[Carl Jung on “Thoughts” – Anthology]
Thoughts are real, they are the consciousness. People can’t see that. Einstein could not. ~Carl Jung, J.E.T., Pages 90-95
For the understanding of the unconscious we must see our thoughts as events, as phenomena. We must have perfect objectivity. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 103
In the process of directed thinking, thoughts are handled as tools, they are made to serve the purposes of the thinker; while in passive thinking thoughts are like individuals going about on their own as it were. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 28
He [Elijah] said I treated thoughts as if I generated them myself, but, according to his views, thoughts were like animals in a forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 103
We do not think thus, and so we no longer take our thoughts as nature; the very way thought processes work in us keeps us from the notion that nature has spoken to us when we have thought. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 83
We are not convinced that our thoughts are original beings that walk about in our brains, and we invent the idea that they are powerless without our gracious creative act; we invent this in order not to be too much influenced by our thoughts. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 82
Of course it is quite useful to us to have the idea that our thoughts are free expressions of our intentional thinking, otherwise we would never be free from the magic circle of nature. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 82
Today we have lost to a great extent this sense of the immanence of thought, as one might put it, and have instead the illusion of making our thoughts ourselves. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 82
As you know, I have reopened the discussion about alchemical philosophy, i.e., I have at least shown a way which allows a new interpretation of its essential thoughts. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 534-536
In the turmoil of Kusnacht I can seldom or never turn my thoughts upon myself, much less express them in writing. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 530
At my age, unfortunately, everything goes rather slowly, and I always have to wait for a favourable moment amid the flux of my intensive work in order to collect the thoughts that come to me after my reading. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 411-413
While I am writing this I observe a little demon trying to abscond my words and even my thoughts and turning them over into the rapidly flowing river of images, surging from the mists of the past, portraits of a little boy, bewildered and wondering at an incomprehensibly beautiful and hideously profane and deceitful world. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 408
This aspect is certainly most important from the psychological angle, but I must say that I am equally interested, at times even more so, in the metaphysical aspect of the phenomena, and in the question: how does it come that even inanimate objects are capable of behaving as if they were acquainted with my thoughts? ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 343-344
Whole numbers may well be the discovery of God’s “primal thoughts,” as for instance the significant number four, which has distinctive qualities. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 301-302
After all, man cannot dissect God’s primal thoughts. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 301-302
I find that all my thoughts circle round God like the planets round the sun, and are as irresistibly attracted by him. I would feel it the most heinous sin were I to offer any resistance to this compelling force. I feel it is God’s will that I should exercise the gift of thinking that has been vouchsafed me. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 235-238.
My thoughts about “this world” were not-and are not-enjoyable. The drive of the unconscious towards mass murder on a global scale is not exactly a cheering prospect. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 229-230
To give body to one’s thoughts means that one can speak them, paint them, show them, make them appear clearly before the eyes of everybody.… ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Pages 193-194.
Then thoughts come to me, as for instance that consciousness is only an organ for perceiving the fourth dimension, i .e., the all-pervasive meaning, and itself produces no real ideas. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 17-18.
I confess I am afraid of a long drawn-out suffering. It seems to me as if I am ready to die, although as it looks to me some powerful thoughts are still flickering like lightnings in a summer night. Yet they are not mine, they belong to God, as everything else which bears mentioning. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 449-450.
Just as conscious contents can vanish into the unconscious, other contents can also arise from it. Besides a majority of mere recollections, really new thoughts and creative ideas can appear which have never been conscious before. They grow up from the dark depths like a lotus. ~Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols, Page 37.
Then there are philosophical dreams which think for us and in which we get the thoughts that we should have had during the day. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture XI 5July1934, Page 135.
It is fairly easy to imagine being able to think consciously, to have one’s thoughts under control, but when it comes to feeling it is much more difficult to do so, especially for a man. ~Carl Jung, Lecture IV, 18May1934, Page 102.
As the Yogin is a man his conscious is masculine, so the male Devatas represent his conscious thoughts , religious, philosophical and personal. He has already been freed from his masculine conscious, but to be really freed he must also externalize his feminine unconscious. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture XI, 3Feb1939, Page 72.
The lapis philosophorum of the alchemists is the same thing as the Vajra, it is the thing which is produced in the laboratory of a man’s life and which is far more durable than he is. These thoughts run parallel both in the East and West. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 9Dec38, Page 43.
This whole effort is not an undertaking for the many, it does not contain social thoughts, it is essentially an individual matter, and, whether it is practised by one, ten or even a thousand people, each works alone. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture V, Page 165.
If Neumann recommends the “inner voice” as the criterion of ethical behaviour instead of the Christian conscience, this is in complete agreement with the Eastern view that in everybody’s heart there dwells a judge who knows all his evil thoughts. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 518-522.
Fear is aggressivity in reverse. Consequently, the thing we are afraid of involves a task. If you are afraid of your own thoughts, then your thoughts are the task. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 509.
It seems to me as if I am ready to die, although as it looks to me some powerful thoughts are still flickering like lightnings in a summer night. Yet they are not mine, they belong to God, as everything else which bears mentioning. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 449-450.
In Bollingen, silence surrounds me almost audibly, and I live “in modest harmony with nature.” Thoughts rise to the surface which reach back into the centuries, and accordingly anticipate a remote future. Here the torment of creation is lessened; creativity and play are close together. ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections, Page 226.
One of the aims of some kinds of Yoga is to understand the voice of all animals, but we are not convinced in the West that horses and dogs have such important thoughts. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Vol. 2, Page 17.
I find that all my thoughts circle around God like the planets around the sun, and are as irresistibly attracted by Him. I would feel it to be the grossest sin if I were to oppose any resistance to this force. ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections, Page xi.
Before my illness I had often asked myself if I were permitted to publish or even speak of my secret knowledge. I later set it all down in Aion. I realized it was my duty to communicate these thoughts, yet I doubted whether I was allowed to give expression to them. During my illness I received confirmation and I now knew that everything had meaning and that everything was perfect. ~Carl Jung, Jung–White Letters, Page 103.
Yesterday I had a marvellous dream: One bluish diamond-like star high in heaven, reflected in a round, quiet pool—heaven above, heaven below—. The imago Dei in the darkness of the Earth, this is myself. . . . It seems to me as if I were ready to die, although—as it looks to me—some powerful thoughts are still flickering like lightnings in a summer night. Yet they are not mine, they belong to God, as everything else which bears mentioning. Carl Jung, The Jung–White Letters, Page 60.
I have also realized that one must accept the thoughts that go on within oneself of their own accord as part of one’s reality. The categories of true and false are, of course, always present; but because they are not binding they take second place. The presence of thoughts is more important than our subjective judgment of them. But neither must these judgments be suppressed, for they also are existent thoughts which are part of our wholeness. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections; Page 298.
Just as conscious contents can vanish into the unconscious, other contents can also arise from it. Besides a majority of mere recollections, really new thoughts and creative ideas can appear which have never been conscious before. They grow up from the dark depths like a lotus. ~”Approaching the Unconscious” In Man and His Symbols (1964), In CW 18: P.37
When something slips out of our consciousness it does not cease to exist…It is simply out of sight. Thus part of the unconscious consists of multitudes of temporarily obscured thoughts, impressions and images that, in spite of being lost, continue to influence our conscious minds. ~Carl Jung; Man and His Symbols, Page 18.
Eros…might well be the first condition of all cognition and the quintessence of divinity itself. ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections; Late Thoughts; Page 353.
Because a child is . . . small and its conscious thoughts scarce and simple, we do not realize the far-reaching complications of the infantile mind that are based on its original identity with the prehistoric psyche. That original mind is just as much present and still functioning in the child as the evolutionary stages of mankind are in its embryonic body. ~Carl Jung; Man and His symbols; Page 89.
Analysts and mathematicians both consider themselves infallible; they live with invisible magic cloaks around them. They are both concerned with archetypes . Archetypes are living powers; they are the “thoughts of God.” ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 59.
By “Thy Will” one person may mean only what his unconscious dictates, while another may disregard all his thoughts and aspirations and fatalistically accept all that happens in his outer life. To some people we must say, “You must choose your own way; you must act.” Others have to learn to refrain from acting. Few take both into account, which is why Deus et home is so important.” ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 39.
Before my illness I had often asked myself if I were permitted to publish or even speak of my secret knowledge. I later set it all down in Aion. I realized it was my duty to communicate these thoughts, yet I doubted whether I was allowed to give expression to them. During my illness I received confirmation and I now knew that everything had meaning and that everything was perfect. . ~ Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 68.
Goethe’s Faust aptly says: “in the beginning was the deed”.” “Deeds” were never invented, they were done; thoughts, on the other hand, are a relatively late discovery of man. First he was moved to deeds by unconscious factors; it was only a long time afterward that he began to reflect upon the causes that had moved him; and it took it him a very long time indeed to arrive at the preposterous idea that he must have moved himself . . . his mind being unable to identify any other motivating force than his own. ~Carl Jung; Man and His Symbols; Page 70.
The angels are a strange genus: they are precisely what they are and cannot be anything else. They are in themselves soulless beings who represent nothing but the thoughts and intuitions of their Lord. ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections, Pages 327-328.
Fear is aggressivity in reverse. Consequently, the thing we are afraid of involves a task. If you are afraid of your own thoughts, then your thoughts are the task. ~Carl Jung; Letters Volume 1; Page 507.
On account of my thoughts, I had left myself; therefore my self became hungry and made God into a selfish thought. If I leave myself my hunger will drive me to find my self in my object, that is, in my thought. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 250.
My thoughts are not my self but exactly like the things of the world, alive and dead. Just as I am not damaged through living in a partly chaotic world, so too I am not damaged if I live in my partly chaotic thought world. Thoughts are natural events that you do not possess, and whose meaning you only imperfectly recognize. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 250.
Thoughts grow in me like a forest, populated by many different animals. But man is domineering in his thinking, and therefore he kills the pleasure of the forest and that of the wild animals. Man is violent in his desire, and he himself becomes a forest and a forest animal. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 250.
Only then I learned psychological objectivity. Only then could I say to a patient, ‘Be quiet, something is happening.’ There are such things as mice in a house. You cannot say you are wrong when you have a thought. For the understanding of the unconscious we must see our thoughts as events, as phenomena. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 249, Footnote 188.
But the spirit of the depths had gained this power, because I had spoken to my soul during 25 nights in the desert and I had given her all my love and submission. But during the 25 days, I gave all my love and submission to things, to men, and to the thoughts of this time. I went into the desert only at night. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 238.
The soul has its own peculiar world. Only the self enters in there, or the man who has completely become his self, he who is neither in events, nor in men, nor in his thoughts. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, 240.
My soul: “Who gives you thoughts and words? Do you make them? Are you not my serf a recipient who lies at my door and picks up my alms? And you dare think that what you devise and speak could be nonsense? Don’t you know yet that it comes from me and belongs to me?” ~Carl Jung, Red Book, Page 241.
The spirit of this time of course allowed me to believe in my reason. He let me see myself in the image of a leader with ripe thoughts. But the spirit of the depths teaches me that I am a servant, in fact the servant of a child: This dictum was repugnant to me and I hated it. But I had to recognize and accept that my soul is a child and that my God in my soul is a child. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 234.
Did you not see that when your creative force turned to the world, how the dead things moved under it and through it, how they grew and prospered, and how your thoughts flowed in rich rivers? If your creative force now turns to the place of the soul, you will see how your soul becomes green and how its field bears wonderful fruit. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 236.
Did you not see that when your creative force turned to the world, how the dead things moved under it and through it, how they grew and prospered, and how your thoughts flowed in rich rivers? If your creative force now turns to the place of the soul, you will see how your soul becomes green and how its field bears wonderful fruit. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 236.
