The thinker’s passions are bad

The thinker’s passions are bad

A thinker should fear Salome, since she wants his head, especially if he is a holy man. A thinker cannot be a holy person, otherwise he loses his head. It does not help to hide oneself in thought. There the solidification overtakes you. You must turn back to motherly forethought to obtain renewal. But forethought leads to Salome.

Because I was a thinker and caught sight of the hostile principle of pleasure from forethinking, it appeared to me as Salome. If I had been one who felt, and had groped my way toward forethinking, then it would have appeared to me as a serpent-encoiled daimon, if I had actually seen it. But I would have been blind. Therefore I would have felt only slippery, dead, dangerous, allegedly overcome, insipid, and mawkish things, and I would have pulled back with the same shudder I felt in turning from Salome.

The thinker’s passions are bad, therefore he has no pleasure. The thoughts of one who feels are bad, therefore he has no thoughts. He who prefers to think than to feel, leaves his feeling to rot ,in darkness. It does not grow ripe, but in moldiness produces sick tendrils that do not reach the light. He who prefers to feel than to think leaves his thinking in darkness, where it spins its nets in gloomy places, desolate webs in which mosquitoes and gnats become enmeshed.

The thinker feels the disgust of feeling, since :the feeling in him is mainly disgusting. The one who feels thinks the disgust of thinking, since the thinking in him is mainly disgusting. So the serpent lies between the thinker and the one who feels. They are each other’s poison and healing. ~Carl Jung; Red Book