The animus is in this respect rather difficult to deal with because it is a plurality.
The animus is in this respect rather difficult to deal with because it is a plurality.
One can compare the animus, as I have said, to a group of people, a court, or a limited company, or an organization; while the anima is very definitely one person and therefore more clearly to be
seen.
The anima behaves exactly like a definite person, yet she is also a function, her true function being the connection between the conscious and the unconscious; there the anima is in her right place.
That is, she is not in between myself and my audience, but in between myself and my unconscious audience, a mirror reflex of this world, the collective unconscious.
There again, those people who think of the unconscious as being a psychological tissue contained in one’s head are completely bewildered, for they can hardly form an idea of a tissue standing in one’s head.
That is indeed a very wrong idea.
You should think of the collective unconscious in a very primitive way, then you are about right, at all events much nearer to the facts than when you think of it in psychological terms.
You should think of it in the terms of primitive man, as the ghost land, all the invisible dead people amongst us.
Or a good idea of the collective unconscious is that it is a sort of unknown or unconscious reality, the unknown in everything and in everybody.
For instance, the unknown and invisible nature of this chair.
Of course, any person of ordinary mind would deny emphatically that there was anything unknown in this chair.
If they don’t know what is in the chair they simply tear it open and see that there is hair or some other kind of stuffing in it, and the wood can be examined to see whether there is anything inside that, and they know about the maple tree from which it is made, so everything is perfectly normal.
Yet they entirely forget that they have not penetrated the secret of cellulose, nor the secret of the atoms of which the chair is composed.
There is an absolutely cosmic secret, an existing thing in the chair, and you see that forms the collective unconscious. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Pages 204-205
Hidden behind the personal animus is a larger animus
Encounters with the Soul by Barbara Hannah
Hidden behind the personal animus is a larger animus
Encounters with the Soul by Barbara Hannah
An old an1mus means opinions, and a young animus means an enterprise.
Onkel said that the analysis of the Weidmann dream shows a dangerous enterprise which might have murderous consequences.
An old animus means opinions, and a young animus means an enterprise.
It is a parallel with the Luttichau situation. ‘Maisie’ [another pseudonym for Tommy] is in the same position as Viktor [Luttichau] doing nothing, no money and that is why Margerita is leaving him.
In our unconscious we are animals somewhere, and Viktor’ s lack of money is causing the divorce.
I was surprised.
Onkel said a man’s egoism is so great that he can smear his boots with the fat of his murdered brother.
Such a dream where a young criminal animus reveals itself, means a dangerous enterprise is afoot.
My unconscious says that I could kill Maisie when he is in such a mood.
Then Onkel told me of his African experience with Baynes.
They were all in a tent, and Baynes was outside.
Suddenly, they heard a shot, and one man said, “Let’s hope that’s Baynes blowing out his brains!”
It seems Baynes was in terrible humors all the time.
Onkel said such moods bring out a murderous feeling in one.
I could kill Maisie, and if I run away from Maisie, it is as if I had killed him.
One must make use of every instance of a bad mood, by saying the next day, when the mood has worn off, “Yesterday, you behaved in such and such a way, no reproach meant! Were you in a bad mood, yes or no?”
Then ask purely for a statement of facts.
Ask the person for a reason why he was in a bad mood.
The cause and why. Maisie, of course, hates like hell to be in such a mood, for a gentleman has no moods.
He dislikes it himself and he feels defeated, and angry and irritable with himself for it shows that he is not master of himself.
In analysis, one has fewer moods because one has an emotional outlet.
In a personal relationship, resentments store up. “I” am the apparent reason for Maisie’s moods; he has resistances against me, and I am quite likely to arouse resistances.
I am a ‘very nice person’ and such ‘nice’ persons have nasty feelings.
I have a spark in my eyes, from which one can conclude that in me there are hidden nasty reactions.
Maisie is too tactful, and too much a gentleman, to talk of his resistances.
There are millions of opportunities in a life together for having bad feelings which ought to be talked over, so as to create an atmosphere of understanding and compassion.
Maisie’s unconscious is chuck-full of resistances and resentments. ~Katy Cabot, Jung My Mother and I, Page 196-197
animus animus animus