Carl Jung: Your [Jung’s “I”] main flaw is, that you have no proper self-esteem

Black Books

So listen, dear I, we are together alone and our being together threatens to become unbearably boring.

Hence I would like to do something, for example, educate you.

Your main flaw is, that you have no proper self-esteem.

You see, other people have it in abundance.

You have a number of good qualities that you can be proud of. You believe that being capable is an art.

Of course that is the art.

But one can also learn such skills to some extent.

Please, do so.

You find it difficult- well, all beginnings are difficult.

Soon you will be able to do it better.

Do you doubt this?-That is of no use; you must be able to do it, or else I cannot exist with you.

Ever since my soul has flown to heaven we have depended upon one another; you therefore need to be reasonable and present yourself acceptably or else our life together will become wretched.

So pull yourself together and value yourself, admire yourself, tell yourself that you have incomparable merits and admirable virtues. Don’t you want to? ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 215-216

Or do you want love, or what goes by that name?

One can also teach with love, if blows do not bear fruit.

So I will love you. I embrace you as a visible sign of my love. ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 216

How now, you want to speak? But I won’t let you, otherwise in the end you will claim that you are my soul; but know the magic word. My soul has risen to the sky, to the sources of the eternal light. ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 217

For I want to get along with you-I must-damn you-you are my I, which I must carry around with me to the grave.

Do you think I’d like an embuggerance such as you as a companion for ever? ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 218

And then how do you really think?

It appears to me that you even think with men, regardless of their human dignity; you dare think by means of them, and use them as figures on your stage, as if they were how you conceive or imagine them? ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 221

In LN, the remainder of this entry was replaced by the following:

“I want you to speak about your shame, and that instead of speaking great words, you utter a discordant clamor before those whose respect you wanted to exact.

You deserve mockery, not respect. / I will burn out of you the contents of which you were proud, so that you will become empty like a poured-out vessel.

You should be proud of nothing more than your emptiness and wretchedness.

You should be a vessel of life, so kill your idols. / Freedom does not belong to you, but form; not power, but suffering and conceiving. / You should make a virtue out of your self-contempt, which I will spread out before men like a carpet.

They should walk over it with dirty feet and you should see to it that you are dirtier than all the feet that step on you” (LN, p. 466). ~The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 222, fn 93

Ridiculously enough, I did not know at this stage that if I tame my beast the other beasts around me will be tamed at the same time. ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 223

An act of violence is disgraceful, sensitivity, too. It is the violent act of the inactive man. ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 223

Jung later described the self-criticism depicted in this opening section as the confrontation with the shadow. In 1934 he wrote:

Whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his own image.

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. ~The Black Books, Vol. V, Page

This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided as long as one can project everything negative into the environment.

But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious” ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 224, fn 107

The uncertain way is the good way; upon it lie possibilities. Be unwavering and create. ~Jung’s Soul, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 226

Should I speak to the above or the below? Below are you, my brother I, above, my soul, are you. ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 228

Leave him [Man] compassion. Compassion binds life and death and is a bridge from death to life.

There are also the apparently dead and the collapsed. With compassion they might keep up. ~Jung’s Soul, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 227

Is the excrement of the earth not sacred? “Yes and no. The soil of the earth is sacred, but not its excrement.

Excrement is excrement,” earth is earth.” ~Jung’s Soul, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 228

There is a divine and a human intention.

They cross each other in stupid and godforsaken people, who also include you from time to time.” ~Jung’s Soul, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 228

I also dread the madness that befalls the solitary. ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 229

Not so much- it comes from solitude.

One starts to smell in solitude-and the smell reaches far. ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 205

Do you call it just, when you do not live?