conflict is still an objective calamity that threatens life itself ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 288

Hence not a few child-figures are culture-heroes and thus identified with things that promote culture, e.g., fire, metal, corn, maize, etc. As bringers of light, that is, enlargers of consciousness, they overcome darkness, which is to say that they overcome the earlier unconscious state ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 288

The conquerors of darkness go far back into primeval times, and, together with many other legends, prove that there once existed a state of original psychic distress, namely unconsciousness. Hence in all probability the “irrational” fear which primitive man has of the dark even today ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 288

I found a form of religion among a tribe living on Mount Elgon that corresponded to pantheistic optimism. Their optimistic mood was, however, always in abeyance between six o’clock in the evening and six o’clock in the morning, during which time it was replaced by fear, for in the night the dark being Ayik has his dominion the “Maker of Fear.” During the daytime there were no monster snakes anywhere in the vicinity, but at night they were lurking on every path. At night the whole of mythology was let loose ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 288

From the conscious standpoint we seem to be dealing with an insignificant content that has no releasing, let alone redeeming, character. The conscious mind is caught in its conflict-situation, and the combatant forces seem so overwhelming that the “child” as an isolated content bears no relation to the conscious factors. It is therefore easily overlooked and falls back into the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

At least, this is what we should have to fear if things turned out according to our conscious expectations. Myth, however, emphasizes that it is not so, but that the “child” is endowed with superior powers and, despite all dangers, will unexpectedly pull through ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

The “child” is born out of the womb of the unconscious, begotten out of the depths of human nature, or rather out of living Nature herself. It is a personification of vital forces quite outside the limited range of our conscious mind; of ways and possibilities of which our one-sided conscious mind knows nothing; a wholeness which embraces the very depths of Nature ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

It [the child] represents the strongest, the most ineluctable urge in every being, namely the urge to realize itself. It is, as it were, an incarnation of the inability to do otherwise, equipped with all the powers of nature and instinct, whereas the conscious mind is always getting caught up in its supposed ability to do otherwise ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

The urge and compulsion to self-realization is a law of nature and thus of invincible power, even though its effect, at the start, is insignificant and improbable. Its power is revealed in the miraculous deeds of the child hero, and later in the athla (`works’) of the bondsman or thrall (of the Heracles type), where, although the hero has out grown the impotence of the “child,” he is still in a menial position. The figure of the thrall generally leads up to the real epiphany of the semi-divine hero ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

As an individual phenomenon, the Self is “smaller than small”; as the equivalent of the cosmos, it is “bigger than big.” The Self, regarded as the counter-pole of the world, its “absolutely other,” is the sine qua non of all empirical knowledge and consciousness of subject and object ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

Only because of this psychic “otherness” is consciousness possible at all. Identity does not make consciousness possible; it is only separation, detachment, and agonizing confrontation through opposition that produce consciousness and insight ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

Hindu introspection recognized this psychological fact very early and consequently equated the subject of cognition with the subject of ontology in general. In accordance with the predominantly introverted attitude of Indian thinking, the object lost the attribute of absolute reality and, in some systems, became a mere illusion ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

The Greek-Occidental type of mind could not free itself from the conviction of the world’s absolute existence at the cost, however, of the cosmic significance of the Self. Even today Western man finds it hard to see the psychological necessity for a transcendental subject of cognition as the counter-pole of the empirical universe, although the postulate of a world-confronting Self, at least as a point of reflection, is a logical necessity ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

Regardless of philosophy’s perpetual attitude of dissent or only half-hearted assent, there is always a compensating tendency in our unconscious psyche to produce a symbol of the Self in its cosmic significance. These efforts take on the archetypal forms of the hero myth such as can be observed in almost any individuation process ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 289

To a differentiated consciousness, on the other hand, it seems evident that this egg is nothing but a symbol thrown up by the psyche or what is even worse a fanciful speculation and therefore “nothing but” a primitive phantasm to which no “reality” of any kind attaches ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 290

In the last analysis the human body, too, is built of the stuff of the world, the very stuff wherein fantasies become visible; indeed, without it they could not be experienced at all. Without this stuff they would be like a sort of abstract crystalline lattice in a solution where the crystallization process had not yet started ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 290

The deeper “layers” of the psyche lose their individual uniqueness as they retreat farther and farther into darkness. “Lower down,” that is to say as they approach the autonomous functional systems, they become increasingly collective until they are universalized and extinguished in the body’s materiality, i.e., in chemical substances. The body’s carbon is simply carbon ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 291

Hence “at bottom” the psyche is simply “world.” In this sense I hold Kerényi to be absolutely right when he says that in the symbol the world itself is speaking. The more archaic and “deeper,” that is the more psychological, the symbol is, the more collective and universal, the more “material” it is ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 291

The more abstract, differentiated, and specific it is, and the more its nature approximates to conscious uniqueness and individuality, the more it sloughs off its universal character ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 291

Having finally attained full consciousness, it [the symbol] runs the risk of becoming a mere allegory which nowhere oversteps the bounds of conscious comprehension, and is then exposed to all sorts of attempts at rationalistic and therefore inadequate explanation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 291

In the first place this union refers back to a primitive state of mind, a twilight where differences and contrasts were either barely separated or completely merged. With increasing clarity of consciousness, however, the opposites draw more and more distinctly and irreconcilably apart ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 292

If, therefore, the hermaphrodite were only a product of primitive non-differentiation, we would have to expect that it would soon be eliminated with increasing civilization. This is by no means the case; on the contrary, man’s imagination has been preoccupied with this idea over and over again on the high and even the highest levels of culture, as we can see from the late Greek and syncretic philosophy of Gnosticism ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 292

We can no longer be dealing, then, with the continued existence of a primitive phantasm, or with an original contamination of opposites. Rather, as we can see from medieval writings, the primordial idea has become a symbol of the creative union of opposites, a “uniting symbol” in the literal sense ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 293

In its functional significance the symbol no longer points back, but forward to a goal not yet reached. Notwithstanding its monstrosity, the hermaphrodite has gradually turned into a subduer of conflicts and a bringer of healing, and it acquired this meaning in relatively early phases of civilization. This vital meaning explains why the image of the hermaphrodite did not fade out in primeval times but, on the contrary, was able to assert itself with increasing profundity of symbolic content for thousands of years ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 293

The fact that an idea so utterly archaic could rise to such exalted heights of meaning not only points to the vitality of archetypal ideas, it also demonstrates the rightness of the principle that the archetype, because of its power to unite opposites, mediates between the unconscious substratum and the conscious mind ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 293

It throws a bridge between present-day consciousness, always in danger of losing its roots, and the natural, unconscious, instinctive wholeness of primeval times. Through this mediation the uniqueness, peculiarity, and one sidedness of our present individual consciousness are linked up again with its natural, racial roots ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 293

The conscious mind split off from its origins, incapable of realizing the meaning of the new state, then relapses all too easily into a situation far worse than the one from which the innovation was intended to free it exempla sunt odiosa! [examples are odious!] ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 293

As civilization develops, the bisexual primordial being turns into a symbol of the unity of personality, a symbol of the Self, where the war of opposites finds peace. In this way the primordial being becomes the distant goal of man’s self-development, having been from the very beginning a projection of his unconscious wholeness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 294

The idea of the coniunctio of male and female, which became almost a technical term in Hermetic philosophy, appears in Gnosticism as the mysterium iniquitatis, probably not uninfluenced by the Old Testament “divine marriage” as performed, for instance, by Hosea ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 295

On the other hand, in the Hermetic philosophy that throve in the Middle Ages the coniunctio was performed wholly in the physical realm in the admittedly abstract theory of the coniugium solis et lunae, which despite this drawback gave the creative imagination much occasion for anthropomorphic flights ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 295

Such being the state of affairs, it is readily understandable that the primordial image of the hermaphrodite should reappear in modern psychology in the guise of the male-female antithesis, in other words as male consciousness and personified female unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 296

But the psychological process of bringing things to consciousness has complicated the picture considerably. Whereas the old science was almost exclusively a field in which only the man’s unconscious could project itself, the new psychology had to acknowledge the existence of an autonomous female psyche as well ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 296

Here the case is reversed, and a feminine consciousness confronts a masculine personification of the unconscious, which can no longer be called anima but animus. This discovery also complicates the problem of the coniunctio 2~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 96

Originally this archetype [of the coniunctio] played its part entirely in the field of fertility magic and thus remained for a very long time a purely biological phenomenon with no other purpose than that of fecundation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 297

But even in early antiquity the symbolical meaning of the act seems to have increased. Thus, for example, the physical performance of the hierosgamos as a sacred rite not only became a mystery it faded to a mere conjecture ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 297

Finally, the Church severed the coniunctio from the physical realm altogether, and natural philosophy turned it into an abstract theoria. These developments meant the gradual transformation of the archetype into a psychological process which, in theory, we can call a combination of conscious and unconscious processes ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 297

In practice, however, it is not so simple, because as a rule the feminine unconscious of a man is projected upon a feminine partner, and the masculine unconscious of a woman is projected upon a man. The elucidation of these problems is a special branch of psychology and has no part in a discussion of the mythological hermaphrodite ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 297

The sea is the favourite symbol for the unconscious, the mother of all that lives. Just as the “child” is, in certain circumstances (e.g., in the case of Hermes and the Dactyls), closely related to the phallus, symbol of the begetter, so it comes up again in the sepulchral phallus, symbol of a renewed begetting ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 298

The “child” is therefore renatus in novam infantiam. It is thus both beginning and end, an initial and a terminal creature. The initial creature existed before man was, and the terminal creature will be when man is not ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 299

Psychologically speaking, this means that the “child” symbolizes the pre-conscious and the post-conscious essence of man. His pre-conscious essence is the unconscious state of earliest childhood; his post-conscious essence is an anticipation by analogy of life after death. In this idea the all-embracing nature of psychic wholeness is expressed ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 299

Wholeness, empirically speaking, is therefore of immeasurable extent, older and younger than consciousness and enfolding it in time and space. This is no speculation, but an immediate psychic experience. Not only is the conscious process continually accompanied, it is often guided, helped, or interrupted, by unconscious happenings ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 299

The child had a psychic life before it had consciousness. Even the adult still says and does things whose significance he realizes only later, if ever. And yet he said them and did them as if he knew what they meant ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 299

The “child” is all that is abandoned and exposed and at the same time divinely powerful; the insignificant, dubious beginning, and the triumphal end. The “eternal child” in man is an indescribable experience, an incongruity, a handicap, and a divine prerogative; an imponderable that determines the ultimate worth or worthlessness of a personality ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 300

Here the patient identifies himself with his personal infantilism. Then, under the influence of therapy, we get a more or less gradual separation from and objectification of the “child,” that is, the identity breaks down and is accompanied by an intensification (sometimes technically induced) of fantasy, with the result that archaic or mythological features become increasingly apparent ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 303

At this stage there is usually another identification, this time with the hero, whose role is attractive for a variety of reasons. The identification is often extremely stubborn and dangerous to the psychic equilibrium. If it can be broken down and if consciousness can be reduced to human proportions, the figure of the hero can gradually be differentiated into a symbol of the Self ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 303

The epiphany of the hero (the second identification) shows itself in a corresponding inflation: the colossal pretension grows into a conviction that one is something extraordinary, or else the impossibility of the pretension ever being fulfilled only proves one’s own inferiority, which is favourable to the role of the heroic sufferer (a negative inflation) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 304

In spite of their contradictoriness, both forms of identification are identical, because conscious megalomania is balanced by unconscious compensatory inferiority and conscious inferiority by unconscious megalomania (you never get one without the other) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 304

Once the reef of the second identification has been successfully circumnavigated, conscious processes can be cleanly separated from the unconscious, and the latter [unconscious] observed objectively ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 304

This leads to the possibility of an accommodation with the unconscious, and thus to a possible synthesis of the conscious and unconscious elements of knowledge and action. This in turn leads to a shifting of the centre of personality from the ego to the Self ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 304

In practical reality, however, it is of course not enough for the patient merely to know about such developments what counts is his experience of the various transformations 304

I therefore employ the term “motif” to designate these repetitions. Thus there are not only typical dreams but typical motifs in the dreams. These may, as we have said, be situations or figures ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 309

To the best of my knowledge, no other suggestions have been made so far. Critics have contented themselves with asserting that no such archetypes exist. Certainly they do not exist, any more than a botanical system exists in nature! But will anyone deny the existence of natural plant-families on that account? Or will anyone deny the occurrence and continual repetition of certain morphological and functional similarities? It is much the same thing in principle with the typical figures of the unconscious. They are forms existing a priori, or biological norms of psychic activity ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 309

The above types are far from exhausting all the statistical regularities in this respect. The figure of the Kore that interests us here belongs, when observed in a man, to the anima type; and when observed in a woman to the type of supraordinate personality ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 310

Thus the “supraordinate” personality can appear in a despicable and distorted form, like for instance Mephistopheles, who is really more positive as a personality than the vapid and unthinking careerist Faust. Another negative figure is the Tom Thumb or Tom Dumb of the folktale’s ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 310

To this wholeness the unconscious psyche also belongs, which has its requirements and needs just as consciousness has. I do not want to interpret the unconscious personalistically and assert, for instance, that fantasy-images are the “wish-fulfilments” due to repression. These images were as such never conscious and consequently could never have been repressed ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 314

I usually describe the supraordinate personality as the “Self,” thus making a sharp distinction between the ego, which, as is well known, extends only as far as the conscious mind, and the whole of the personality, which includes the unconscious as well as the conscious component ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 315

The ego is thus related to the Self as part to whole. To that extent the Self is supraordinate. Moreover, the Self is felt empirically not as subject but as object, and this by reason of its unconscious component, which can only come to consciousness indirectly, by way of projection ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 315

The indefinite extent of the unconscious component makes a comprehensive description of the human personality impossible. Accordingly, the unconscious supplements the picture with living figures ranging from the animal to the divine, as the two extremes outside man, and rounds out the animal extreme, through the addition of vegetable and inorganic abstractions, into a microcosm. These addenda have a high frequency in anthropomorphic divinities, where they appear as “attributes” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 315

The game of ball with the child is the motif of some secret rite which always has to do with “child-sacrifice.” (Compare the accusations of ritual murder levelled by the pagans against the Christians and by the Christians against the Jews and Gnostics; also the Phoenician child-sacrifices, rumours about the Black Mass, etc., and the “ball-game in church”) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para

The death of the dancer is also to be understood in this sense, for these maidens are always doomed to die, because their exclusive domination of the feminine psyche hinders the individuation process, that is, the maturation of personality ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 355

The innumerable attempts that have been made in the sphere of mythology to interpret gods and heroes in a solar, lunar, astral, or meteorological sense contribute nothing of importance to the understanding of them; on the contrary, they all put us on a false track ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 356

When, therefore, in dreams and other spontaneous products, we meet with an unknown female figure whose significance oscillates between the extremes of goddess and whore, it is advisable to let her keep her independence and not reduce her arbitrarily to something known ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 356

If the unconscious shows her as an “unknown,” this attribute should not be got rid of by main force with a view to arriving at a “rational” interpretation. Like the “supraordinate personality,” the anima is bipolar and can therefore appear positive one moment and negative the next; now young, now old; now mother, now maiden; now a good fairy, now a witch; now a saint, now a whore ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 356

Whenever she [the anima] emerges with some degree of clarity, she always has a peculiar relationship to time: as a rule she is more or less immortal, because outside time. Writers who have tried their hand at this figure have never failed to stress the anima’s peculiarity in this respect. The anima is outside time as we know it and consequently immensely old or a being who belongs to a different order of things ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 356

Since we can no longer or only partially express the archetypes of the unconscious by means of figures in which we religiously believe, they lapse into unconsciousness again and hence are unconsciously projected upon more or less suitable human personalities ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 357

But because of the anima’s ambivalence, the projection can be entirely negative. Much of the fear which the female sex arouses in men is due to the projection of the anima-image. An infantile man generally has a maternal anima, an adult man, the figure of a younger woman. The senile man finds compensation in a very young girl, or even a child ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 357

The dream brings theriomorphic variations. The anima’s identity is at once apparent to the dreamer because of the voice and what it says. The anima has “accidentally” taken the form of a snake, just as in the dream she changed with the greatest ease into a bird and back again. As a snake, she is playing the negative role, as a bird the positive ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 376

“Valid” in this sense simply means what can be verified by facts. The object of inquiry is the natural phenomenon. Now in psychology, one of the most important phenomena is the statement, and in particular its form and content, the latter aspect [form and content] being perhaps the more significant with regard to the nature of the psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 384

The first task that ordinarily presents itself is the description and arrangement of events, then comes the closer examination into the laws of their living behaviour ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 384

To inquire into the substance of what has been observed is possible in natural science only where there is an Archimedean point outside ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 384

For the psyche, no such outside standpoint exists only the psyche can observe the psyche. Consequently, knowledge of the psychic substance is impossible for us, at least with the means at present available. This does not rule out the possibility that the atomic physics of the future may supply us with the said Archimedean point. For the time being, however, our subtlest lucubrations can establish no more than is expressed in the statement: this is how the psyche behaves ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 384

The honest investigator will piously refrain from meddling with questions of substance. I do not think it superfluous to acquaint my reader with the necessary limitations that psychology voluntarily imposes on itself, for he will then be in a position to appreciate the phenomenological standpoint of modern psychology, which is not always understood ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 384

This standpoint does not exclude the existence of faith, conviction, and experienced certainties of whatever description, nor does it contest their possible validity. Great as is their importance for the individual and for collective life, psychology completely lacks the means to prove their validity in the scientific sense. One may lament this incapacity on the part of science, but that does not enable it to jump over its own shadow ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para

As usual, I first came up against this problem when investigating the dreams of my patients. It struck me that a certain kind of father-complex has a “spiritual” character, so to speak, in the sense that the father-image gives rise to statements, actions, tendencies, impulses, opinions, etc., to which one could hardly deny the attribute “spiritual” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 396

In women, it [the father-complex] induces the liveliest spiritual aspirations and interests ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 396

`In dreams, it is always the father-figure from whom the decisive convictions, prohibitions, and wise counsels emanate. The invisibility of this source is frequently emphasized by the fact that it consists simply of an authoritative voice which passes final judgments. Mostly, therefore, it is the figure of a “wise old man” who symbolizes the spiritual factor ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 396

Sometimes the part is played by a “real” spirit, namely the ghost of one dead, or, more rarely, by grotesque gnome like figures or talking animals. The dwarf forms are found, at least in my experience, mainly in women 396

It can never be established with one-hundred-per-cent certainty whether the spirit-figures in dreams are morally good. Very often they show all the signs of duplicity, if not of outright malice. I must emphasize, however, that the grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia, and what good may very possibly lead to evil ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 397

The archetype of spirit in the shape of a man, hobgoblin, or animal always appears in a situation where insight, understanding, good advice, determination, planning, etc., are needed but cannot be mustered on one’s own resources. The archetype compensates this state of spiritual deficiency by contents designed to fill the gap Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 398

The frequency with which the spirit-type appears as an old man is about the same in fairy tales as in dreams. The old man always appears when the hero is in a hopeless and desperate situation from which only profound reflection or a lucky idea in other words, a spiritual function or an endopsychic automatism of some kind can extricate him Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 401

But since, for internal and external reasons, the hero cannot accomplish this himself, the knowledge needed to compensate the deficiency comes in the form of a personified thought, i.e., in the shape of this sagacious and helpful old man ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 401

An Estonian fairy tale, for instance, tells how an ill-treated little orphan boy who had let a cow escape was afraid to return home again for fear of more punishment. So he ran away, chancing to luck. He naturally got himself into a hopeless situation, with no visible way out. Exhausted, he fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, “it seemed to him that he had something liquid in his mouth, and he saw a little old man with a long grey beard standing before him, who was in the act of replacing the stopper in his little milk-flask. Give me some more to drink,' begged the boy.You have had enough for today,’ replied the old man. If my path had not changed to lead me to you, that would assuredly have been your last sleep, for when I found you, you were half dead.' Then the old man asked the boy who he was and where he wanted to go. The boy recounted everything he could remember happening to him up to the beating he had received the previous evening.My dear child,’ said the old man, `you are no better and no worse off than many others whose dear protectors and comforters rest in their coffins under the earth. You can no longer turn back. Now that you have run away, you must seek a new fortune in the world. As I have neither house nor home, nor wife nor child, I cannot take further care of you, but I will give you some good advice for nothing’” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 401

When the clever old man had brought the boy to this point he could begin his good advice, i.e., the situation no longer looked hopeless. He advised him to continue his wanderings, always to the eastward, where after seven years he would reach the great mountain that betokened his good fortune ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 403

Often the old man in fairytales asks questions like who? why? whence? and whither? for the purpose of inducing self-reflection and mobilizing the moral forces, and more often still he gives the necessary magical talisman, the unexpected and improbable power to succeed, which is one of the peculiarities of the unified personality in good or bad alike ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 404

The tendency of the old man to set one thinking also takes the form of urging people to “sleep on it.” Thus he says to the girl who is searching for her lost brothers: “Lie down: morning is cleverer than evening” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 405

The old man thus represents knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom, cleverness, and intuition on the one hand, and on the other, moral qualities such as goodwill and readiness to help, which make his “spiritual” character sufficiently plain. Since the archetype is an autonomous content of the unconscious, the fairy tale, which usually concretizes the archetypes, can cause the old man to appear in a dream in much the same way as happens in modern dreams ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 406

In certain primitive fairy tales, the illuminating quality of our archetype is expressed by the fact that the [wise] old man is identified with the sun. He brings a firebrand with him which he uses for roasting a pumpkin. After he has eaten, he takes the fire away again, which causes mankind to steal it from him. In a North American Indian tale, the old man is a witch-doctor who owns the fire. Spirit too has a fiery aspect, as we know from the language of the Old Testament and from the story of the Pentecostal miracle ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 409

Just as all archetypes have a positive, favourable, bright side that points upwards, so also they have one that points downwards, partly negative and unfavourable, partly chthonic, but for the rest merely neutral. To this the spirit archetype is no exception ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 413

In these circumstances, whenever the “simple” and “kindly” old man appears, it is advisable for heuristic and other reasons to scrutinize the context with some care ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 414

The [wise] old man, then, has an ambiguous elfin character witness the extremely instructive figure of Merlin seeming, in certain of his forms, to be good incarnate and in others an aspect of evil. Then again, he is the wicked magician who, from sheer egoism, does evil for evil’s sake ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 415

This belongs essentially to the theriomorphism of gods and demons and has the same psychological significance. The animal form shows that the contents and functions in question are still in the extra human sphere, i.e., on a plane beyond human consciousness, and consequently have a share on the one hand in the daemonically superhuman and on the other in the bestially subhuman ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 419

It must be remembered, however, that this division is only true within the sphere of consciousness, where it is a necessary condition of thought ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 419

Logic says tertium non datur, meaning that we cannot envisage the opposites in their oneness. In other words, while the abolition of an obstinate antinomy can be no more than a postulate for us, this is by no means so for the unconscious, whose contents are without exception paradoxical or antinomial by nature, not excluding the category of being Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 419

If anyone unacquainted with the psychology of the unconscious wants to get a working knowledge of these matters, I would recommend a study of Christian mysticism and Indian philosophy, where he will find the clearest elaboration of the antinomies of the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 419

Although the [wise] old man has, up to now, looked and behaved more or less like a human being, his magical powers and his spiritual superiority suggest that, in good and bad alike, he is outside, or above, or below the human level ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 420

There is deep doctrine in the legend of the fall: it is the expression of a dim presentiment that the emancipation of ego-consciousness was a Luciferian deed. Man’s whole history consists from the very beginning in a conflict between his feeling of inferiority and his arrogance. Wisdom seeks the middle path and pays for this audacity by a dubious affinity with daemon and beast, and so is open to moral misinterpretation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 420

Again and again in fairy tales we encounter the motif of helpful animals. These act like humans, speak a human language, and display a sagacity and a knowledge superior to man’s. In these circumstances we can say with some justification that the archetype of the spirit is being expressed through an animal form ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 421

When I first came across Adolf Bandelier’s classic on this subject, The Delight Makers, many years ago, I was struck by the European analogy of the carnival in the medieval Church, with its reversal of the hierarchic order, which is still continued in the carnivals held by student societies today ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 456

Since all mythical figures correspond to inner psychic experiences and originally sprang from them, it is not surprising to find certain phenomena in the field of parapsychology which remind us of the trickster. These are the phenomena connected with poltergeists, and they occur at all times and places in the ambience of pre-adolescent children ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 457

These mythological features extend even to the highest regions of man’s spiritual development. If we consider, for example, the daemonic features exhibited by Yahweh in the Old Testament, we shall find in them not a few reminders of the unpredictable behaviour of the trickster, of his senseless orgies of destruction and his self-imposed sufferings, together with the same gradual development into a saviour and his simultaneous humanization ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 458

It is just this transformation of the meaningless into the meaningful that reveals the trickster’s compensatory relation to the “saint.” In the early Middle Ages, this led to some strange ecclesiastical customs based on memories of the ancient saturnalia ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 458

These medieval customs demonstrate the role of the trickster to perfection, and, when they vanished from the precincts of the Church, they appeared again on the profane level of Italian theatricals, as those comic types who, often adorned with enormous ithyphallic emblems, entertained the far from prudish public with ribaldries in true Rabelaisian style. Callot’s engravings have preserved these classical figures for posterity the Pulcinellas, Cucorognas, Chico Sgarras, and the like ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 464

He is obviously a “psychologem,” an archetypal psychic structure of extreme antiquity. In his clearest manifestations he is a faithful reflection of an absolutely undifferentiated human consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that has hardly left the animal level. That this is how the trickster figure originated can hardly be contested if we look at it from the causal and historical angle ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 465

Considering the crude primitivity of the trickster cycle, it would not be surprising if one saw in this myth simply the reflection of an earlier, rudimentary stage of consciousness, which is what the trickster obviously seems to be ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 467

The only question that would need answering is whether such personified reflections of the trickster exist at all in empirical psychology. As a matter of fact they do, and these experiences of split or double personality actually form the core of the earliest psychopathological investigations ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 468

The peculiar thing about these dissociations is that the split-off personality is not just a random one, but stands in a complementary or compensatory relationship to the ego-personality ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 468

It is a personification of traits of character which are sometimes worse and sometimes better than those the ego-personality possesses. A collective personification like the trickster is the product of an aggregate of individuals and is welcomed by each individual as something known to him, which would not be the case if it were just an individual outgrowth ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 468

Now if the myth were nothing but an historical remnant, one would have to ask why it has not long since vanished into the great rubbish-heap of the past, and why it continues to make its influence felt on the highest levels of civilization, even where, on account of his stupidity and grotesque scurrility, the trickster no longer plays the role of a “delight-maker” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 469

In many cultures his figure seems like an old river-bed in which the water still flows. One can see this best of all from the fact that the trickster motif does not crop up only in its mythical form but appears just as naïvely and authentically in the unsuspecting modern man whenever, in fact, he feels himself at the mercy of annoying “accidents” which thwart his will and his actions with apparently malicious intent ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 469

He then speaks of “hoodoos” and “jinxes” or of the “mischievousness of the object.” Here the trickster is represented by counter-tendencies in the unconscious, and in certain cases by a sort of second personality, of a puerile and inferior character, not unlike the personalities who announce themselves at spiritualistic séances and cause all those ineffably childish phenomena so typical of poltergeists ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 469

I have, I think, found a suitable designation for this character-component when I called it the shadow. On the civilized level, it is regarded as a personal “gaffe,” “slip,” “faux pas,” etc., which are then chalked up as defects of the conscious personality ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 469

We are no longer aware that in carnival customs and the like there are remnants of a collective shadow figure which prove that the personal shadow is in part descended from a numinous collective figure. This collective figure gradually breaks up under the impact of civilization, leaving traces in folklore which are difficult to recognize. But the main part of him gets personalized and is made an object of personal responsibility ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 469

He is both subhuman and superhuman, a bestial and divine being, whose chief and most alarming characteristic is his unconsciousness. Because of it he is deserted by his (evidently human) companions, which seems to indicate that he has fallen below their level of consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 472

He is so unconscious of himself that his body is not a unity, and his two hands fight each other. He takes his anus off and entrusts it with a special task. Even his sex is optional despite its phallic qualities: he can turn himself into a woman and bear children. From his penis he makes all kinds of useful plants. This is a reference to his original nature as a Creator, for the world is made from the body of a god ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 472

On the other hand he [the trickster] is in many respects stupider than the animals and gets into one ridiculous scrape after another. Although he is not really evil, he does the most atrocious things from sheer unconsciousness and unrelatedness. His imprisonment in animal unconsciousness is suggested by the episode where he gets his head caught inside the skull of an elk, and the next episode shows how he overcomes this condition by imprisoning the head of a hawk inside his own rectum ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 473

True, he sinks back into the former condition immediately afterwards, by falling under the ice, and is outwitted time after time by the animals, but in the end he succeeds in tricking the cunning coyote, and this brings back to him his saviour nature ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 473

What the repeated telling of the [trickster] myth signifies is the therapeutic anamnesis of contents which, for reasons still to be discussed, should never be forgotten for long. If they were nothing but the remnants of an inferior state it would be understandable if man turned his attention away from them, feeling that their reappearance was a nuisance. This is evidently by no means the case, since the trickster has been a source of amusement right down to civilized times, where he can still be recognized in the carnival figures of Pulcinella and the clown ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 474

Lastly, the story of the trickster is not in the least disagreeable to the Winnebago consciousness or incompatible with it but, on the contrary, pleasurable and therefore not conducive to repression. It looks, therefore, as if the myth were actively sustained and fostered by consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 474

At any rate the marks of deepest unconsciousness fall away from him; instead of acting in a brutal, savage, stupid, and senseless fashion, the trickster’s behaviour towards the end of the cycle becomes quite useful and sensible. The devaluation of his earlier unconsciousness is apparent even in the myth, and one wonders what has happened to his evil qualities ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 477

The naïve reader may imagine that when the dark aspects disappear they are no longer there in reality. But that is not the case at all, as experience shows. What actually happens is that the conscious mind is then able to free itself from the fascination of evil and is no longer obliged to live it compulsively ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 477

The darkness and the evil have not gone up in smoke, they have merely withdrawn into the unconscious owing to loss of energy, where they remain unconscious so long as all is well with the conscious. But if the conscious should find itself in a critical or doubtful situation, then it soon becomes apparent that the shadow has not dissolved into nothing but is only waiting for a favourable opportunity to reappear as a projection upon one’s neighbour ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 477

If this trick is successful, there is immediately created between them that world of primordial darkness where everything that is characteristic of the trickster can happen even on the highest plane of civilization. The best examples of these “monkey tricks,” as popular speech aptly and truthfully sums up this state of affairs in which everything goes wrong and nothing intelligent happens except by mistake at the last moment, are naturally to be found in politics ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 477

The so-called civilized man has forgotten the trickster. He remembers him only figuratively and metaphorically, when, irritated by his own ineptitude, he speaks of fate playing tricks on him or of things being bewitched. He never suspects that his own hidden and apparently harmless shadow has qualities whose dangerousness exceeds his wildest dreams. As soon as people get together in masses and submerge the individual, the shadow is mobilized, and, as history shows, may even be personified and incarnated ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 478

From this point of view we can see why the myth of the trickster was preserved and developed: like many other myths, it was supposed to have a therapeutic effect. It holds the earlier low intellectual and moral level before the eyes of the more highly developed individual, so that he shall not forget how things looked yesterday. We like to imagine that something which we do not understand does not help us in any way. But that is not always so. Seldom does a man understand with his head alone, least of all when he is a primitive. Because of its numinosity the myth has a direct effect on the unconscious, no matter whether it is understood or not. The fact that its repeated telling has not long since become obsolete can, I believe, be explained by its usefulness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 480

Since this shadow frequently appears in the phenomenology of dreams as a well-defined figure, we can answer this question positively: the shadow, although by definition a negative figure, sometimes has certain clearly discernible traits and associations which point to a quite different background. It is as though he were hiding meaningful contents under an unprepossessing exterior ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 485

By the metaphor “standing behind the shadow” I am attempting to illustrate the fact that, to the degree in which the shadow is recognized and integrated, the problem of the anima, i.e., of relationship, is constellated. It is understandable that the encounter with the shadow should have an enduring effect on the relations of the ego to the inside and outside world, since the integration of the shadow brings about an alteration of personality ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 485

She had read all the more recent literature in this field. In 1928, at the age of fifty-five, she came to Europe in order to continue her studies under my guidance. As the daughter of an exceptional father she had varied interests, was extremely cultured, and possessed a lively turn of mind ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 525

She was unmarried, but lived with the unconscious equivalent of a human partner, namely the animus (the personification of everything masculine in a woman), in that characteristic liaison so often met with in women with an academic education 525

As frequently happens, this development of hers was based on a positive father complex: she was “fille à papa” and consequently did not have a good relation to her mother ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 525

Her animus was not of the kind to give her cranky ideas. She was protected from this by her natural intelligence and by a remarkable readiness to tolerate the opinions of other people. This good quality, by no means to be expected in the presence of an animus, had, in conjunction with some difficult experiences that could not be avoided, enabled her to realize that she had reached a limit and “got stuck,” and this made it urgently necessary for her to look round for ways that might lead her out of the impasse ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 525

Before coming to Zurich she had gone back to Denmark, her mother’s country. There the thing that affected her most was the landscape, and unexpectedly there came over her the desire to paint above all, landscape motifs. Till then she had noticed no such aesthetic inclinations in herself, also she lacked the ability to paint or draw. She tried her hand at watercolors, and her modest landscapes filled her with a strange feeling of contentment. Painting them, she told me, seemed to fill her with new life ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 525

Arriving in Zurich, she continued her painting efforts, and on the day before she came to me for the first time she began another landscape this time from memory. While she was working on it, a fantasy-image suddenly thrust itself between her and the picture: she saw herself with the lower half of her body in the earth, stuck fast in a block of rock. The region round about was a beach strewn with boulders ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 525

In the background was the sea. She felt caught and helpless. Then she suddenly saw me in the guise of a medieval sorcerer. She shouted for help, I came along and touched the rock with a magic wand. The stone instantly burst open, and she stepped out uninjured. She then painted this fantasy-image instead of the landscape and brought it to me on the following day ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 525

As usually happens with beginners and people with no skill of hand, the drawing of the picture cost her considerable difficulties. In such cases it is very easy for the unconscious to slip its subliminal images into the painting. Thus it came about that the big boulders would not appear on the paper in their real form but took on unexpected shapes. They looked, some of them, like hard boiled eggs cut in two, with the yolk in the middle. Others were like pointed pyramids. It was in one of these that Miss X was stuck. Her hair, blown out behind her, and the movement of the sea suggested a strong wind ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 526

The picture shows first of all her imprisoned state, but not yet the act of liberation. So it was there that she was attached to the earth, in the land of her mother. Psychologically this state means being caught in the unconscious. Her inadequate relation to her mother had left behind something dark and in need of development. Since she succumbed to the magic of her motherland and tried to express this by painting, it is obvious that she is still stuck with half her body in Mother Earth: that is, she is still partly identical with the mother and, what is more, through that part of the body which contains just that secret of the mother which she had never inquired into ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 527

Since Miss X had discovered all by herself the method of active imagination I have long been accustomed to use, I was able to approach the problem at just the point indicated by the picture: she is caught in the unconscious and expects magical help from me, as from a sorcerer. And since her psychological knowledge had made her completely au fait with certain possible interpretations, there was no need of even an understanding wink to bring to light the apparent sous-entendu of the liberating magician’s wand ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 528

The sexual symbolism, which for many naïve minds is of such capital importance, was no discovery for her. She was far enough advanced to know that explanations of this kind, however true they might be in other respects, had no significance in her case. She did not want to know how liberation might be possible in a general way, but how and in what way it could come about for her ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 528

About this I knew as little as she. I know that such solutions can only come about in an individual way that cannot be foreseen. One cannot think up ways and means artificially, let alone know them in advance, for such knowledge is merely collective, based on average experience, and can therefore be completely inadequate, indeed absolutely wrong, in individual cases. And when, on top of that, we consider the patient’s age, we would do well to abandon from the start any attempt to apply ready-made solutions and warmed-up generalities of which the patient knows just as much as the doctor ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 528

Long experience has taught me not to know anything in advance and not to know better, but to let the unconscious take precedence. Our instincts have ridden so infinitely many times, unharmed, over the problems that arise at this stage of life that we may be sure the transformation processes which make the transition possible have long been prepared in the unconscious and are only waiting to be released ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 528

From this hint, therefore, I could already see what solution the unconscious had in mind, namely individuation, for this is the transformation process that loosens the attachment to the unconscious. It is a definitive solution, for which all other ways serve as auxiliaries and temporary makeshifts ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 530

This knowledge, which for the time being I kept to myself, bade me act with caution. I therefore advised Miss X not to let it go at a mere fantasy-image of the act of liberation, but to try to make a picture of it. How this would turn out I could not guess, and that was a good thing, because otherwise I might have put Miss X on the wrong track from sheer helpfulness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 530

She found this task terribly difficult owing to her artistic inhibitions. So I counselled her to content herself with what was possible and to use her fantasy for the purpose of circumventing technical difficulties. The object of this advice was to introduce as much fantasy as possible into the picture, for in that way the unconscious has the best chance of revealing its contents ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 530

Again there are boulders, the round and pointed forms; but the round ones are no longer eggs, they are complete circles, and the pointed ones are tipped with golden light. One of the round forms has been blasted out of its place by a golden flash of lightning. The magician and magic wand are no longer there. The personal relationship to me seems to have ceased: the picture shows an impersonal natural process ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 531

With this transformation she [Miss X] had rediscovered the historical synonym of the philosophical egg, namely the rotundum, the round, original form of the Anthropos (or `round element,’ as Zosimos calls it). This is an idea that has been associated with the Anthropos since ancient times. The soul, too, according to tradition, has a round form ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 532

The liberating flash of lightning is a symbol also used by Paracelsus and the alchemists for the same thing. Moses’ rock-splitting staff, which struck forth the living water and afterwards changed into a serpent, may have been an unconscious echo in the background. Lightning signifies a sudden, unexpected, and overpowering change of psychic condition ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 533

In our picture the lightning, striking into the darkness and “hardness,” has blasted a rotundum out of the dark massa confusa and kindled a light in it. There can be no doubt that the dark stone means the blackness, i.e., the unconscious, just as the sea and sky and the upper half of the woman’s figure indicate the sphere of consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 538

The lightning has released the spherical form from the rock and so caused a kind of liberation. But, just as the magician has been replaced by the lightning, so the patient has been replaced by the sphere. The unconscious has thus presented her with ideas which show that she had gone on thinking without the aid of consciousness and that this radically altered the initial situation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 538

It was again her inability to draw that led to this result. Before finding this solution, she had made two attempts to portray the act of liberation with human figures, but with no success. She had overlooked the fact that the initial situation, her imprisonment in the rock, was already irrational and symbolic and therefore could not be solved in a rational way. It had to be done by an equally irrational process. That was why I advised her, should she fail in her attempt to draw human figures, to use some kind of hieroglyph ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 538

It then suddenly struck her that the sphere was a suitable symbol for the individual human being. That it was a chance idea (Einfall) is proved by the fact that it was not her conscious mind that thought up this typification, but the unconscious, for an Einfall “falls in” quite of its own accord ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 538

It should be noted that she represents only herself as a sphere, not me. I am represented only by the lightning, purely functionally, so that for her I am simply the “precipitating” cause ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 538

Luckily, however, while painting it Miss X had discovered that two factors were involved. These, in her own words, were reason and the eyes. Reason always wanted to make the picture as it thought it ought to be but the eyes held fast to their vision and finally forced the picture to come out as it actually did and not in accordance with rationalistic expectations ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 539

Her reason, she said, had really intended a daylight scene, with the sunshine melting the sphere free, but the eyes favoured a nocturne with “shattering, dangerous lightning.” This realization helped her to acknowledge the actual result of her artistic efforts and to admit that it was in fact an objective and impersonal process and not a personal relationship ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 539

The patient’s association to lightning was that it might stand for intuition, a conjecture that is not far off the mark, since intuitions often come “like a flash.” Moreover, there are good grounds for thinking that Miss X was a sensation type. She herself thought she was one. The “inferior” function would then be intuition. As such, it would have the significance of a releasing or “redeeming” function. We know from experience that the inferior function always compensates, complements, and balances the “superior” function ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 541

My psychic peculiarity would make me a suitable projection carrier in this respect. The inferior function is the one of which least conscious use is made. This is the reason for its undifferentiated quality, but also for its freshness and vitality. It is not at the disposal of the conscious mind, and even after long use it never loses its autonomy and spontaneity, or only to a very limited degree. Its role is therefore mostly that of a deus ex machina. It depends not on the ego but on the Self ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 541

Hence it hits consciousness unexpectedly, like lightning, and occasionally with devastating consequences. It thrusts the ego aside and makes room for a supraordinate factor, the totality of a person, which consists of conscious and unconscious and consequently extends far beyond the ego. This Self was always present, but sleeping, like Nietzsche’s “image in the stone” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 541

It is, in fact, the secret of the Stone, of the lapis philosophorum, in so far as this is the prima materia. In the Stone sleeps the spirit Mercurius, the “circle of the moon,” the “round and square,” the homunculus, Tom Thumb and Anthropos at once, whom the alchemists also symbolized as their famed lapis philosophorum ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 541

For the alchemists the process of individuation represented by the opus was an analogy of the creation of the world, and the opus itself an analogy of God’s work of creation. Man was seen as a microcosm, a complete equivalent of the world in miniature. In our picture, we see what it is in man that corresponds to the cosmos, and what kind of evolutionary process is compared with the creation of the world and the heavenly bodies: it is the birth of the Self, the latter appearing as a microcosm ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 550

A circumstance that never ceases to astonish one is this: that at all times and in all places alchemy brought its conception of the lapis or its minera (raw material) together with the idea of the homo altus or maximus, that is, with the Anthropos. Equally, one must stand amazed at the fact that here too the conception of the dark round stone blasted out of the rock should represent such an abstract idea as the psychic totality of man ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 555

One can only conclude that the unconscious tends to regard spirit and matter not merely as equivalent but as actually identical, and this in flagrant contrast to the intellectual one-sidedness of consciousness, which would sometimes like to spiritualize matter and at other times to materialize spirit ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 555

Nor should we forget that the god of revelation has from of old the form of a snake e.g., the Agathodaimon. Edem too, as a snake-maiden, has a dual nature, “two-minded, two-bodied”, and in medieval alchemy her figure became the symbol of the androgynous Mercurius ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 560

Our series of pictures illustrates the initial stages of the way of individuation. It would be desirable to know what happens afterwards. But, just as neither the philosophical gold nor the philosophers’ Stone was ever made in reality, so nobody has ever been able to tell the story of the whole way, at least not to mortal ears, for it is not the story-teller but death who speaks the final “consummatum est” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 617

Certainly there are many things worth knowing in the later stages of the process, but, from the point of view of teaching as well as of therapy, it is important not to skip too quickly over the initial stages ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 617

As these pictures are intuitive anticipations of future developments, it is worthwhile lingering over them for a long time, in order, with their help, to integrate so many contents of the unconscious into consciousness that the latter [consciousness] really does reach the stage it sees ahead ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 617

This paper is a groping attempt to make the inner processes of the mandala more intelligible. They are, as it were, self-delineations of dimly sensed changes going on in the background, which are perceived by the “reversed eye” and rendered visible with pencil and brush, just as they are, uncomprehended and unknown ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 622

The pictures represent a kind of ideogram of unconscious contents. I have naturally used this method on myself too and can affirm that one can paint very complicated pictures without having the least idea of their real meaning. While painting them, the picture seems to develop out of itself and often in opposition to one’s conscious intentions ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 622

It is interesting to observe how the execution of the picture frequently thwarts one’s expectations in the most surprising way. The same thing can be observed, sometimes even more clearly, when writing down the products of active imagination ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 622

I think I am not mistaken in regarding it as probable that, in general, a leftward movement [counter-clockwise] indicates movement towards the unconscious, while a rightward movement (clockwise) goes towards consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 564

In Taoist philosophy, movement to the right means a “falling” life-process, as the spirit is then under the influence of the feminine p’o-soul, which embodies the yin principle and is by nature passionate. Its designation as the anima is psychologically correct, although this touches only one aspect of it. The p’o-soul entangles hun, the spirit, in the world-process and in reproduction ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 564

The eye is the prototype of the mandala, as is evident from Böhme, who calls his mandala “The Philosophique Globe, or Eye of ye Wonders of Eternity, or Looking-Glass of Wisdom” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 592

The eye may well stand for consciousness (which is in fact an organ of perception), looking into its own background. It sees its own light there, and when this is clear and pure the whole body is filled with light. Under certain conditions consciousness has a purifying effect. This is probably what is meant by Matthew 6: 22ff., an idea expressed even more clearly in Luke 11: 33ff. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 593

Astrologically, Cancer is the house of the moon. Because of its backwards and sideways movement, it plays the role of an unlucky animal in superstition and colloquial speech (“crabbed,” “catch a crab,” etc.). Since ancient times cancer has been the name for a malignant tumour of the glands. Cancer is the zodiacal sign in which the sun begins to retreat, when the days grow shorter Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 604

“Once in a dream I saw an animal that had lots of horns. It spiked up other little animals with them. It wriggled like a snake and that was how it lived. Then a blue fog came out of all the four corners, and it stopped eating. Then God came, but there were really four Gods in the four corners. Then the animal died, and all the animals it had eaten came out alive again” ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 623

This dream describes an unconscious individuation process: all the animals are eaten by one animal. Then comes the enantiodromia: the dragon changes into pneuma, which stands for a divine quaternity. Thereupon follows the apocatastasis, a resurrection of the dead ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 623

This exceedingly “unchildish” fantasy can hardly be termed anything but archetypal. Miss X, in Picture 12, also put a whole collection of animals into her mandala two snakes, two tortoises, two fishes, two lions, two pigs, a goat and a ram. Integration gathers many into one ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 624

Seek these sacrifices within thyself, and thou wilt find them within thine own soul. Understand that thou hast within thyself flocks of cattle flocks of sheep and flocks of goats Understand that the birds of the sky are also within thee. Marvel not if we say that these are within thee, but understand that thou thyself art even another little world, and hast within thee the sun and the moon, and also the stars (In Leviticum Homiliae, V, 2; Migne, P.G., vol. 12, col. 449) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 624

I have also seen to my satisfaction that mandalas are dreamt and drawn by patients who were being treated by psychotherapists whom I had not trained. In view of the importance and significance of the mandala symbol, special precautions seemed to be necessary, seeing that this motif is one of the best examples of the universal operation of an

In the great temple of Madura, in southern India, I saw how a picture of this kind was made. It was drawn by a woman on the floor of the mandapam (porch), in coloured chalks, and measured about ten feet across. A pandit who accompanied me said in reply to my questions that he could give me no information about it. Only the women who drew such pictures knew what they meant. The woman herself was non-committal; she evidently did not want to be disturbed in her work ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 629

The relation between the incomplete and the complete state therefore corresponds to the “sesquitertian proportion” of 3: 4. This relation is known in Western alchemical tradition as the axiom of Maria. It also plays a not inconsiderable role in dream symbolism ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 644

Unlike the mandalas so far discussed, these are not based on any tradition or model, seeming to be free creations of fantasy, but determined by certain archetypal ideas unknown to their creators. For this reason the fundamental motifs are repeated so often that marked similarities occur in drawings done by the most diverse patients ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 645

The pictures come as a rule from educated persons who were unacquainted with the ethnic parallels. The pictures differ widely, according to the stage of the therapeutic process; but certain important stages correspond to definite motifs ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 645

Without going into therapeutic details, I would only like to say that a rearranging of the personality is involved, a kind of new centring. That is why mandalas mostly appear in connection with chaotic psychic states of disorientation or panic. They then have the purpose of reducing the confusion to order, though this is never the conscious intention of the patient. At all events they express order, balance, and wholeness. Patients themselves often emphasize the beneficial or soothing effect of such pictures ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 645

Their pictures work not because they spring from the patients’ own fantasy but because they are impressed by the fact that their subjective imagination produces motifs and symbols of the most unexpected kind that conform to law and express an idea or situation which their conscious mind can grasp only with difficulty. Confronted with these pictures, many patients suddenly realize for the first time the reality of the collective unconscious as an autonomous entity ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 645

An example of a mandala was painted by a middle-aged woman of schizoid disposition. She had several times drawn mandalas spontaneously, because they always had an ordering effect on her chaotic psychic states. The picture shows a rose, the Western equivalent of the lotus. In India the lotus-flower (padma) is interpreted by the Tantrists as the womb. We know this symbol from the numerous pictures of the Buddha (and other Indian deities) in the lotus-flower. It corresponds to the “Golden Flower” of Chinese alchemy, the rose of the Rosicrucians, and the mystic rose in Dante’s Paradiso. Rose and lotus are usually arranged in groups of four petals, indicating the squaring of the circle or the united opposites ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 652

The interior of the mandala is empty. Or rather, it contains a “Nothing” that is expressed by a quaternity. This is in accord with the overwhelming majority of individual mandalas: as a rule the centre contains the motif of the rotundum, known to us from alchemy, or the four-fold emanation or the squaring of the circle, or more rarely the figure of the patient in a universal human sense, representing the Anthropos ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 660

We find this motif, too, in alchemy. The four animals remind us of the cherubim in Ezekiel’s vision, and also of the four symbols of the evangelists and the four sons of Horus, which are sometimes depicted in the same way, three with animal heads and one with a human head. Animals generally signify the instinctive forces of the unconscious, which are brought into unity within the mandala. This integration of the instincts is a prerequisite for individuation ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 660

A painting by an older patient. Here the flower is seen not in the basic pattern of the mandala, but in elevation. The circular form [of the mandala] has been preserved inside the square, so that despite its different execution this picture can still be regarded as a mandala. The plant stands for growth and development, like the green shoot in the diaphragm chakra of the kundalini yoga system. The shoot symbolizes Shiva and represents the centre and the male, whereas the calyx represents the female, the place of germination and birth ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 661

Thus the Buddha sitting in the lotus is shown as the germinating god. It is the god in his rising, the same symbol as Ra the falcon, or the phoenix rising from the nest, or Mithras in the tree-top, or the Horus-child in the lotus. They are all symbolizations of the status nascendi in the seeding-place of the matrix ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 661

In medieval hymns Mary [Virgin] too is praised as the cup of the flower in which Christ, coming down as a bird, makes his nest. Psychologically Christ means unity, which clothes itself in the corpus mysticum of the Church or in the body of the Mother of God (“mystic rose”), surrounded as with flower-petals, and thus reveals itself in reality. Christ as an image is a symbol of the Self. Just as the plant stands for growth, so the flower depicts the unfolding from a centre ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 661

As a rule the snake personifies the unconscious, whereas the fish usually represents one of its contents. These subtle distinctions must be borne in mind when interpreting a mandala, because the two symbols very probably correspond to two different stages of development, the snake representing a more primitive and more instinctual state than the fish, which in history as well was endowed with higher authority than the snake (cf. the Ichthys-symbol) ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 672

The golden ball corresponds to the golden germ (Hiranyagarbha). It is rotating, and the Kundalini [serpent] winding round it has doubled. This indicates conscious realization, since a content rising out of the unconscious splits at a certain moment into two halves, a conscious and an unconscious one. The doubling is not made by the conscious mind but appears spontaneously in the products of the unconscious. The rightwards rotation, expressed by the wings (swastika-motif), likewise indicates conscious realization. The stars show that the centre has a cosmic structure. It has four rays, and thus behaves like a heavenly body ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 674

This picture [as mandala] was done by a seven-year-old boy, offspring of a problem marriage. He had done a whole series of these drawings of circles and hung them up round his bed. He called them his “loves” and would not go to sleep without them. This shows that the “magical” pictures still functioned for him in their original sense, as a protective magic circle ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 687

This painting (fig. ^) is especially interesting because it shows us very clearly in what relationship the picture stands to the painter. The patient has a shadow problem. The female figure in the picture represents her dark, chthonic side. She is standing in front of a wheel with four spokes, the two together forming an eight-rayed mandala. From her head spring four snakes, expressing the tetradic nature of consciousness, but in accordance with the demonic character of the picture they do this in an evil and nefarious way, since they represent evil and destructive thoughts. The entire figure is wrapped in flames, emitting a dazzling light. She is like a fiery demon, a salamander, the medieval conception of a fire spirit ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 705

Fire expresses an intense transformation process. Hence the prima materia in alchemy was symbolized by the salamander in the fire, as the next picture shows (fig. ^). The spear- or arrow-head expresses “direction”: it is pointing upwards from the middle of the head. Everything that the fire consumes rises up to the seat of the gods. The dragon glowing in the fire becomes volatilized; illumination comes through the fiery torment ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 705

Figure 49 tells us something about the background of the transformation process. It depicts a state of suffering, reminiscent on the one hand of crucifixion and on the other of Ixion bound to the wheel. From this it is evident that individuation, or becoming whole, is neither a summum bonum nor a summum desideratum, but the painful experience of the union of opposites. That is the real meaning of the cross in the circle, and that is why the cross has an apotropaic effect, because, pointed at evil, it shows evil that it is already included and has therefore lost its destructive power ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 705