We go on thinking and acting as if we were simplex and not duplex.
Our rational philosophy does not bother itself with whether the other person in us, pejoratively described as the “shadow,” is in sympathy with our conscious plans and intentions. Evidently it does not know that we carry in ourselves a real shadow whose existence is grounded in our instinctual nature.
The dynamism and imagery of the instincts together form an a priori which no man can overlook without the gravest risk to himself.
Violation or neglect of instinct has painful consequences of a physiological and psychological nature for whose removal medical help, above all, is required.
For more than fifty years we have known, or could have known, that there is an unconscious as a counterbalance to consciousness.
Medical psychology has furnished all the necessary empirical and experimental proofs of this.
There is an unconscious psychic reality which demonstrably influences consciousness and its contents.
All this is known, but no practical conclusions have been drawn from it.
We still go on thinking and acting as before, as if we were simplex and not duplex.
Accordingly, we imagine ourselves to be innocuous, reasonable and humane.
We do not think of distrusting our motives or of asking ourselves how the inner man feels about the things we do in the outside world.
But actually it is frivolous, superficial and unreasonable of us, as well as psychically unhygienic, to overlook the reaction and standpoint of the unconscious.
One can regard one’s stomach or heart as unimportant and worthy of contempt, but that does not prevent overeating or overexertion from having consequences that affect the whole man.
Yet we think that psychic mistakes and their consequences can be got rid of with mere words, for “psychic” means less than air to most people.
All the same, nobody can deny that without the psyche there would be no world at all, and still less, a human world.
Virtually everything depends on the human soul and its functions.
It should be worthy of all the attention we can give it, especially today, when everyone admits that the weal or woe of the future will be decided neither by the attacks of wild animals nor by natural catastrophes nor by the danger of world-wide epidemics but simply and solely by the psychic changes in man.
It needs only an almost imperceptible disturbance of equilibrium in a few of our rulers’ heads to plunge the world into blood, fire and radioactivity.
The technical means necessary for this are present on both sides.
And certain conscious deliberations, uncontrolled by any inner opponent, can be indulged in all too easily, as we have seen already from the example of one “Leader.”
The consciousness of modern man still clings so much to outward objects that he makes them exclusively responsible, as if it were on them that the decision depended.
That the psychic state of certain individuals could emancipate itself for once from the behavior of objects is something that is considered far too little, although irrationalities of this sort are observed every day and can happen to everyone. ~Carl Jung, Undiscovered Self, Page 59-61
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
“The ship is the vehicle which transports him/her across the sea and the depths of the unconscious. As human construction it has the meaning of a system, of a way, of a method ( e.g. , Hinayana and Mahayana = little and large vehicle: the two forms of Buddhism).” Our Nordic churches were built according to the model of a ship, which is the reason for their lateral entrances and for naming the long structure “ship.” ~Carl Jung, Anima as Fate, Page 74
“It is our own desires that stick in our flesh like arrows,” “One who is struck by Cupid’s arrow is tortured by ardent desires.” ~Carl Jung, Anima as Fate, Page 93
Jung quotes from the Gnosis of Justin: “The trees of the Garden of Eden are angels; the tree of life is the angel Baruch, the third of the paternal angels; and the tree of knowledge of good and evil is Naas, the third of the maternal angels.” ~Cornelia Brunner, Anima as Fate, Page 178
Jung quotes Ruland us in regard to the sapphire: “Its specific virtue consists in rendering the wearer pious and constant. In alchemistic medicine it was a heart medication.” ~Cornelia Brunner, Anima as Fate, Page 208
In his study of “The Symbol of Transformation in the Mass,” Jung states: “Just as bread is the substance for physical existence, so the wine represents the substance for spiritual existence.” ~Cornelia Brunner, Anima as Fate, Page 211
“Deification always follows the baptism with water,” “The new person who has a new name is born at this point. We can observe this quite well in the Catholic sacrament, where the priest holds a candle during the baptism, saying: Dono tibi lucem aeternam-I give you the eternal light. The candle light represents the sunlight, for after the baptism we are related to the sun. We obtain an immortal soul; we are ‘twice born.”‘ ~Carl Jung, Anima as Fate, Page 160
“The fantasy of a world holocaust, the catastrophic end of the world, is the projection of the fundamental, original picture of the great, complete change.” ~Carl Jung, Anima as Fate, Page 267
It is a moral problem which challenges the entirety of the Ego personality, inasmuch as no one is capable of confronting the shadow without a great amount of moral decisiveness. In fact this confrontation demands that we recognize the dark aspects of our personality as being unquestionably present. This is the unavoidable basis for any genuine self-knowledge and meets, therefore, considerable resistance. If psychotherapy aims for such self-knowledge, considerable difficult work is needed which may require a long time. ~Carl Jung, Anima as Fate, Page 75
Benoit’s Antinea is the kind of unconscious Anima of whom Jung says: “She is an autocratic being without genuine relationships. She seeks nothing but total possession of the individual, whereby a man becomes effeminate in odd and unfavorable ways. This shows itself in his moody and uncontrolled disposition which gradually spoils even his heretofore dependable and sensible functions, such as the intellect . . . . ” ~Cornelia Brunner, Anima as Fate, Page 131
The proficient person will constantly find, either because of unfavorable circumstances, technical errors, or seemingly demonic incidents, that the completion of the process is hindered, and that he, therefore, must begin anew. Whoever attempts to establish his security in the everyday world by following an analogous psychological journey, will have similar experiences. More than once he will find that what he has achieved falls to pieces in the collision with reality.
However, he must tirelessly examine the inadequacies in his orientation and the blind spots in his psychological visual field. Just as the philosopher’s stone, with its wondrous powers, has never been actually produced, so psychic totality will never be reached empirically. Consciousness is too narrow to ever comprehend the full inventory of the soul. We will always have to begin again. The adept in alchemy always knew that it was ultimately a matter of the “res simplex” [ the simple thing] . Human beings today will learn by experience that the process will not prosper without the greatest possible simplicity. The simple, however, is also the most difficult. ~Carl Jung, Anima as Fate, Page 277
