Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
So the real connection with astrology is time, and therefore the most striking aspect of our connection with the stars is that of fate.
Fate evolves with time, and it is identical with time.
When one says the time has not yet come, it means that fate has not yet fulfilled itself; fate fulfills itself only in time, time being only another aspect of fate.
Fate and time are absolutely identical, fate being the more human aspect and time the more energic aspect.
And time is another aspect of energy, for without time there is no energy, and without energy there is no time.
Time is measured energy.
In winding up a clock, a certain store of energy is given it, so that it can run its course, and that is called the movement of time, because by that energic process as a measure, time can be appreciated.
Life is another aspect of time; it is fate, it is energy, and it is the movement of the stars.
It can express itself either by the watch, or by the course or position of the stars, or by the process of energy running down.
So there are really many reasons for the connection of our innermost psychology with the movement of the stars, and it is therefore almost to be expected that in just this moment an astrological picture would turn up.
You see, it is a matter here of a tremendous problem which has never been formulated before, the problem that is left over from the Christian era, the crucifixion of the earthly man.
And here we encounter another being that rides through the heavens on Pegasus, here they come together.
We only knew before that whenever our patient came to the white city, something was wrong, something would not work, the light was too glaring, or the white city was a black city.
But she always returns to that critical spot, and this time she sees why it is particularly unendurable; it is because she finds herself crucified in the square city and pierced by the star.
Now that penetration by the star expresses an achievement, a fulfillment; the star has reached her, it has finished her.
It is the spear of Longin us which pierced Christ’s side, proving his death.
That is the analogy, and we can take it here as having the same meaning.
She is nailed down, immobilized, completely done for, and no escape possible.
Therefore I call it an achievement or an accomplishment, something divine has penetrated.
Furthermore, she has to confront herself, and this explains why the white city, the idea of completion, of fulfillment, is a matter of such unendurable torment.
Now we should understand thoroughly what this woman crucified upon the black cross means, we should be able to trace that experience back to individual experience.
These visions are getting very awkward, very complicated, it needs much more painstaking work to bring them home, to trace them to their origin and see what they mean in the human being.
Otherwise there is danger of the whole thing losing itself in vapors and symbolism.
How would you formulate the actual condition?
We could understand the enlightenment, but now we should understand this enantiodromia.
There was first the glaring white city, and after some peripeties we came down to the black city, the counterpart of the heavenly city.
The blackness of the cross seems to be a remnant from Hades; it means death naturally and it appears now as connected with the white city.
How could one formulate this human sacrifice?
Mrs. Crowley: Perhaps she is not actually conscious of it, but I think it is probably a vision of the consciousness of two opposing forces within herself.
Dr. Jung: That is true.
This symbolism impresses her with that duality;
something above impresses her as being in the state of uttermost freedom and liberation from bodily weight, and the other part of her is being nailed down to the ground.
So it is an awareness of opposites.
Mrs. Crowley: There is consciousness below and above; the previous attitude was a swinging from one to the other, but this time there is an awareness of both.
Dr. Jung: Yes, the main virtue of this situation is that the two opposites are now coming together.
There is an equal awareness on either side,
an almost limitless freedom, and an equally limitless fixation.
Now how would that part which is perhaps more accessible to us express itself? The part of suffering?
We understood the liberation as a sort of enthusiasm, but what is the meaning of the crucifixion?
Mrs. Crowley: It is a dismemberment. She is being torn between the two forces, those two ways of realization.
Dr. Jung: Yes, but the conflict here is not in the woman that is nailed to
the cross, it is between the two figures; one assumes a third consciousness
that looks on, between the free spirit and the chained spirit.
What does the crucifixion mean psychologically?
Mrs. Sawyer: The sacrifice of the personal life for the impersonal.
Dr. Jung: What is the meaning of Christ’s intentional self-sacrifice? According to tradition he did it quite intentionally.
Frau Durler: To redeem mankind.
Dr. Jung: Yes, so it is really a sacrifice of the personal life for something else, whatever that may be; we see here only the suffering part of it, we see that she is undergoing the torment of the sacrifice of personal life, but we don’t know for what purpose. ~Visions Seminar, Page 736-738