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Carl Jung Depth Psychology Quotations
Carl Jung: *CW 1 “Psychiatric Studies”
To be adapted is certainly an ideal, but adaptation is not always possible.
Emotion has a decomposing action on the mind, reduces its synthesis and makes it, for the moment, wretched. Emotions, especially depressive ones such as fear, disorganize the mental syntheses; their action, so to speak, is analytic, as opposed to that of the will, of attention, of perception, which is synthetic ~Carl Jung citing Janet, CW 1, Para 318
One of the marks of emotion is that it is accompanied by a decided lowering of the mental level. It brings about not only the loss of synthesis and the reduction to automatism, which is so noticeable in the hysteric, but proportionately to its strength it gradually suppresses the higher phenomena and lowers tension to the level of the so-called inferior phenomena. Under the influence of emotion, mental synthesis, attention, the acquisition of the new memories, are seen to disappear; with them diminish or disappear all the functions of reality, the feeling of and pleasure in reality, confidence and certitude. In place of these we observe automatic movements ~Carl Jung citing Janet, CW 1, Para 319
Affects have a particularly deleterious effect on the memory ~ Carl Jung, CW 1, Para 319
But this dissociative power which belongs to emotion is never more clearly displayed than in its effect on the memory. This dissociation can act on memories as they are produced and constitute continuous amnesia; it can also act suddenly on a group of memories already formed. ~Carl Jung citing Janet, CW 1, Para 319
Carl Jung: *CW 2 “Experimental Researches”:
Distraction by surrounding objects is, as far as we know from our experience in psychopathology, a phenomenon that must be interpreted as the effect of emotion ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 298
In embarrassment or bewilderment, which are caused when the stimulus-word conjures up [in the word association test] emotionally charged ideas that the subject consciously or unconsciously tries to repress, the subject lets herself be completely distracted by externals and verbally reacts by simply naming an object from her surroundings ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 298
For psychoanalysis, the patient’s mental condition is important, but still more important is the mental condition of the doctor ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 703
He [the doctor] who approaches a case with anything but absolute conviction is soon lost in the snares and traps laid by the complex of hysterical illness at whatever point he hopes to take hold of it ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 703
One has to know from the very beginning that everything in the hysteric is trying to prevent an exploration of the complex ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 703
After three [analytic] sessions a certain conclusion was reached, in so far as one could not avoid relating the obsessional idea that she had caused the death of her former pupil to the self-reproaches connected with the sexual stories [which she had revealed in earlier sessions] ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 713
The cement that holds the complex together is the feeling-tone common to all the individual ideas, in this case unhappiness ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 733
In our case the complex has the effect that the subject does not react by arbitrary or random connections of words but derives most of his reactions from the complex itself. The influence of the complex on thinking and behavior is called a constellation ~Carl Jung, CW2, Para 733
In accordance with the intensity of their emotions people’s thinking and behavior are constellated by their complexes, and so are their associations ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 736
Where the complex temporarily replaces the ego, we see that a strong complex possesses all the characteristics of a separate personality. We are, therefore, justified in regarding a complex as somewhat like a small secondary mind, which deliberately (though unknown to consciousness) drives at certain intentions which are contrary to the conscious intentions of the individual ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 1352
Laughter is diagnostically important: it often indicates in psychoanalysis that a complex has been touched ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 816
It is obvious that no one but the patient demands anything that is too much. Freud says, “Many of my neurotic patients who are under psychoanalytic treatment are in the habit of confirming the fact by a laugh when I have succeeded in giving a faithful picture of their hidden unconscious to their conscious perception; and they laugh even when the content of what is unveiled would by no means justify this. This is subject, of course, to their having arrived close enough to the unconscious material to grasp it after the doctor has detected it and presented it to them” ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 816
The complex acts in a peculiar way upon the psyche; Janet has described it in an excellent manner in his book (Janet, Les Obsessions et la psychasthénie, 1903). The complex robs the ego of light and nourishment, just as a cancer robs the body of its vitality. ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 1067
Experience teaches us the close relation between complex and neurosis. We must assume that the complex is a thought material, which stands under special psychological conditions, because it can exert a pathogenetic influence ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 1352
This intention [of the subject] is disturbed by the interference of the complex, so that the association, contrary to expectation, is either turned from the sense of the complex or replaced by fragmentary allusions, or is in general so disturbed as to render the subject altogether unable to produce a reaction, although he may be unaware that the complex is independent of his intentions ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 1352
Nature has an apparatus that makes an extract of the complexes and brings them to consciousness in an unrecognizable and therefore harmless form: this is the dream ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 822
We know Freud’s principle of the displacement from below upwards. What happens to the mouth (in dreams, in hysteria, in schizophrenia) happens to the genitals. If one eats, one puts something into the mouth ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 839
A patient in the early stage of dementia [schizophrenia] once expressed her wish-delirium by saying that the man she desired as her bridegroom fed her with a spoon, which made her pregnant and she had a child ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 839
The memory consists of a large number of single images; we therefore refer to it as a complex-image ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 891
The complex of these images is held together by a particular emotional tone, that is, by the effect of terror, the vibrations of which can continue gently for weeks or months and keep the image of terror fresh and vivid for that length of time ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 891
During the day work and other interests predominate, but from time to time these complexes make themselves felt through a faint and hardly recognizable unease or through slight feelings of anxiety, which seem to be unaccountable; at night they intrude into our dreams in a form the symbolism of which may be more or less pronounced ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 891
One of the chief characteristics of hysterical patients is the tendency to let themselves be carried away by everything, to fix their passion onto everything, and always promise too much and hence keep only a few of their promises. Patients with this symptom are, in my experience, always rather disagreeable ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 950
Another common peculiarity of hysterical patients that of taking everything personally, of never being able to be objective and of allowing themselves to be carried away by momentary impressions ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 953
The sensitivity (i.e., the excitability) of the emotions is greater in hysterical patients than in normal people. The hysterical patient suffers from an affect that he has been unable to conquer. The recognition of this is of the greatest importance in therapy ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 909
By his desire to supplement [in the word association test], the subject betrays a tendency to give the experimenter more than he wants; he actually labours in his attempts to find further ideas so as eventually to find something entirely satisfactory ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 950
Patients with this symptom are, in my experience, always rather disagreeable; at first they are enthusiastically enamored of the physician, for a time going so far as blindly to accept everything he says; but they soon fall into an equally blind resistance to him, thus rendering any psychological influence absolutely impossible ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 950
The complex acts in a peculiar way upon the psyche; Janet has described it in an excellent manner in his book (Janet, Les Obsessions et la psychasthénie, 1903). The complex robs the ego of light and nourishment, just as a cancer robs the body of its vitality ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 1067
Rise of morbid hysterical symptoms These results can also manifest themselves in associations, so that in hysterics we find clear manifestations of emotional constellations among the patient’s associations ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 1067
The association experiment [word association test] provides the means of studying experimentally the behavior of the complex ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 1352
Experience teaches us the close relation between complex and neurosis. We must assume that the complex is a thought material, which stands under special psychological conditions, because it can exert a pathogenetic influence ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 1352
This intention [of the subject] is disturbed by the interference of the complex, so that the association, contrary to expectation, is either turned from the sense of the complex or replaced by fragmentary allusions, or is in general so disturbed as to render the subject altogether unable to produce a reaction, although he may be unaware that the complex is independent of his intentions ~Carl Jung, CW 2, Para 1352
Carl Jung: *CW 3 “Experimental Researches”:
In general, the patient’s degree of intelligence and education is of considerable importance for the prognosis ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 575
In cases of passing, acute intervals, or in the early stages of the disease, an explanatory discussion of the symptoms, especially of the psychotic contents, seems to me of the greatest value ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 575
Since fascination by archetypal contents is particularly dangerous, an explanation of their universal, impersonal meaning seems to me especially helpful, as opposed to the usual discussion of personal complexes ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 575
These complexes are the things that called forth the archaic reactions and compensations in the first place, and can obviously produce the same effects again at any time ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 575
Often, therefore, one must help the patient to detach his interest from these personal sources of excitation, at least temporarily, so as to give him a general orientation and a broader view of his confused situation ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 575
I have therefore made it a rule to give the intelligent patient as much psychological knowledge as he can stand. The more he knows in this respect, the better his whole prognosis will turn out, for if he is equipped with the necessary knowledge he can meet renewed irruptions of the unconscious with understanding and in this way assimilate the strange contents and integrate them into his conscious life. So in cases where the patients remember the content of their psychosis, I discuss it with them in detail and try to get them to understand it as thoroughly as possible ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 575
The introvert adapts to the world by means of a system ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 420
Insomnia is often due to uncontrollable complexes against which the auto-suggestive power of sleep is no longer effective ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 137
Thus the thought-complexes are dependent on a small fraction of clarity, for which reason they can manifest themselves only in vague, symbolic expressions and also get contaminated for lack of differentiation ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 137
We need not assume an actual censorship of dream thoughts in the Freudian sense; the inhibition exerted by sleep-suggestion is a perfectly sufficient explanation ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 137
The autonomous complex can only “think” superficially and unclearly, i.e., symbolically, and the end-results (automatisms, constellations) which filter through into the activity of the ego-complex and into consciousness will be similarly constituted ~Carl Jung, CW3, Para 135
Even with ordinary therapeutic measures you can get the patient’s mind at a sufficiently safe distance from the unconscious, for instance by inducing him to draw or paint a picture of his psychic situation. (Painting is rather more effective, since by means of the colors his feelings are drawn into the picture too) ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 562
The tremendum is spellbound by it, made harmless and familiar, and whenever the patient is reminded of his original experience by its menacing emotional effects, the picture he has made of it interposes itself between him and the experience and keeps his terror at bay ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 562
I have now, after long practical experience, come to hold the view that the psychogenic causation of the disease is more probable than the toxic causation ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 570
There are a number of mild and ephemeral but manifestly schizophrenic illnesses quite apart from the even more common latent psychoses which begin purely psychogenically, run an equally psychological course (aside from certain presumably toxic nuances) and can be completely cured by a purely psychotherapeutic procedure; I have seen this even in severe cases ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 570
The general picture of an [word] association test of a schizophrenic may be very similar to that of a neurotic, but closer examination shows that in a schizophrenic patient the connection between the ego and some of the complexes is more or less completely lost ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 506
The split is not relative, it is absolute. An hysterical patient might suffer from a persecution-mania very similar to real paranoia, but the difference is that in the former case one can bring the delusion back under the control of consciousness, whereas it is virtually impossible to do this in paranoia ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 506
A neurosis, it is true, is characterized by the relative autonomy of its complexes, but in schizophrenia the complexes have become disconnected and autonomous fragments, which either do not reintegrate back to the psychic totality, or, in the case of a remission, are unexpectedly joined together again as if nothing had happened ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 506
The unity of personality which, in a case of hysteria, lends a humanly understandable character to its own secondary personalities is definitely shattered into fragments ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 507
In a hysterical multiple personality there is a fairly smooth, even tactful, co-operation between the different persons, who keep to their respective roles and, if possible, do not bother each other ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 507
One feels the presence of an invisible spiritus rector, a central manager who arranges the stage for the different figures in an almost rational way, often in the form of a more or less sentimental drama ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 507
The picture of a personality dissociation in schizophrenia is quite different. The split-off figures assume banal, grotesque, or highly exaggerated names and characters, and are often objectionable in many other ways ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 508
On the contrary, they [the split-off personalities] break in and make a disturbance at any time, they torment the ego in a hundred ways. All are objectionable and shocking, either in their noisy and impertinent behavior or in their grotesque cruelty and obscenity ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 508
The autonomous figures have broken away from the control of the ego so thoroughly that their original participation in the patient’s mental make-up has vanished ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 509
An abaissement can be produced by many causes: by fatigue, normal sleep, intoxication, fever, anaemia, intense affects, shocks, organic diseases of the central nervous system; likewise it can be induced by mass-psychology or a primitive mentality, or by religious and political fanaticism, etc. It can also be caused by constitutional and hereditary factors ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 513
Neuroses are specific consequences of an abaissement; as a rule they arise from a habitual or chronic form of it. Where they appear to be the effect of an acute form, a more or less latent psychological disposition always existed prior to the abaissement, so that the latter is no more than a conditional cause ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 515
The symptoms of Janet’s abaissement du niveau mental are release of automatisms (thought-deprivation, pathological ideas) and reduction of attention. The consequence of this last is an incapacity for clear ideation. The ideas are indistinct, no proper differentiation takes place, and this leads to numerous confusions, condensations, contaminations, metaphors, etc. The condensations mostly follow the law of similarity of imagery or sound, so that meaningful connections largely disappear ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 300
There is no doubt that an abaissement which leads to a neurosis is produced either by exclusively psychological factors or by these in conjunction with other, perhaps more physical, conditions ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 516
A neurosis is a relative dissociation, a conflict between the ego and a resistant force based upon unconscious contents. These contents have more or less lost their connection with the psychic totality ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 516
They [the unconscious contents] form themselves into fragments, and the loss of them means a depotentiation of the conscious personality ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 516
The intense conflict, on the other hand, expresses an equally intense desire to re-establish the severed connection. There is no co-operation, but at least there is a violent conflict, which functions instead of a positive connection ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 516
Every neurotic fights for the maintenance and supremacy of his ego-consciousness and for the subjugation of the resistant unconscious forces ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 516
But a patient who allows himself to be swayed by the intrusion of strange contents from the unconscious, a patient who does not fight, who even identifies with the morbid elements, immediately exposes himself to the suspicion of schizophrenia ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 516
His [Schizophrenic] abaissement has reached the fatal, extreme degree, when the ego loses all power to resist the onslaught of an apparently more powerful unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 516
Schizophrenia has a “psychology,” i.e., a psychic causality and finality, just as normal mental life has, though with this important difference: whereas in the healthy person the ego is the subject of his experience, in the schizophrenic the ego is only one of the experiencing subjects. In other words, in schizophrenia the normal subject has split into a plurality of subject, or into plurality of autonomous complexes ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 498
The psychic mechanism that brings about the normal extinction and disintegration of consciousness in sleep is therefore a normal function which almost obeys our will. In schizophrenia it seems as if this function were set in motion in order to bring about that sleep-like condition in which consciousness is reduced to the level of dreams, or, in which dreams are intensified to a degree equalling that of consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 523
The simplest form of schizophrenia, of the splitting of the personality, is paranoia, the classic persecution-mania of the “persécuteur persécuté.” It consists in a simple doubling of the personality, which in milder cases is still held together by the identity of the two egos ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 499
The schizophrenic may be pictured as a dreamer who walks about and acts like a person awake ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 174
The patient strikes us at first as completely normal. He may hold office or be in a lucrative position we suspect nothing. We converse normally with him, and at some point, for example, we let fall the word “Freemason” ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 499
Suddenly the jovial face before us changes, a piercing look full of abysmal mistrust and inhuman fanaticism meets us from his eye. He has become a hunted, dangerous animal, surrounded by invisible enemies: the other ego has risen to the surface ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 499
What has happened? Obviously at some time or other the idea of being a persecuted victim gained the upper hand, became autonomous, and formed a second subject which at times completely replaced the healthy ego ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 500
It is characteristic that neither of the two subjects can fully experience the other, although the two personalities are not separated by a belt of unconsciousness as they are in an hysterical dissociation of the personality ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 500
They know each other intimately, but they have no valid arguments against one another ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 500
The healthy ego cannot counter the affectivity of the other, for at least half its affectivity has gone over into its opposite number. It is, so to speak, paralysed This is the beginning of that schizophrenic “apathy” which can best be observed in paranoid dementia ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 500
Dreams are due to an incomplete extinction of consciousness, or to a somewhat excited state of the unconscious which interferes with sleep ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 524
Sleep is disturbed if too many remnants of consciousness go on stirring, or if there are unconscious contents with too great an energy-charge, for then they rise above the threshold and create a relatively conscious state ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 524
Hence it is better to explain many dreams as the remnants of conscious impressions, while others derive directly from unconscious sources which have never been conscious ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 524
Dreams of the first type [remnants of conscious impressions] have a personal character and conform to the rules of a personalistic psychology ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 524
Dreams of the second type [from unconscious sources] have a collective character, inasmuch as they contain peculiarly mythological, legendary, or generally archaic imagery. One must turn to historical or primitive symbology in order to explain such dreams ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 524
The dissociation in schizophrenia is not only far more serious [than a Neurosis] but very often irreversible The dissociation is no longer fluid and changeable as it is in a neurosis. It is more like a mirror broken up into splinters ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 507
Each figure has a suggestive name and an admissible character, and they are just as nicely hysterical and just as sentimentally biased as the patient’s own consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 507
They [the figures] do not, moreover, co-operate with the patient’s consciousness. They are not tactful and they have no respect for sentimental values ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 508
On the contrary, they [the split-off personalities] break in and make a disturbance at any time, they torment the ego in a hundred ways. All are objectionable and shocking, either in their noisy and impertinent behavior or in their grotesque cruelty and obscenity ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 508
There is an apparent chaos of incoherent visions, voices, and characters, all of an overwhelmingly strange and incomprehensible nature ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 508
If there is a drama at all, it is certainly far beyond the patient’s understanding. In most cases it transcends even the physician’s comprehension, so much so that he is inclined to suspect the mental sanity of anybody who sees more than plain madness in the ravings of a lunatic ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 508
The healthy ego cannot counter the affectivity of the other, for at least half its affectivity has gone over into its opposite number. It is, so to speak, paralysed. This is the beginning of that schizophrenic “apathy” which can best be observed in paranoid dementia ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 500
The patient can assure you with the greatest indifference: “I am the triple owner of the world, the finest Turkey, the Lorelei, Germania and Helvetia of exclusively sweet butter and Naples and I must supply the whole world with macaroni.” All this without a blush, and with no flicker of a smile ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 500
Anyone who observes himself, carefully and unsparingly, will know that there is something within him which would gladly hide and cover up all that is difficult and questionable in life, in order to smooth a path for itself ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 385
Insanity gives it a free hand. And once it has gained ascendency, reality is veiled, more quickly or less; it becomes a distant dream, but the dream becomes a reality which holds the patient enchained, wholly or in part, often for the rest of his life ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 385
We healthy people, who stand with both feet in reality, see only the ruin of the patient in this world, but not the richness of that side of the psyche which is turned away from us ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 385
Unfortunately only too often no further knowledge reaches us of the things that are being played out on the dark side of the soul [in the insane], because all the bridges have broken down which connect that side with this ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 385
One of them comprises all those forms of illness which are commonly designated “hysterical”; the other all those forms which the French school calls “psychasthenic” ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 418
Although the line of demarcation is rather uncertain, one can mark off two psychological types which in themselves are quite distinct because their psychology is diametrically opposed. I have called these the introverted and extraverted types ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 418
The hysteric belongs to the extraverted type, the psychasthenic to the introverted type, and so, to the best of our knowledge, does the schizophrenic. The terms introversion and extraversion are dependent on my energic conception of psychic phenomena. Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 418
I postulate a hypothetical, fundamental striving which I call libido ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 418
In accordance with the classical usage of the word, libido does not have an exclusively sexual connotation as it has in medicine ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 418
Libido is intended as an energic expression for psychological values. A psychological value is something that has an effect; hence it can be considered from the energic standpoint without any pretence of exact measurement ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 418
There seems to be a certain intellectual weakness which expresses itself in a tendency to give definitions, though unlike the same tendency in imbeciles it does not strive for generalization but defines the content of the stimulus-words in terms of the complex ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 208
Characteristic is the extraordinary stilted and affected manner of expression, sometimes verging on the incomprehensible ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 208
The clumsy and peculiar-sounding definitions of imbeciles occur at unexpected places which happen to hit the complex ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 208
In normal people and hysterics we find striking or linguistically odd reactions always at the critical places, and especially words from foreign languages. These correspond here to the neologisms, which are nothing but peculiarly forceful and ponderous expressions of thought-complexes ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 208
We can also understand why a patient describes her neologisms as “power-words.” Whenever they appear they hint at the whole system hidden behind them, just as technical terms do in normal speech ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 208
This [the complex] constellates most of the associations and expresses itself above all in the affectation, whose sole purpose is to emphasize the value of the personality. To that extent it is a normal and familiar aid to self-complacency. Here it is exaggerated in accordance with the patient’s morbidly intensified self-esteem ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 211
Hand in hand with the exaggerated affectation go exaggerated ideas of grandeur which, because of their contrast with reality and the affected, barely intelligible way they are expressed have something grotesque about them ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 211
We find this phenomenon in normal people whose self-esteem is at odds with their intelligence and outward situation. In the patient it is primarily a question of exaggeration and the corresponding strong affect it indicates. What exceeds the normal mechanism is the barely intelligible and unadapted manner of expression, which suggests an impairment of the underlying concepts ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 211
The complex of personal grandeur expresses itself also in the patient’s unsuitable demands and wishes ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 211
Neuroses are specific consequences of an abaissement; as a rule they arise from a habitual or chronic form of it. Where they appear to be the effect of an acute form, a more or less latent psychological disposition always existed prior to the abaissement, so that the latter is no more than a conditional cause ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 515
The symptoms of Janet’s abaissement du niveau mental are release of automatisms (thought-deprivation, pathological ideas) and reduction of attention. The consequence of this last is an incapacity for clear ideation. The ideas are indistinct, no proper differentiation takes place, and this leads to numerous confusions, condensations, contaminations, metaphors, etc. The condensations mostly follow the law of similarity of imagery or sound, so that meaningful connections largely disappear ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 300
Hypnosis represses the hysterical complex and leads to the reproduction of the ego-complex ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 163
In schizophrenia, when we are not actually dealing with marked excitement accompanied by deep confusion, we often get the impression that the patients are disturbed merely by illusions but that at bottom they are correctly oriented ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 163
Lucidity of consciousness is especially often impaired in the acute stage of the disease, when the patients are in a real dream, i.e., in a “complex-delirium” ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 163
Hallucinations are simply the outward projection of psychic elements. Clinically we know all gradations, from inspirations and pathological ideas to loud auditory hallucinations and vivid visions ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 180
Hallucinations are ubiquitous. Schizophrenia merely sets in motion a preformed mechanism which normally functions in dreams ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 180
The hallucinations of hysteria, like those of dreams, contain symbolically distorted fragments of the complex ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 180
If there is a very strong complex, all progress adapted to the environment ceases and the associations revolve entirely round the complex. By and large this is what happens in hysteria, where we find very strong complexes ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 184
The progress of the personality is retarded, and a large part of the psychic activity is expended in varying the complex in all possible ways (symptomatic actions). Not for nothing does Janet call attention to the general disturbances in “obsessed” persons, of which I mention the following: indolence, irresolution, retardation, fatigue, lack of achievement, aboulia, inhibition ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 184
If a complex succeeds in becoming fixed, monotony results, especially monotony of the outward symptoms ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 184
Why does not know the stereotyped, exhausting complaints of hysterics and the stubborn, invincible nature of their symptoms? ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 184
Just as a constant pain will always call forth the same monotonous cries of distress, so a fixed complaint will gradually stereotype the individual’s whole mode of expression, so that in the end we know that day after day we shall receive with mathematical accuracy the same answer to the same question ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 184
There seems to be a certain intellectual weakness which expresses itself in a tendency to give definitions, though unlike the same tendency in imbeciles it does not strive for generalization but defines the content of the stimulus-words in terms of the complex ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 208
Among the characterological disturbances in schizophrenia [dementia praecox] we might mention affectation (mannerisms, eccentricity, mania for originality, etc.). We frequently meet this symptom in hysteria, especially when patients find themselves out of their social element ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 154
A very common form of this affectation is the pretentious and artificial behavior of women of a lower social position dressmakers, nurses, maids, etc. Who mix with those socially above them, and also of men who are dissatisfied with their social status and try to give themselves at least the appearance of a better education or of a more imposing position ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 154
The affectation, in itself, contains nothing specific of schizophrenia. The disease takes over the mechanism from the normal, or rather from the caricature of the normal, hysteria ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 155
Such patients have a special predilection for neologisms, which they used mostly as learned or otherwise distinguished-sounding technical terms ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 155
One of my women patients called them “power-words,” and showed a special liking for the most abstruse expressions, which obviously seemed to her fraught with meaning ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 155
The “power-words” serve among other things to emphasize the personality and to make it as imposing as possible ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 155
The emphasis laid on “power-words” accentuates the value of the personality in the face of doubt and hostility, and for this reason they are frequently used as defensive and exorcistic formulae ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 155
The affectation also expresses itself in gesture and handwriting, the latter being adorned with all kinds of peculiar flourishes ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 156
Normal analogies can be found in young girls who, out of caprice, affect an especially striking or original script ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 156
The same thing can be seen in temperamental hysterics, and it is often easy to show that the change in writing begins at the place where the complex is touched. Even with normal people one can often see disturbances at such places ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 156
We do not always have this impression in hysteria, though we can see for ourselves that correct orientation does exist by hypnotizing the patient ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 163
As in hysteria the disorientation is due to a pathogenic complex momentarily pushing aside the ego-complex, so in schizophrenia it may easily happen that quite clear answers are followed the next moment by the most extraordinary utterances ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 163
A strong complex, for instance, a nagging worry hinders concentration. We are unable to tear ourselves away from it and direct our activity and interest into other channels ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
Or if we try to tear ourselves away in order to “forget our worries,” we succeed perhaps for a short time but we do it only “half-heartedly”. Without our knowing it, the complex prevents us from giving ourselves wholly to the task in hand ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
We succumb to all kinds of inhibitions. In the pauses of thought (“thought-deprivation”) fragments of the complex appear and, as in the word association experiment, cause characteristic disturbances in the intellectual performance ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
We make slips of the pen in accordance with the rules of Meringer and Mayer, we produce condensations, perseverations, anticipations, etc., and Freudian errors which reveal by their content the determining complex ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
Our slips of the tongue occur at the critical places, that is, when we say words that have a significance for the complex ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
We make mistakes in reading because we think we see the complex-words in the text where frequently these words appear in the peripheral field of vision (Bleuler) ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
In the midst of our “distracting” occupations we catch ourselves singing or whistling a certain melody. The words, which we have great difficulty in remembering, are a complex constellation ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
We may be haunted all day by an obsession, by a melody or a word that is always on the tip of our tongue. These too are complex constellations ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
Or we make doodles on paper or on the table which are not difficult to interpret in terms of the complex ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
Wherever the disturbances caused by the complex express themselves in words we find displacements by clang similarities or by combinations of phrases ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
Melodic automatisms show us once again how repressed thoughts are disguised ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 117
We know that singing and whistling often accompany activities which do not require full “investment of attention” (Freud) ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 117
The residual attention is therefore relating to the complex, but the purposive activity prevents the complex from becoming clear, it can only show itself instinctively, as for instance in the melodic automatisms that contain the thought complex in the usual metaphorical form ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 117
Every affective event becomes a complex. If it [an affective event] does not encounter a related and already existing complex and is only of momentary significance, it gradually sinks with decreasing feeling-tone into the latent mass of memories, where it remains until a related impression reproduces it again ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 140
But if it [the affective event] encounters an already existing complex, it reinforces it and helps it to gain the upper hand for a while ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 140
The clearest examples of this can be seen in hysteria, where apparent trifles may lead to tremendous outbursts of affect. In such cases the impression has impinged, either directly or symbolically, on the insufficiently repressed complex and thereby evoked a veritable storm, which considering the insignificance of the event often seems altogether disproportionate ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 140
We also find that the strongest feelings and impulses are connected with the strongest complexes ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 140
It is therefore not surprising that the majority of complexes are of an erotic-sexual nature, as also are most dreams and most of the hysterias ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 140
Every affective event becomes a complex. If it [an affective event] does not encounter a related and already existing complex and is only of momentary significance, it gradually sinks with decreasing feeling-tone into the latent mass of memories, where it remains until a related impression reproduces it again ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 140
But if it [the affective event] encounters an already existing complex, it reinforces it and helps it to gain the upper hand for a while ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 140
The clearest examples of this can be seen in hysteria, where apparent trifles may lead to tremendous outbursts of affect. In such cases the impression has impinged, either directly or symbolically, on the insufficiently repressed complex and thereby evoked a veritable storm, which considering the insignificance of the event often seems altogether disproportionate ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 140
The affectation, in itself, contains nothing specific of schizophrenia. The disease takes over the mechanism from the normal, or rather from the caricature of the normal, hysteria ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 155
Such patients have a special predilection for neologisms, which they used mostly as learned or otherwise distinguished-sounding technical terms ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 155
A schizophrenic patient under my care, if the doctors refused him anything, used to threaten them with the words: “I, the Grand Duke Mephisto, shall have you treated with blood vengeance for orangutan representations” ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 155
Schizophrenic patients frequently have a characteristic handwriting: it expresses the contradictory tendencies in their psyche, the script being now sloping and cursive, now upright, now large, now small ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 156
Since, for many people, the sexual complex cannot be acted out in a natural way, it makes use of by-ways ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 105
During puberty it takes the form of more or less abnormal sexual fantasies, frequently alternating with phases of religious enthusiasm (displacements) ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 105
In men, sexuality, if not acted out directly, is frequently converted into a feverish professional activity or a passion for dangerous sports, etc., or into some learned hobby, such as a collecting mania. Women take up some kind of philanthropic work, which is usually determined by the special form of the complex ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 105
They devote themselves to nursing in hospitals where there are young assistant physicians, or they develop strange eccentricities, a prim, affected behavior which is meant to express distinction and proud resignation ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 105
There is, however, one very common displacement, and that is the disguising of a complex by the superimposition of a contrasting mood. We frequently meet this phenomenon in people who have to banish some chronic worry ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 105
Women betray themselves by a shrill, aggressive gaiety, men by sudden alcoholic and other excesses (also fugues) ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 105
These displacements and disguises may, as we know, produce real double personalities, such as have always excited the interest of psychological writers (cf. the recurrent problem in Goethe of “two souls,” and among the moderns Hermann Bahr, Gorky, and others) ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 105
“Double personality” is not just a literary phrase, it is a scientific fact of general interest to psychology and psychiatry, especially when it manifests itself in the form of double consciousness or dissociation of the personality. ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 105
It sometimes happens that the displacement gradually becomes stable and superficially at least replaces the original character ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 106
Everyone knows people who, judged externally, are enormously gay and entertaining. Inwardly, and sometimes even in private life, they are sullen grumblers nursing an old wound ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 106
Often their [the grumbler’s] true nature suddenly bursts through the artificial covering, the assumed blithesomeness vanishes at a stroke, and we are confronted with a different person ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 106
A single word, a gesture, if it touches the sore spot, reveals the complex lurking in the depths of the psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 106
We succumb to all kinds of inhibitions. In the pauses of thought (“thought-deprivation”) fragments of the complex appear and, as in the word association experiment, cause characteristic disturbances in the intellectual performance ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
We may be haunted all day by an obsession, by a melody or a word that is always on the tip of our tongue. These too are complex constellations ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
Wherever the disturbances caused by the complex express themselves in words we find displacements by clang similarities or by combinations of phrases ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 109
Melodic automatisms show us once again how repressed thoughts are disguised ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 117
The residual attention is therefore relating to the complex, but the purposive activity prevents the complex from becoming clear, it can only show itself instinctively, as for instance in the melodic automatisms that contain the thought complex in the usual metaphorical form ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 117
Besides this special form of sexual complex, which I have chosen as a paradigm for didactic reasons, since it is the commonest and best-known form of obsessional complex, there are naturally many other kinds of sexual complexes which can exert an equally strong influence ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 104
Among women the complexes of unrequited or otherwise hopeless love are very common. ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 104
Here we find an exceedingly strong complex-sensitiveness. The slightest hint from the other sex is assimilated to the complex and elaborated with complete blindness for even the weightiest arguments to the contrary ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 104
An insignificant remark of the adored is construed as a powerful subjective proof of his love. The chance interests of the intended become the starting-point for similar interests on the woman’s part symptomatic action which rapidly disappears when the wedding finally takes place or if the object of adoration changes ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 104
The complex-sensitiveness also shows itself in an unusual sensitiveness to sexual stimuli, which appears particularly in the form of prudery ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 104
Those obsessed by the complex ostentatiously avoid in their younger years everything that could remind them of sex the well-known “innocence” of grown-up daughters ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 104
Although they know where everything is and what it means, their whole behavior gives the impression that they never had an inkling of things sexual ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 104
If one has to inquire into these matters for medical reasons, one thinks at first that one is on virgin soil, but one soon finds that all the necessary knowledge is there, except that the patient does not know where she got it from ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 104
In later years the prudery often becomes unbearable, or the patient displays a naïve symptomatic interest in all sorts of natural situations in which one “may now take an interest because one is past the age” and so on ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 104
The objects of this symptomatic interest are brides, pregnancies, births, scandals, and so on ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 104
The fine nose of elderly ladies for these matters is proverbial. They are passed off as “objective, purely human interest” ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 104
In men, sexuality, if not acted out directly, is frequently converted into a feverish professional activity or a passion for dangerous sports, etc., or into some learned hobby, such as a collecting mania ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 105
Women take up some kind of philanthropic work, which is usually determined by the special form of the complex ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 105
The first group is best illustrated by the legend of Ramón Lully, who, as a gallant adventurer, had long courted a lady. Finally the longed-for billet arrived, inviting him to a midnight assignation. Lully, full of expectation, came to the appointed place, and as he approached the lady, who was awaiting him, she suddenly threw open her robe and uncovered her cancer-eaten bosom. This episode made such an impression on Lully that from then on he devoted his life to pious asceticism ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 89
There are impressions which last a lifetime. The lasting effects of strong religious impressions or of shattering experiences, which are well known ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 90
The effects are particularly strong in youth. Indeed, the whole aim of education is to implant lasting complexes in the child ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 90
The durability of a complex is guaranteed by its continually active feeling-tone. If the feeling-tone is extinguished, the complex is extinguished with it ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 90
The persistence of a feeling-tone complex naturally has the same constellating effect on the rest of the psychic activities as an acute affect. Whatever suits the complex is assimilated, everything else is excluded or at least inhibited. The best examples of this can be seen in religious convictions ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 90
There is no argument, no matter how threadbare, that is not advanced if it is pro, while on the other hand the strongest and most plausible arguments contra make no impression; they simply bounce off, because emotional inhibitions are stronger than all logic ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 90
Even in quite intelligent people who have considerable education and experience, one can sometimes observe a real blindness, a true systematic anaesthesia, when one tries to convince them, say of the theory of determinism. And how often does a single unpleasant impression produce in some people an unshakable false judgment, which no logic, no matter how cogent, can dislodge! ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 90
The effects of the complex extend, however, not only to thought but to action, which is continually forced in a quite definite direction ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 91
For instance, many people unthinkingly perform religious rites and all kinds of groundless actions despite the fact that intellectually they have long since out grown them ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 91
The second group of chronic effects of the complex, where the feeling-tone is constantly maintained by active stimuli, affords the best examples of complex constellations ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 92
The strongest and most lasting effects are seen above all in sexual complexes, where the feeling-tone is constantly maintained, for instance by unsatisfied sexual desire ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 92
A glance at the legends of the saints, or at Zola’s novels Lourdes or The Dream, will provide numerous examples of this. Yet the constellations are not always quite so crude and obvious, often they are more subtle influences, masked by symbolisms, that sway our thoughts and actions ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 92
Complexes are mostly in a state of repression because they are concerned as a rule with the most intimate secrets which are anxiously guarded and which the subject either will not or cannot divulge ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 93
Even under normal conditions the repression may be so strong that the subject has an hysterical amnesia for the complex. That is, he has the feeling that some idea, some significant association, is coming up, but a vague hesitation keeps the reproduction back. He feels he wants to say something, but it slips away again immediately. What has slipped away is the thought-complex ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 93
The most trivial objects are guarded like priceless jewels, so far as they relate to the complex; his whole environment is viewed sub specie amoris ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 102
Anything that does not suit the complex simply glances off, all the other interests sink to nothing, there is a standstill and temporary atrophy of the personality ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 102
Only what suits the complex arouses affects and is assimilated by the psyche. All thoughts and actions tend in the direction of the complex; whatever cannot be constrained in the direction is repudiated, or is performed perfunctorily without emotion and without care ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 102
In attending to indifferent matters the most extraordinary compromise formations are produced; slips of the pen referring to the erotic complex creep into business letters, suspicious slips of the tongue occur in speaking ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 102
The flow of objective thought is constantly interrupted by invasions from the complex, there are long gaps in one’s thought which are filled out with erotic episodes ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 102
The foregoing well-known paradigm [paragraph “s” above] shows clearly the effect of a strong complex on a normal psyche. We see how the psychic energy applies itself wholly to the complex at the expense of the other psychic material, which in consequence remains unused. All stimuli that do not suit the complex undergo a partial apperceptive degeneration with emotional impoverishment ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 103
Even the feeling-tone becomes inappropriate: trifles such as ribbons, pressed flowers, snapshots, billets doux, a lock of hair, etc., are cherished with the greatest care, while vital questions are often dismissed with a smile or with complete indifference ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 103
On the other hand the slightest remark even remotely touching on the complex instantly arouses a violent outburst of anger or pain which may assume pathological proportions ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 103
If we had no means of feeling our way into the psyche of a normal person in love, his behavior would seem to us that of an hysteric or a catatonic ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 103
In hysteria, where the complex-sensitiveness is far greater than normal, we have almost no means of feeling our way, and must laboriously accustom ourselves to intuiting the meaning of the hysterical affects. This is quite impossible in catatonia, perhaps because we still know too little about hysteria ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 103
Every molecule participated in this feeling-tone, so that, whether it appears by itself or in conjunction with others, it always carries this feeling-tone with it, and it does this with the greater distinctness the more distinctly we can see its connection with the complex-situation as a whole ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 80
This behavior may be compared directly to Wagnerian music. The leitmotiv, as a sort of feel-tone, denotes a complex of ideas which is essential to the dramatic structure ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 80
Each time one or the other complex is stimulated by something someone does or says, the relevant leitmotiv is sounded in one of its variants ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 80
It is exactly the same in ordinary psychic life: the leitmotivs are the feeling-tones of our complexes, our actions and moods are modulations of the leitmotivs ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 80
Large complexes are always strongly feeling-toned and, conversely, strong affects always leave behind very large complexes ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 87
This is due simply to the fact that on the one hand complexes include numerous somatic innervations, while on the other hand strong affects constellate a great many associations because of their powerful and persistent stimulation of the body ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 87
Normally, affects can go on working indefinitely (in the form of stomach and heart troubles, insomnia, tremors, etc.) Gradually, however, they subside, the ideas relating to the complex disappear from consciousness, and only in dreams do they occasionally manifest themselves in more or less disguised hints ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 87
But complexes continue to show themselves for years in the characteristic disturbances they produce in a person’s associations ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 87
Their gradual extinction is marked by one general psychological peculiarity: their readiness to reappear in almost full strength as a result of similar though much weaker stimuli ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 87
It is certain that the symptoms of negativism should not be regarded as anything clear and definite ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 27
In our view, negativism always depends ultimately on negative associations. Whether there is also a negativism that is enacted in the spinal cord I do not know ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 27
The broadest view on the question of negativism is the one taken by Bleuler, who shows that “negative suggestibility,” or the compulsion to produce contrary associations, is not only a constituent of the normal psyche but a frequent mechanism of pathological symptoms in hysteria, obsessional states, and schizophrenia [dementia praecox] ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 27
The contrary mechanism is a function existing independently of the normal associative activity and is rooted entirely in “affectivity”; hence it is actuated chiefly by strongly feeling-toned ideas, decisions, etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 27
“The mechanism is meant to guard against precipitate action and to force one to weigh the pros and cons.” The contrary mechanism acts as a counterbalance to suggestibility ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 27
Suggestibility is the capacity to accept and put into effect strongly feeling-toned ideas. The contrary mechanism does just the opposite. Bleuler’s term “negative suggestibility” is therefore fitting ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 27
Pelletier compares the superficial course of association in schizophrenia [dementia praecox] to flight of ideas ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 22
Characteristic of flight of ideas is the “absence of any directing principle” ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 22
The same is true of the course of association in schizophrenia [dementia praecox]: The directing idea is absent and the state of consciousness remains vague without any order in its elements ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 22
The only mode of psychic activity which in the normal state can be compared to mania is the daydream, although daydreaming is more the mode of thinking of the feeble-minded than of the manic (Madeleine Pelletier, pp. 116, 123, 118) ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 22
Pelletier is right in seeing a great resemblance between normal daydreaming and the superficial associations of manics, but that is true only when the associations are written down on paper ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 22
Clinically, however, the manic does not at all resemble a dreamer ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 22
The richness and acceleration of thought in manic flight of ideas can be sharply differentiated from the sluggish, often halting course of association in the dreamy type, and particularly from the poverty of associations in catatonics, with their numerous perseverations ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 22
The analogy is correct only in so far as the directing idea is absent in all these cases; in manics because all the ideas crowd into consciousness with marked acceleration and great intensity of feeling, which probably accounts for the absence of attention ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 22
In daydreaming there is no attention from the outset, and wherever this is absent the course of association must sink to the level of a dream-state, to a slow progression according to the laws of association and tending mainly towards similarity, contrast, coexistence, and verbal-motor combinations ~Carl Jung, CW 3, Para 22
Every affective event becomes a complex. ~C.G. Jung, CW 3, par. 140
Carl Jung: *CW 4 “Freud and Psychoanalysis”
Error is just as important a condition of life’s progress as truth. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 451
I may now add that civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind. ~Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, Page 118
That day saw the death of my connection with therapy by suggestion; the notoriety aroused by this case shamed and depressed me. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 581
If only one did not have a scientific conscience and that hankering after the truth! ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 582.
I even hold it to be an indispensable prerequisite that the psychoanalyst should first submit himself to the analytical process, as his personality is one of the main factors in the cure. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 586
To anticipate a possible objection, let me say at once that I did not give up hypnosis because I wanted to avoid dealing with the basic forces of the human psyche, but because I wanted to battle with them directly and openly. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 601
I strive not to be a fanatic—though there are not a few who accuse me of fanaticism. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 602
There are cases where psychoanalysis works worse than any other method. But who has ever claimed that psychoanalysis should be used always and everywhere? ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 604
Do not forget that Kepler once cast horoscopes for money, and that countless artists are condemned to work for a living wage. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 607
The relativity of “truth” has been known for ages and does not stand in the way of anything, and if it did would merely prevent belief in dogmas and authority. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 620
So-called chance is the law and order of psychoanalysis. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 625
With the unintelligent and bigoted ones [patents] you begin quietly with the analysis. In the unconscious of such folk you have a confederate who never lets you down. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 627
When the conscious material is exhausted you go on to dreams, which give you the subliminal material. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 628
As to the question of morality and education, let me say that these things belong to a later stage of the analysis, when they find—or should find—their own solution. You cannot make recipes out of psychoanalysis! ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 631
Again, psychoanalysis is not a method of examination in the nature of an intelligence test, though this mistake is common in certain circles. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 622
Psychoanalysis is a method which makes possible the analytical reduction of psychic contents to their simplest expression, and for discovering the line of least resistance in the development of a harmonious personality. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 623
My only working rule is to conduct the analysis as a perfectly ordinary, sensible conversation, and to avoid all appearance of medical magic. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 624
So-called chance is the law and order of psychoanalysis. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 625
With the unintelligent and bigoted ones you begin quietly with the analysis. In the unconscious of such folk you have a confederate who never lets you down. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 627
If people have no dreams, as they allege, or forget them, there is usually still some conscious material that ought to be produced and discussed but is kept back owing to resistances. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 628
If the analyst demands that his patient shall get well out of love for him, the patient may easily reckon on reciprocal services, and will without doubt try to extort them. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 639
Man as a herd-animal, too, has not by any manner of means to subordinate himself to laws imposed from without; he carries his social imperatives within himself, a priori, as an inborn necessity. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 641
Psychoanalysis is only a means for removing the stones from the path of development, and not a method (as hypnotism often claims to be) of putting things into the patient that were not there before. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 648
The art of analysis lies in following the patient on all his erring ways and so gathering his strayed sheep together. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 643
Experience has convinced me that patients rapidly begin to make use of ideas picked up from psychoanalysis, as is also apparent in their dreams. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 645
The analyst must exercise all possible care and self-criticism not to let himself be led astray by his patient’s dreams. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 649
I can only gaze with wonder and awe at the depths and heights of our psychic nature. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 784
The third phase is the adult period from puberty on and may be called the period of maturity. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 265
Religions are the great-healing systems for the ills of the soul. Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 751
There are experiences which one must go through and for which reason is no substitute. Such experiences are often of inestimable value to the patient. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 446
It is a favourite neurotic misunderstanding that the right attitude to the world is found by indulgence in sex. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 440
It is in very truth the eternally living, creative, germinal layer in each of us, and though it may make use of age-old symbolical images it nevertheless intends them to be understood in a new way. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 760
Concrete values cannot take the place of the symbol; only new and more effective symbols can be substituted for those that are antiquated and outworn and have lost their efficacy through the progress of intellectual analysis and understanding. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 680
There are experiences which one must go through and for which reason is no substitute. Such experiences are often of inestimable value to the patient. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 446.
Naturally a new meaning does not come ready made out of the unconscious, like Pallas Athene springing fully armed from the head of Zeus; a living effect is achieved only when the products of the unconscious are brought into serious relationship with the conscious mind. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 760
The psyche does not merely react; it gives its own specific answer to the influences at work upon it. ~Carl Jung, CW 4; para 667
My consciousness is like an eye that penetrates to the most distant spaces, yet it is the psychic non-ego that fills them with non-spatial images. And these images are not pale shadows, but tremendously powerful psychic factors. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Page 331f.
In the past nothing can be altered, and in the present little, but the future is ours and capable of raising life’s intensity to the highest pitch. A little span of youth belongs to us, all the rest belongs to our children. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 668
I visualize the process of abstraction as a withdrawal of libido from the object, as a backflow of value from the object into a subjective, abstract content. For me, therefore, abstraction amounts to an energic devaluation of the object. In other words, abstraction is an introverting movement of libido. ~Carl Jung; CW 4; par. 679.
The belief, the self-confidence, perhaps also the devotion with which the analyst does his work, are far more important to the patient (imponderabilia though they may be), than the rehearsing of old traumata. ~Carl Jung; CW 4; par. 584.
We do not work with the “transference to the analyst,” but against it and in spite of it. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, par. 601.
Man brings with him at birth the ground-plan of his nature. ~Carl Jung; CW 4, Page 728.
There are analysts who believe that they can get along without self-analysis. This is Munchausen psychology, and they will certainly remain stuck. They forget that one of the most important therapeutically effective factors is subjecting you to the objective judgment of another. As regards ourselves we remain blind, despite everything and everybody. Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 449.
Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but on error also. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 74
One could almost say that if all the world’s traditions were cut off at a single blow, the whole of mythology and the whole history of religion would start all over again with the next generation. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 30
The first phase embraces the first years of life; I call this period the presexual stage. It corresponds to the caterpillar stage of butterflies and is characterized almost exclusively by the functions of nutrition and growth. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 263
The second phase embraces the later years of childhood up to puberty and might be called the prepubertal stage. Germination of sexuality takes place at this period. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 264
Religions are the great-healing systems for the ills of the soul. Carl Jung, CW 4, Paragraph 751
The neurotic is ill not because he has lost his old faith but because he has not yet found a new form for his finest aspirations. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 669
The unconscious is not just a receptacle for all unclean spirits and other odious legacies from the dead past—such as, for instance, that deposit of centuries of public opinion which constitutes Freud’s “superego.” ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 760
The further development of the individual can be brought about only by means of symbols which represent something far in advance of himself and whose intellectual meanings cannot yet be grasped entirely. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 680
Man “possesses” many things which he has never acquired but has inherited from his ancestors. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 728
There are experiences which one must go through and for which reason is no substitute. Such experiences are often of inestimable value to the patient. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 446.
I can only gaze with wonder and awe at the depths and heights of our psychic nature. Its non-spatial universe conceals an untold abundance of images which have accumulated over millions of years of development… The only equivalent of the universe within is the universe without. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 331.
The psychological trouble in neurosis, and the neurosis itself, can be formulated as an act of adaptation that has failed. ~Carl Jung; CW 4; par. 574.
We yield too much to the ridiculous fear that we are at bottom quite impossible beings, that if everyone were to appear as he really is a frightful social catastrophe would ensue. Many people today take “man as he really is” to mean merely the eternally discontented, anarchic, rapacious element in human beings, quite forgetting that these same human beings have also erected those firmly established forms of civilization which possess greater strength and stability than all the anarchic undercurrents. The strengthening of his social personality is one of the essential conditions for man’s existence. Were it not so, humanity would cease to be. The selfishness and rebelliousness we meet in the neurotic’s psychology are not “man as he really is” but an infantile distortion. In reality the normal man is “civicminded and moral”; he created his laws and observes them, not because they are imposed on him from without—that is a childish delusion—but because he loves law and order more than he loves disorder and lawlessness. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 442
I can only gaze with wonder and awe at the depths and heights of our psychic nature. Its non-spatial universe conceals an untold abundance of images which have accumulated over millions of years of living development and become fixed in the organism. My consciousness is like an eye that penetrates to the most distant spaces, yet it is the psychic non-ego that fills them with non-spatial images. And these images are not pale shadows, but tremendously powerful psychic factors. The most we may be able to do is misunderstand them, but we can never rob them of their power by denying them. Beside this picture I would like to place the spectacle of the starry heavens at night, for the only equivalent of the universe within is the universe without; and just as I reach this world through the medium of the body, so I reach that world through the medium of the psyche. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 784
Even the so-called highly scientific suggestion therapy employs the wares of the medicine-man and the exorcising shaman. And why not? The public is not much more advanced either and continues to expect miraculous cures from the doctor. And indeed, we must rate those doctors wise worldly-wise in every sense—who know how to surround themselves with the aura of a medicine-man. They have not only the biggest practices but also get the best results. This is because, apart from the neuroses, countless physical illnesses are tainted and complicated with psychic material to an unsuspected degree. The medical exorcist betrays by his whole demeanour his full appreciation of that psychic component when he gives the patient the opportunity of fixing his faith firmly on the mysterious personality of the doctor. In this way he wins the sick man’s mind, which from then on helps him to restore his body to health. The cure works best when the doctor himself believes in his own formulae, otherwise he may be overcome by scientific doubt and so lose the proper convincing tone. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 578
Medicine in the hand of a fool was ever poison and death. Just as we demand from a surgeon, besides his technical knowledge, a skilled hand, courage, presence of mind, and power of decision, so we must expect from an analyst a very serious and thorough psychoanalytic training of his own personality before we are willing to entrust a patient to him. I would even go so far as to say that the acquisition and practice of the psychoanalytic technique presuppose not only a specific psychological gift but in the very first place a serious concern with the moulding of one’s own character. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 450
There are analysts who believe that they can get along with a self-analysis. This is Munchausen psychology, and they will certainly remain stuck. They forget that one of the most important therapeutically effective factors is subjecting yourself to the objective judgment of another. As regards ourselves we remain blind, despite everything and everybody. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 449
We would be doing our neurotic patients a grievous wrong if we tried to force them all into the category of the coerced. Among neurotics, there are not a few who do not require any reminders of their social duties and obligations but are born and destined rather to be bearers of new cultural ideals. They are neurotic as long as they bow down before authority and refuse the freedom to which they are destined. As long as we look at life only retrospectively, as is the case in the psychoanalytic writings of the Viennese school, we shall never do justice to these persons and never bring them the longed-for deliverance. For in this way we train them only to be obedient children and thereby strengthen the very forces that made them ill—their conservative backwardness and submission to authority. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 658
The small world of the child, the family milieu, is the model for the big world. The more intensely the family sets its stamp on the child, the more he will be emotionally inclined, as an adult, to see in the great world his former small world. Of course this must not be taken as a conscious intellectual process. On the contrary, the patient feels and sees the difference between now and then and tries as well as he can to adapt himself. Perhaps he will even believe himself perfectly adapted, since he may be able to grasp the situation intellectually, but that does not prevent his emotions from lagging far behind his intellectual insight. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 312
Nowadays we have no real sexual morality, only a legalistic attitude to sexuality; just as the Middle Ages had no real morality of money-making but only prejudices and a legalistic point of view. We are not yet far enough advanced to distinguish between moral and immoral behaviour in the realm of free sexual activity. This is clearly expressed in the customary treatment, or rather ill-treatment, of unmarried mothers. All the repulsive hypocrisy, the high tide of prostitution and of venereal diseases, we owe to the barbarous, wholesale legal condemnation of certain kinds of sexual behaviour, and to our inability to develop a finer moral sense for the enormous psychological differences that exist in the domain of free sexual activity. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 666
We deceive ourselves greatly if we think that many married women are neurotic merely because they are unsatisfied sexually or because they have not found the right man or because they have an infantile sexual fixation. The real reason in many cases is that they cannot recognize the cultural task that is waiting for them. We all have far too much the standpoint of the “nothing but” psychology, that is, we still think that the new future which is pressing in at the door can be squeezed into the framework of what is already known. Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 668
Psychoanalysis cannot be considered a method of education, if by education we mean the topiary art of clipping a tree into a beautiful artificial shape. But those who have a higher conception of education will prize most the method of cultivating a tree so that it fulfils to perfection its own natural conditions of growth. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 442
The fact that by far the greater part of humanity not only needs guidance but wishes for nothing better than to be guided and held in tutelage, justifies, in a sense, the moral value which the Church sets on confession. The priest, equipped with all the insignia of paternal authority, becomes the responsible leader and shepherd of his flock. He is the father confessor and the members of his parish are his penitent children. Thus priest and Church replace the parents, and to that extent they free the individual from the bonds of the family. In so far as the priest is a morally elevated personality with a natural nobility of soul and a mental culture to match, the institution of confession may be commended as brilliant method of social guidance and education, which did in fact perform a tremendous educative task for more than fifteen hundred years. So long as the medieval Church knew how to be the guardian of art and science—a role in which her success was due, in part, to her wide tolerance of worldly interests—confession was an admirable instrument of education. But it lost its educative value, at least for more highly developed people, as soon as the Church proved incapable of maintaining her leadership in the intellectual sphere—the inevitable consequence of spiritual rigidity. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 433
The discovery of the value of human personality is reserved for a riper age. For young people the search for personality values is very often a pretext for evading their biological duty. Conversely, the exaggerated longing of an older person for the sexual values of youth is a short-sighted and often cowardly evasion of a duty which demands recognition of the value of personality and submission to the hierarchy of cultural values. The young neurotic shrinks back in terror from the expansion of life’s duties, the old one from the dwindling of the treasures he has attained. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 664
The psyche does not merely react, it gives its own specific answer to the influences at work upon it, and at least half the resulting formation is entirely due to the psyche and the determinants inherent within it. Culture can never be understood as reaction to environment. That shallow explanation can safely be left to the past century. It is just these determinants that appear as psychological imperatives, and we have daily proof of their compelling power. What I call “biological duty” is identical with these determinants. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 665
Only those who regard the happenings in this world as a concatenation of errors and accidents, and who therefore believe that the pedagogic hand of the rationalist is constantly needed to guide us, can ever imagine that this path [of psychoanalysis] was an aberration from which we should have been warned off with a signboard. Besides the deeper insight into psychological determination, we owe to this “error” a method of inquiry of incalculable importance. It is for us to rejoice and be thankful that Freud had the courage to let himself be guided along this path. Not thus is the progress of science hindered, but rather by blind adherence to insights once gained, by the typical conservatism of authority, by the childish vanity of the savant and his fear of making mistakes. This lack of courage is considerably more injurious to the name of science than an honest error. When will there be an end to the incessant squabbling about who is right? One has only to look at the history of science how many have been right, and how few have remained right! ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 302
Dogma and science are incommensurable quantities which damage one another by mutual contamination. Dogma as a factor in religion is of inestimable value precisely because of its absolute standpoint. But when science dispenses with criticism and scepticism it degenerates into a sickly hot-house plant. One of the elements necessary to science is extreme uncertainty. Whenever science inclines towards dogma and shows a tendency to be impatient and fanatical, it is concealing a doubt which in all probability is justified and explaining away an uncertainty which is only too well founded. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 746
One-sidedness appears over and over again in the history of science. I am not saying this as a reproach on the contrary, we must be glad that there are people who are courageous enough to be immoderate and one-sided. It is to them that we owe our discoveries. What is regrettable is that each should defend his one-sidedness so passionately. Scientific theories are merely suggestions as to how things might be observed. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 241
In this overpoweringly humdrum existence, alas, there is little out of the ordinary that is healthy, and not much room for conspicuous heroism. Not that heroic demands are never put to us on the contrary—and this is just what is so irritating and irksome—the banal everyday makes banal demands on our patience, our devotion, perseverance, self-sacrifice; and for us to fulfil these demands (as we must) humbly and without courting applause through heroic gestures, a heroism is needed that cannot be seen from the outside. It does not glitter, is not belauded, and it always seeks concealment in everyday attire. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 72
Moral law is nothing other than an outward manifestation of man’s innate urge to dominate and control himself. This impulse to domestication and civilization is lost in the dim, unfathomable depths of man’s evolutionary history and can never be conceived as the consequence of laws imposed from without, Man himself, obeying his instincts, created his laws. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 486
We should never forget that what today seems to us a moral commandment will tomorrow be cast into the melting-pot and transformed, so that in the near or distant future it may serve as a basis for new ethical formations. This much we ought to have learnt from the history of civilization, that the forms of morality belong to the category of transitory things. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 667
Widely accepted ideas are never the personal property of their so-called author; on the contrary, he is the bondservant of his ideas. Impressive ideas which are hailed as truths have something peculiar about them. Although they come into being at a definite time, they are and have always been timeless; they arise from that realm of creative psychic life out of which the ephemeral mind of the single human being grows like a plant that blossoms, bears fruit and seed, and then withers and dies. Ideas spring from something greater than the personal human being. Man does not make his ideas; we could say that man’s ideas make him. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 769
We can understand at once the fear that the child and the primitive have of the great unknown. We have the same childish fear of our inner side, where we likewise touch upon a great unknown world. All we have is the affect, the fear, without knowing that this is a world-fear—for the world of affects is invisible. We have either purely theoretical prejudices against it, or superstitious ideas. One cannot even talk about the unconscious before many educated people without being accused of mysticism. The fear is legitimate in so far as our rational Weltanschauung with its scientific and moral certitudes—so hotly believed in because so deeply questionable—is shattered by the facts of the other side. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 324
Has mankind ever really got away from myths? Everyone who has his eyes and wits about him can see that the world is dead, cold, and unending. Never yet has he beheld a God or been compelled to require the existence of such a God from the evidence of his senses. On the contrary, it needed the strongest inner compulsion, which can only be explained by the irrational force of instinct, for man to invent those religious beliefs whose absurdity was long since pointed out by Tertullian. In the same way one can withhold the material content of primitive myths from a child but not take from him the need for mythology, and still less his ability to manufacture it for himself. One could almost say that if all the world’s traditions were cut off at a single blow, the whole of mythology and the whole history of religion would start all over again with the next generation. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 30
It was of profound psychological significance when Christianity first proclaimed that the orientation to the future was the redeeming principle for mankind. In the past nothing can be altered, and in the present little, but the future is ours and capable of raising life’s intensity to the highest pitch. A little span of youth belongs to us, all the rest belongs to our children. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 668
We must never forget that the world is, in the first place, a subjective phenomenon. The impressions we receive from these accidental happenings are also our own doing. It is not true that the impressions are forced on us unconditionally, our own predisposition conditions the impression. A man whose libido is blocked will have, as a rule, quite different and very much more vivid impressions than one whose libido is organized in a wealth of activities. A person who is sensitive in one way or another will receive a deep impression from an event which would leave a less sensitive person cold. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 400
Is not every experience, even in the best of circumstances, at least fifty-per-cent subjective interpretation? On the other hand, the subject is also an objective fact, a piece of the world; and what comes from him comes, ultimately, from the stuff of the world itself, just as the rarest and strangest organism is none the less supported and nourished by the earth which is common to all. It is precisely the most subjective ideas which, being closest to nature and to our own essence, deserve to be called the truest. But: “What is truth?” ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 770
We know that the first impressions of childhood accompany us inalienably throughout life, and that, just as indestructibly, certain educational influences can keep people all their lives within those limits. In these circumstances it is not surprising that conflicts break out between the personality moulded by educational and other influences of the infantile milieu and one’s own individual style of life. It is a conflict which all those must face who are called upon to live a life that is independent and creative. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 310
Theology does not help those who are looking for the key, because theology demands faith, and faith cannot be made: it is in the truest sense a gift of grace. We moderns are faced with the necessity of rediscovering the life of the spirit; we must experience it anew for ourselves. It is the only way in which to break the spell that binds us to the cycle of biological events. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 780
The more highly developed men of our time do not want to be guided by a creed or a dogma; they want to understand. So it is not surprising if they throw aside everything they do not understand; and religious symbols, being the least intelligible of all, are generally the first to go overboard. The sacrifice of the intellect demanded by a positive belief is a violation against which the conscience of the more highly developed individual rebels. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 434
When someone knocks in a nail with a hammer in order to hang something up, we can understand every detail of the action; it is immediately evident. It is otherwise with the act of baptism, where every phase is problematic. We call these actions, whose meaning and purpose are not immediately evident, symbolic actions, or symbols. On the basis of this reasoning we call a dream symbolic because it is a psychological product whose origin, meaning, and purpose are obscure, and is therefore one of the purest products of unconscious constellation. As Freud aptly says, the dream is the via regia to the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 334
It will not have escaped you that the greatest difficulty lies in assigning limits to the pre-sexual stage. I am ready to confess my great uncertainty in regard to this problem. When I look back on my own psychoanalytic experiences with children-insufficiently numerous as yet unfortunately-at the same time bearing in mind the observations made by Freud, it seems to me that the limits of this phase lie between the third and fifth year, subject, of course, to individual variation. This age is an important one in many respects. The child has already outgrown the helplessness of a baby, and a number of important psychological functions have acquired a reliable hold. From this period on, the profound darkness of the early infantile amnesia, or discontinuity of consciousness, begins to be illuminated by the sporadic continuity of memory. It seems as if, at this stage, an essential step forward is taken in the emancipation and centering of the new personality. So far as we know, the first signs of interests and activities which may fairly be called sexual also fall into this period, even though these indications still have the infantile characteristics of harmlessness and naiveté.” ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 266
Freud’s approach is not always mistaken, however, for consciousness is not always firmly established. This presupposes a good deal of experience of life and a certain amount of maturity. Young people, who are very far from knowing who they really are, would run a great risk if they obscured their knowledge of themselves still further by letting the “dark night of the soul” pour into their immature, labile consciousness. Here a certain depreciation of the unconscious is justified. Experience has convinced me that there are not only different temperaments (“types”), but different stages of psychological development, so that one can well say that there is an essential difference between the psychology of the first and the second half of life. Here again I differ from the others in maintaining that the same psychological criteria are not applicable to the different stages of life. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 762
For thousands of years, rites of initiation have been teaching rebirth from the spirit; yet, strangely enough, man forgets again and again the meaning of divine procreation. Though this may be poor testimony to the strength of the spirit, the penalty for misunderstanding is neurotic decay, embitterment, atrophy, and sterility. It is easy enough to drive the spirit out of the door, but when we have done so the meal has lost its savour—the salt of the earth. Fortunately, we have proof that the spirit always renews its strength in the fact that the essential teaching of the initiations is handed on from generation to generation. Ever and again there are human beings who understand what it means that God is their father. The equal balance of the flesh and the spirit is not lost to the world. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 783
Among neurotics, there are not a few who do not require any reminders of their social duties and obligations but are born and destined rather to be bearers of new cultural ideals. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 658
(As you know, by libido I mean very much what the ancients meant by the cosmogonic principle of Eros, or in modern language, “psychic energy.”) ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 661
If the analyst himself is neurotic and insufficiently adapted to the demands of life or of his own personality, the patient will copy this defect and reflect it in his own attitudes: with what results you can imagine. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 661
I ought not to conceal from you at this point that the stubborn assertion of sexual values would not be maintained so tenaciously if they did not have a profound significance for that period of life in which propagation is of primary importance. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 664
The discovery of the value of human personality is reserved for a riper age. For young people the search for personality values is very often a pretext for evading their biological duty. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 664
Conversely, the exaggerated longing of an older person for the sexual values of youth is a short-sighted and often cowardly evasion of a duty which demands recognition of the value of personality and submission to the hierarchy of cultural values. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 664
The young neurotic shrinks back in terror from the expansion of life’s duties, the old one from the dwindling of the treasures he has attained. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 664
External causes can account for at most half the reaction, the other half is due to the peculiar attributes of living matter itself, without which the specific reaction formation could never come about at all. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 665
The psyche does not merely react, it gives its own specific answer to the influences at work upon it, and at least half the resulting formation is entirely due to the psyche and the determinants inherent within it. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 665
Culture can never be understood as reaction to environment. That shallow explanation can safely be left to the past century. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 665
But in certain cases it is a recognized fact that “immoral” tendencies are not got rid of by analysis but appear more and more clearly until it becomes evident that they belong to the biological duties of the individual. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 665
Nowadays we have no real sexual morality, only a legalistic attitude to sexuality; just as the Middle Ages had no real morality of money-making but only prejudices and a legalistic point of view. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 666
We are not yet far enough advanced to distinguish between moral and immoral behaviour in the realm of free sexual activity. This is clearly expressed in the customary treatment, or rather ill-treatment, of unmarried mothers. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 666
All the repulsive hypocrisy, the high tide of prostitution and of venereal diseases, we owe to the barbarous, wholesale legal condemnation of certain kinds of sexual behaviour, and to our inability to develop a finer moral sense for the enormous psychological differences that exist in the domain of free sexual activity. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 666
The existence of this exceedingly complicated and significant contemporary problem may serve to make clear to you why we so often find among our patients people who, because of their spiritual and social gifts, are quite specifically called to take an active part in the work of civilization—that is their biological destiny. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 667
We should never forget that what today seems to us a moral commandment will tomorrow be cast into the melting-pot and transformed, so that in the near or distant future it may serve as a basis for new ethical formations. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 667
Five percent on money lent is fair interest, twenty per cent is despicable usury. We have to apply this view to the sexual situation as well. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 667
We deceive ourselves greatly if we think that many married women are neurotic merely because they are unsatisfied sexually or because they have not found the right man or because they have an infantile sexual fixation. The real reason in many cases is that they cannot recognize the cultural task that is waiting for them. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 668
It was of profound psychological significance when Christianity first proclaimed that the orientation to the future was the redeeming principle for mankind. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 668
In the past nothing can be altered, and in the present little, but the future is ours and capable of raising life’s intensity to the highest pitch. A little span of youth belongs to us, all the rest belongs to our children. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 668
The dream presents itself to us as a more or less unintelligible jumble of elements not at first conscious and only recognized afterwards through their associations. It should be added that not all parts of the dream have a recognizable quality from which their conscious character can be deduced; they are often, and indeed mostly, unrecognizable at first. Only afterwards does it occur to us that we have consciously experienced this or that part of the dream. From this standpoint alone we may regard the dream as a product of unconscious origin ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 324
Freud attaches great significance to verbal expression one of the most important components of our thinking because the double meaning of words is a favourite channel for the displacement and improper expression of affects ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 46
An object in which, on the contrary, I feel much interest will evoke numerous associations and preoccupy me for a long while. Every emotion produces a more or less extensive complex of associations which I have called the “feeling-toned complex of ideas” ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 67
In studying an individual case history we always discover that the complex exerts the strongest “constellating” force, from which we conclude that in any analysis we shall meet with it from the start ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 67
The complexes appear as the chief components of the psychological disposition in every psychic structure. In the dream, for example, we encounter the emotional components, for it is easy to understand that all the products of psychic activity depend above all upon the strongest “constellating” influences ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 67
In Freud’s definition the term libido connotes an exclusively sexual need, hence everything that Freud means by libido must be understood as sexual need or sexual desire ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 252
In medicine the term libido is certainly used for sexual desire, and specifically for sexual lust ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 252
But the classical use of the word [libido] as found in Cicero, Sallust, and others was not so exclusive; there it is used in the more general sense of passionate desire ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 252
I mention this fact now, because further on it will play an important part in our argument, and because it is important to know that the term libido really has a much wider range of meaning than it has in medicine ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 252
The symptoms of a neurosis must be regarded as exaggerated functions over-invested with libido ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 254
The energy used for this purpose has been taken from somewhere else, and it is the task of the psychoanalyst to discover the place it was taken from or where it was never applied ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 254
The question has to be reversed in the case of those syndromes characterized mainly by lack of libido, for instance apathetic states ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 255
Here we have to ask, where did the libido go? The patient gives us the impression of having no libido, and there are many doctors who take him at face value ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 255
Such doctors have a primitive way of thinking, like a savage who, seeing an eclipse of the sun, believes that the sun has been swallowed and killed. But the sun is only hidden, and so it is with these patients. The libido is there, but it is not visible and is inaccessible to the patient himself. Superficially, we have here a lack of libido ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 255
It is the task of psychoanalysis to search out that hidden place where the libido dwells and where the patient himself cannot get at it ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 255
The hidden place is the “non-conscious,” which we may also call the “unconscious” without attributing to it any mystical significance ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 255
We shall now try to fit the new conception of libido into the theory of infantile sexuality, which is so very important for the theory of neurosis ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 290
In infants we find that libido as energy, as a vital activity, first manifests itself in the nutritional zone, where, in the act of sucking, food is taken in with a rhythmic movement and with every sign of satisfaction ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 290
With the growth of the individual and development of his organs the libido creates for itself new avenues of activity ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 290
The primary model of rhythmic movement [in infants], producing pleasure and satisfaction, is now transferred to the zone of the other functions, with sexuality as its ultimate goal ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 290
A considerable portion of the “alimentary libido” has to convert itself into “sexual libido” ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 290
This transition does not take place quite suddenly at puberty, but only very gradually during the course of childhood. The libido can free itself only with difficulty and quite slowly from the modality of the nutritive function in order to pass over into the sexual function ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 290
In this transitional stage there are, so far as I am able to judge, two distinct phases: the phase of sucking, and the phase of displaced rhythmic activity ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 291
Sucking belongs by its very nature to the sphere of the nutritive function, but outgrows it by ceasing to be a function of nutrition and becoming a rhythmic activity aiming at pleasure and satisfaction without intake of nourishment ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 291
As a rule, it is the other body-openings that become the first objects of libidinal interests; then the skin, or special parts of it ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 291
The activities carried out in these places, taking the form of rubbing, boring, picking, pulling, and so forth, follow a certain rhythm and serve to produce pleasure ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 291
After lingering for a while at these stations, the libido continues its wanderings until it reaches the sexual zone, where it may provide occasion for the first attempts at masturbation ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 291
This migration of libido takes place during the presexual stage, whose special distinguishing-mark is that the libido gradually sloughs off the character of the nutritive instinct and assumes that of the sexual instinct. At the stage of nutrition, therefore, we cannot yet speak of a true sexual libido ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 291
It is characteristic that the babyish word for mother, “mamma,” is the name for the maternal breast ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 346
Dr. Beatrice Hinkle has informed me, interrogation of small children elicited the fact that they defined “mother” as the person who gives food, chocolate, etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 346
One could hardly assert that for children of this age food is only a symbol for sex, though this is sometimes true for adults ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 346
A superficial glance at the history of civilization will show just how enormous the nutritive source of pleasure is. The colossal feasts of Rome in its decadence were an expression of anything you like, only not of repressed sexuality, for that is the last thing one could accuse the Romans of in those days ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 346
There is no doubt that these excesses were some kind of substitute, but not for sexuality; they were far more a substitute for neglected moral functions, which we are too prone to regard as laws forced on man from outside. Men have the laws which they make for themselves ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 346
I [Jung] do not identify the feeling of pleasure eo ipso with sexuality. Sexuality has an increasingly small share in pleasure-sensations the further back we go in childhood ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 347
Nevertheless, jealousy can play a large role, for it too is something that does not belong entirely to the sexual sphere, since the desire for food has itself much to do with the first stirrings of jealousy one has only to think of animals! ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 347
Certainly jealousy is reinforced by a budding eroticism relatively early ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 347
It is characteristic that the babyish word for mother, “mamma,” is the name for the maternal breast ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 346
Dr. Beatrice Hinkle has informed me, interrogation of small children elicited the fact that they defined “mother” as the person who gives food, chocolate, etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 346
One could hardly assert that for children of this age food is only a symbol for sex, though this is sometimes true for adults ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 346
A superficial glance at the history of civilization will show just how enormous the nutritive source of pleasure is. The colossal feasts of Rome in its decadence were an expression of anything you like, only not of repressed sexuality, for that is the last thing one could accuse the Romans of in those days ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 346
There is no doubt that these excesses were some kind of substitute, but not for sexuality; they were far more a substitute for neglected moral functions, which we are too prone to regard as laws forced on man from outside. Men have the laws which they make for themselves ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 346
I [Jung] do not identify the feeling of pleasure eo ipso with sexuality. Sexuality has an increasingly small share in pleasure-sensations the further back we go in childhood ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 347
Nevertheless, jealousy can play a large role, for it too is something that does not belong entirely to the sexual sphere, since the desire for food has itself much to do with the first stirrings of jealousy one has only to think of animals! ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 347
Certainly jealousy is reinforced by a budding eroticism relatively early ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 347
A very gradual transition occurs during the course of childhood. The libido can free itself only with difficulty and quite slowly from the modality of the nutritive function in order to pass over into the sexual function ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 290
I [Jung] do not identify the feeling of pleasure eo ipso with sexuality. Sexuality has an increasingly small share in pleasure-sensations the further back we go in childhood ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 347
Nevertheless, jealousy can play a large role, for it too is something that does not belong entirely to the sexual sphere, since the desire for food has itself much to do with the first stirrings of jealousy one has only to think of animals! ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 347
Certainly jealousy is reinforced by a budding eroticism relatively early ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 347
This element gains in strength as the years go on, so that the Oedipus complex soon assumes its classical form ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 347
We have seen that psychoanalytic theory started from a traumatic experience in childhood, which later on was found to be partly or wholly unreal. In consequence, the theory made a change of front and sought the aetiologically significant factor in the development of abnormal fantasies ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 353
The investigation of the unconscious, continued over a period of ten years with the help of an increasing number of workers, gradually brought to light a mass of empirical material which showed that the incest complex was a highly important and never-failing element in pathological fantasy ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 353
But it was found that the incest complex was not a special complex of neurotic people; it proved to be a component of the normal infantile psyche. We cannot tell from its mere existence whether this complex will give rise to a neurosis or not. To become pathogenic, it must precipitate a conflict; the complex, which in itself is inactive, must be activated and intensified to the point where a conflict breaks out ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 353
This brings us to a new and important question. If the infantile “nuclear complex” is only a general form, not in itself pathogenic but requiring special activation, then the whole aetiological problem is altered ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 354
In that case we would dig in vain among the reminiscences of earliest childhood, since they give us only the general forms of later conflicts but not the actual conflict. It makes no difference that there were already conflicts in childhood, for the conflicts of childhood are different from the conflicts of adults ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 354
Those who have suffered ever since childhood from a chronic neurosis do not suffer now from the same conflict they suffered from then. Maybe the neurosis broke out when they first had to go to school as children. Then it was the conflict between indulgence and duty, between love for their parents and the necessity of going to school. But now it is the conflict between, say, the joys of a comfortable bourgeois existence and the strenuous demands of professional life. It only seems to be the same conflict ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 354
Each of these tendencies has its psychological prehistory, and in our case it can clearly be shown that the peculiar resistance at the bottom of the patient’s critical sensitiveness was in fact bound up historically with certain infantile sexual activities, and also with that so-called traumatic experience things which may very well cast a shadow on sexuality ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 396
From this standpoint we cannot assert that our patient’s peculiar prehistory was to blame for her sensitiveness at the critical moment; it would be more correct to say that this sensitiveness was inborn and naturally manifested itself most strongly in any unusual situation ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 397
This excessive sensitiveness very often brings an enrichment of the personality and contributes more to its charm than to the undoing of a person’s character. Only, when difficult and unusual situations arise, the advantage frequently turns into a very great disadvantage, since calm consideration is then disturbed by untimely affects ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 398
Nothing could be more mistaken, though, than to regard this excessive sensitiveness as in itself a pathological character component. If that were really so, we should have to rate about one quarter of humanity as pathological. Yet if this sensitiveness has such destructive consequences for the individual, we must admit that it can no longer be considered quite normal ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 398
Primitive people and animals have nothing like that capacity for reviving memories of unique impressions which we find among civilized people ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 403
Very young children are not nearly as impressionable as older children. The higher development of the mental faculties is an indispensable prerequisite for impressionability. We can therefore safely assume that the earlier a patient places some impressive experience in his childhood, the more likely it is to be a fantastic and regressive one ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 403
Deeper impressions are to be expected only from experiences in late childhood. At any rate, we generally have to attribute only regressive significance to the events of early infancy, that is, from the fifth year back ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 403
In later years, too, regression can sometimes play an overwhelming role, but even so one must not attribute too little importance to accidental events. In the later course of a neurosis, accidental events and regression together form a vicious circle: retreat from life leads to regression, and regression heightens resistance to life ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 403
The non-fulfillment of the demands of adaptation, or the shrinking of the neurotic from difficulties, is, at bottom, the hesitation of every organism in the face of a new effort to adapt ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 410
The training of animals provides instructive examples in this respect, and in many cases such an explanation is, in principle, sufficient. From this standpoint the earlier mode of explanation, which maintained that the resistance of the neurotic was due to his bondage to fantasies, appears incorrect ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 410
But it would be very one-sided to take our stand solely on a point of principle. There is also a bondage to fantasies, even though the fantasies are, as a rule, secondary. The neurotic’s bondage to fantasies (illusions, prejudices, etc.) develops gradually, as a habit, out of innumerable regressions from obstacles since earliest childhood ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 410
All this grows into a regular habit familiar to every student of neurosis; we all know those patients who use their neurosis as an excuse for running away from difficulties and shirking their duty ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 410
Their habitual evasion produces a habit of mind which makes them take it for granted that they should live out their fantasies instead of fulfilling disagreeable obligations. And this bondage to fantasy makes reality seem less real to the neurotic, less valuable and less interesting, than it does to the normal person ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 410
The libido, which is not used for this purpose stagnates, and will then make the inevitable regression to former objects or modes of adaptation ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 470
The result is a striking activation of the incest complex. The libido withdraws from the object which is so difficult to attain and which demands such great efforts, and turns instead to the easier ones, and finally to the easiest of all, the infantile fantasies, which are then elaborated into real incest fantasies ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 470
The fact that, whenever there is a disturbance of psychological adaptation, we always find an excessive development of these fantasies must likewise be conceived as a regressive phenomenon. That is to say, the incest fantasy is of secondary and not of causal significance, while the primary cause is the resistance of human nature to any kind of exertion ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 470
Accordingly, drawing back from certain tasks cannot be explained by saying that man prefers the incestuous relationship, rather he falls back into it because he shuns exertion ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 470
Otherwise we would have to say that resistance to conscious effort is identical with preference for the incestuous relationship ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 470
This would-be obvious nonsense, since not only primitive man but animals too have a mighty dislike of all intentional effort, and are addicted to absolute laziness until circumstances prod them into action ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 470
Neither of primitive people nor of animals can it be asserted that preference for incestuous relationships is the cause of their aversion to efforts at adaptation, for, especially in the case of animals, there can be absolutely no question of an incestuous relationship ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 470
Before we start analysing this dream, I must mention its parallels with certain mythological ideas. Since ancient times the thunderstorm has had the meaning of an earth-fecundating act, it is the cohabitation of Father Heaven and Mother Earth, where the lightning takes over the role of the winged phallus ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 507
The stork in flight is just the same thing, a winged phallus, and its psychosexual meaning is known to every child ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 507
But the psychosexual meaning of the thunderstorm is not known to everyone, and certainly not to our little patient. In view of the whole psychological constellation previously described, the stork must unquestionably be given a psychosexual interpretation ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 507
The fact that the thunderstorm is connected with the stork and, like it, has a psychosexual meaning seems difficult to accept at first ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 507
To return to the analysis of the dream: the associations that led to the heart of this image began with the idea of rain during a thunderstorm. Her actual words were: I think of watery uncle was drowned in the water it must be awful to be stuck in the water like that, in the dark but wouldn’t the baby drown in the water, too? Does it drink the water that is in the stomach? Queer, when I was ill Mama sent my water to the doctor. I thought he was going to mix something with it like syrup, which babies grow from, and Mama would have to drink it ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 508
We see with unquestionable clearness from this string of associations that the child connected psychosexual ideas specifically relating to fertilization with the rain during the thunderstorm ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 509
Here again we see that remarkable parallelism between mythology and the individual fantasies of our own day. This series of associations is so rich in symbolical connections that a whole dissertation could be written about them. The symbolism of drowning was brilliantly interpreted by the child herself as a pregnancy fantasy, an explanation given in the psychoanalytic literature long ago ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 510
The psychoanalyst naturally makes his anamnesis as carefully as any other specialist. But this is merely the patient’s history and must not be confused with analysis ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 525
Analysis is the reduction of actual contents of consciousness, ostensibly of a fortuitous nature, to their psychological determinants. This process has nothing to do with the anamnestic reconstruction of the history of the illness ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 525
In contradistinction to all previous methods, psychoanalysis endeavours to overcome the disorders of the neurotic psyche through the unconscious, and not from the conscious side. In this work we naturally have need of the patient’s conscious contents, for only in this way can we reach the unconscious. The conscious content from which our work starts is the material supplied by the anamnesis ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 528
In many cases the anamnesis provides useful clues which make the psychic origin of his symptoms clear to the patient. This, of course, is necessary only when he is convinced that his neurosis is organic in origin ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 528
But even in those cases where the patient is convinced from the start of the psychic nature of his illness, a critical survey of the anamnesis can be of advantage, for it discloses a psychological context of which he was unaware before ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 528
In this way problems that need special discussion are frequently brought to the surface. This work may occupy many sittings ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 528
Finally, the elucidation of the conscious material comes to an end when neither the analyst nor the patient can contribute anything further of decisive importance. In the most favourable cases the end comes with the formulation of the problem which, very often, proves insoluble ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 528
The best examples of such regressions are found in hysterical cases where a disappointment in love or marriage has precipitated a neurosis ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 569
There we find those well-known digestive disorders, loss of appetite, dyspeptic symptoms of all sorts, etc. In these cases the regressive libido, turning back from the task of adaptation, gains power over the nutritive function and produces marked disturbances ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 569
Similar effects can be observed in cases where there is no disturbance of the nutritive function but, instead, a regressive revival of reminiscences from the distant past ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 569
We then find a reactivation of the parental imagos, of the Oedipus complex. Here the events of early infancy never before important suddenly become so. They have become regressively reactivated ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 569
Remove the obstacle from the path of life and this whole system of infantile fantasies at once breaks down and becomes as inactive and ineffective as before ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 569
But let us not forget that, to a certain extent, it is at work all the time, influencing us in unseen ways ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 569
A sensitive and somewhat unbalanced person, as a neurotic always is, will meet with special difficulties and perhaps with more unusual tasks in life than a normal individual, who as a rule has only to follow the well-worn path of an ordinary existence ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 572
For the neurotic there is no established way of life, because his aims and tasks are apt to be of a highly individual character ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 572
He tries to go the more or less uncontrolled and half-conscious way of normal people, not realizing that his own critical and very different nature demands of him more effort than the normal person is required to exert ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 572
There are neurotics who have shown their heightened sensitiveness and their resistance to adaptation in the very first weeks of life, in the difficulty they have in taking the mother’s breast [breast feeding] and in their exaggerated nervous reactions, etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 572
For this peculiarity in the neurotic predisposition it will always be impossible to find a psychological aetiology, because it is anterior to all psychology ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 572
This predisposition you can call it “congenital sensitiveness” or what you likes the cause of the first resistances to adaptation ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 572
As the way to adaptation is blocked, the biological energy we call libido does not find its appropriate outlet or activity, with the result that a suitable form of adaptation is replaced by an abnormal or primitive one ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 572
Interpretations of earlier symbols will themselves be used again as fresh symbols in later dreams ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 649
It often happens, for instance, that sexual situations which appeared in earlier dreams in symbolic form will appear “undisguised” in later ones once more, be it noted, in symbolic form as analysable expressions for ideas of a different nature hidden behind them ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 649
Thus the not infrequent dream of incestuous cohabitation is by no means an “undisguised” content, but a dream as freshly symbolic and capable of analysis as all others ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 649
For one type of person (called the infantile-rebel) a positive transference is, to begin with, an important achievement with a healing significance; for the other (the infantile-obedient) it is dangerous backsliding, a convenient way of evading life’s duties ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 659
For the first a negative transference denotes increased insubordination, hence a backsliding and an evasion of life’s duties, for the second it is a step forward with a healing significance ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 659
The terrifying spectres of a black man and a black snake threaten the dreamer as well as his mother. “Black” indicates something dark, the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 737
The snake’s attack on the boy’s face, the part that “sees,” represents the danger to consciousness (blinding) ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 737
This little example shows what goes on in the psyche of an eight-year-old child who is over dependent on his parents, the blame for this lying partly on the too strict father and the too tender mother ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 738
The boy’s identification with his mother and fear of his father are in this individual instance an infantile neurosis, but they represent at the same time the original human situation, the clinging of primitive consciousness to the unconscious, and the compensating impulse which strives to tear consciousness away from the embrace of the darkness ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 738
Because man has a dim premonition of this original situation behind his individual experience, he has always tried to give it generally valid expression through the universal motif of the divine hero’s fight with the mother dragon, whose purpose is to deliver man from the power of darkness ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 738
This [hero] myth has a “saving,” i.e., therapeutic significance, since it gives adequate expression to the dynamism underlying the individual entanglement. The myth is not to be casually explained as the consequence of a personal father-complex, but should be understood teleologically, as an attempt of the unconscious itself to rescue consciousness from the danger of regression ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 738
It is a means of unlocking the unconscious directly, although mostly it is simply a technique for obtaining a wide selection of faulty reactions which can then be used for exploring the unconscious by psychoanalysis ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 339
The process of regression is beautifully illustrated in an image used by Freud. The libido can be compared with a river which, when it meets with an obstruction, gets dammed up and causes an inundation ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 367
If later an obstruction occurs, so that the damming up of libido reactivates the old channels, this state is properly speaking a new and at the same time an abnormal one ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 368
The earlier, infantile state represents a normal application of libido, whereas the reversion of libido to infantile ways is something abnormal ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 368
I am therefore of the opinion that Freud is not justified in calling the infantile sexual manifestations “perverse,” since a normal manifestation should not be designated by a pathological term. This incorrect usage has had pernicious consequences in confusing the scientific public. Such a terminology is a misapplication to normal people of insights gained from neurotic psychology, on the assumption that the abnormal by-path taken by the libido in neurotics is still the same phenomenon as in children ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 368
The moment of the outbreak of neurosis is not just a matter of chance; as a rule it is most critical. It is usually the moment when a new psychological adjustment, that is, a new adaptation, is demanded. Such moments facilitate the outbreak of a neurosis, as every experienced neurologist knows ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 563
When the parents have long been dead and have lost, or should have lost, all significance, the situation of the patient having perhaps completely changed since then, they are still somehow present and as important as if they were still alive ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 305
The patient’s love, admiration, resistance, hatred, and rebelliousness still cling to their effigies, transfigured by affection or distorted by envy, and often bearing little resemblance to the erstwhile reality ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 305
It was this fact that compelled me to speak no longer of “father” and “mother” but to employ instead the term “imago,” because these fantasies are not concerned any more with the real father and mother but with subjective and often very much distorted images of them which lead a shadowy but nonetheless potent existence in the mind of the patient ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 305
Carl Jung: CW 5 “Symbols of Transformations”
The same is true of the religious attitude: it must be fully conscious of itself and of its foundations if it is to signify anything more than unconscious imitation. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 106
“The spirit of evil is fear, negation, the adversary who opposes life in its struggles for eternal duration and thwarts every great deed, who infuses into the body the poison of weakness and age through the treacherous bite of the serpent; he is the spirit of regression, who threatens us with bondage to the mother and with dissolution and extinction in the unconscious. For the hero, fear is a challenge and a task because only boldness can deliver from fear. And if the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is somewhat violated, and the whole future is condemned to hopeless staleness, to a dab grey lit by will-o’-the-wisps Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 551.
The anima is the archetype of the feminine and plays a very important role in a man’s unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 406, fn 142
The “mother” corresponds to the “virgin anima,” who is not turned towards the outer world and is therefore not corrupted by it. She is turned rather towards the “inner sun” … Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 464
Dogma must be a physical impossibility, for it has nothing whatever to say about the physical world but is a symbol of “transcendental” or unconscious processes which, so far as psychology can understand them at all, seem to be bound up with the unavoidable development of consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 674
The neurotic who tries to wriggle out of the necessity of living wins nothing and only burdens himself with a constant foretaste of aging and dying. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 617
In the morning of life the son tears himself loose from the mother, from the domestic hearth, to rise through battles to his destined heights. Always he imagines his worst enemy in front of him, yet he carries the enemy within himself—a deadly longing for the abyss, a longing to drown in his own source, to be sucked down to the realm of the Mothers. His life is a constant struggle against extinction, a violent yet fleeting deliverance from ever-lurking night. This death is no external enemy, it is his own inner longing for the stillness and profound peace of all-knowing non-existence, for all-seeing sleep in the ocean of coming-to-be and passing away. Even in his highest strivings for harmony and balance, for the profundities of philosophy and the raptures of the artist, he seeks death, immobility, satiety, rest . . . If he is to live, he must fight and sacrifice his longing for the past in order to rise to his own heights. And having reached the noonday heights, he must sacrifice his love for his own achievement, for he may not loiter. The sun, too, sacrifices its greatest strength in order to hasten onwards to the fruits of autumn, which are the seeds of rebirth . . . ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
Belief in dogma is an equally unavoidable stop-gap which must sooner or later be replaced by adequate understanding and knowledge if our civilization is to continue. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 674
That which compels us to create a substitute for ourselves is not the external lack of objects, but our incapacity to lovingly include a thing outside of ourselves. ~Carl Jung. CW 5, Page 173
A state of introversion. What this means we already know: the libido sinks “into its own depths” (a favourite image of Nietzsche’s), and discovers in the darkness a substitute for the upper world it has abandoned the world of memories (“Amidst a hundred memories”), the strongest and most influential of which are the earliest ones ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 448
Yet “the danger is great” as Mephistopheles says, for these depths fascinate. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 449
It is a fact not less remarkable than well attested, that the Druids in their groves were accustomed to select the most stately and beautiful tree as an emblem of the deity they adored; and, having cut off the side branches, they affixed two of the largest of them to the highest part of the trunk, in such manner that those branches, extended on each side like the arms of a man, together with the body, presented to the spectator the appearance of a huge cross [cf. fig. 26]; and on the bark, in various places, was actually inscribed the letter “tau.” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 402
The Creator God [takes] on an astromythological, or rather an astrological, character. He has become the sun, and thus finds a natural expression that transcends his moral division into a Heavenly Father and his counterpart the devil. ~Carl Jung; CW 5; Symbols of Transformation; Para 176.
Christ wrestles with himself in Gethsemane in order to complete his work. Mithras has to fight the bull, ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 526
Christ carries the Cross (the “transitus”) and in so doing carries himself to the grave. Mithras carries the bull (the “transitus”) into the cave (grave) where he kills it. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 526
From Christ’s death comes a divinity who is eaten in the Lord’s Supper, i.e., the mystical food. From the death of Mithras’ bull comes fruitfulness, especially things to eat. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 526
The Christian images express the same fundamental thought: that Christ is a divinity who is eaten in the Last Supper. His death transforms him into bread and wine, which we relish as mystical food. The relation of Agni to the soma-drink and of Dionysus to the wine should not pass without mention here. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 526
Another parallel is Samson’s strangling of the lion, and the subsequent inhabitation of the dead lion by a swarm of bees, which gave rise to the riddle: “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 526
The parallel to the motif of dying and rising again is that of being lost and found again. It appears ritually at exactly same place, in connection with the hierosgamos-like spring festivities, where the image of the god was hidden and then found again. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 531
There is an uncanonical tradition that Moses left his father’s house at the age of twelve in order to instruct mankind. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 531
It is well known that Brünhilde, the Valkyrie, looked with favour on the brother-sister incest [of Sigmund and Sieglinde] that gave birth to Siegfried. But whereas Sieglinde is the human mother, Brünhilde acts the part of the symbolic mother, the “spirit-mother” (mother-imago), not as a persecutor, like Hera with the infant Heracles, but as a helper. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 555
The sin of incest, of which she makes herself guilty by her complicity, is the reason for her banishment by Wotan. Siegfried’s birth from the sister-wife characterizes him as a Horus, the reborn sun, a reincarnation of the aging sun-god. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 555
The birth of the young sun, the god-man, stems from human partners, but they are really only vehicles for cosmic symbols. The spirit-mother therefore lends it her protection; she sends Sieglinde forth, with the child in her womb, on the night sea journey to the East. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 555
The persecution motif is not connected here with the mother, but with Wotan, as in the Linus legend, where the father is the vengeful pursuer. Brünhilde stands in a peculiar relation to her father Wotan. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 559
Brünhilde is a sort of “split-off” from Wotan, part of his personality, just as Pallas Athene was an emanation of Zeus. She is, as it were, Wotan’s emissary or agent, and therefore corresponds to the angel of Yahweh, to the “eye of Ahura” or Vohu Manah, God’s good thought in Persian legend, or to the Babylonian Nabu, the word of fate, or to Hermes, the messenger of the gods, whom the philosophers equated with Reason and Logos. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 560
In Assyria the role of Logos falls to the fire god, Gibil. That Wagner should have put the designs of so martial a god as Wotan into the hands of a feminine agent is somewhat remarkable, despite the Greek precedent of Pallas Athene ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 560
Wagner’s Brünhilde is one of the numerous anima-figures who are attributed to masculine deities, and who without exception represent a dissociation in the masculine psychea “split-off” with a tendency to lead an obsessive existence of its own. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 563
This tendency to autonomy causes the anima to anticipate the thoughts and decisions of the masculine consciousness, with the result that the masculine consciousness is constantly confronted with unlooked-for situations which it has apparently done nothing to provoke. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 563
Brünhilde’s sin was her support of Siegmund, but behind that lies the incest which was projected into the brother-sister pair Siegmund and Sieglinde. The symbolical meaning, however, is that Wotan, the father, has entered into his own daughter in order to rejuvenate himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 565
Wotan is justly indignant with Brünhilde, for she has taken over the role of Isis and through the birth of a son has deprived the old man of his power. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 565
Wotan beats off the first herald of doom, Siegmund, and smashes his sword, but Siegmund rises again in the grandson, Siegfried. And the instrument of fate is always the woman, who knows and reveals his secret thoughts; hence the impotent rage of Wotan, who cannot bring himself to recognize his own contradictory nature. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 565
At Siegfried’s birth Sieglinde dies, as is proper. The foster-parent who brings him up is not a woman, but a chthonic god, Mime, a crippled dwarf who belongs to a race that has abjured love. Similarly, the god of the Egyptian underworld, the crippled shadow of Osiris (who underwent a sorry resurrection in Harpocrates), brings up the infant Horus to avenge the death of his father. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 566
Meanwhile Brünhilde lies in enchanted slumber on the mountain where Wotan has put her to sleep with the magic thorn (Edda), surrounded by a curtain of fire that keeps off all who approach and at the same time symbolizes the fiery longing of the hero for the forbidden goal. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 567
But Siegfried’s conversation with the bird lures Fafner out of the cave. Siegfried’s longing for the mother-imago has unwittingly exposed him to danger of looking back to his childhood and to the human mother, who immediately changes into the death-dealing dragon. He has conjured up the evil aspect of the unconscious, its devouring nature personified by the cave-dwelling terror of the woods. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 569
Fafner is the guardian of the treasure; in his cave lies the hoard, the source of life and power. The mother apparently possesses the libido of the son (the treasure she guards so jealously), and this is in fact true so long as the son remains unconscious of himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 569
In psychological ters this means that the “treasure hard to attain” lies hidden in the mother-imago, i.e., in the unconscious. This symbol points to one of life’s secrets which is expressed in countless symbolical ways in mythology. When such symbols occur in individual dreams, they will be found on examination to be pointing to something like a centre of the total personality, of the psychic totality which consists of both conscious and unconscious. Here I must refer the reader to my later works, where I deal at some length with the symbol of the Self. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 569
The rewards of this battle with Fafner are glowingly described in the Siegfried legend. According to the Edda, Siegfried eats Fafner’s heart, the seat of life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 569
He [Siegfried] wins the magic cap through whose power Alberich had changed himself into a serpentan allusion to the motif of rejuvenation by casting the skin. Another lucky cap is the caul that is occasionally found over the heads of new-born children. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 569
In addition, by drinking the dragon’s blood Siegfried learns to understand the language of birds, and thus enjoys a peculiar relationship to nature, which he now dominates by knowledge. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 569
Cecrops was half snake, half man. In primitive times he was probably the snake of the Athenian citadel itself. As a buried god he was, like Erechtheus, a chthonic snake-deity. Above his subterranean dwelling rose the Parthenon, the temple of the virgin goddess. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 594
For psychology it makes a vast difference whether the Self is to be considered “of the same nature” as the Father, or merely “of a similar nature.” The decision in favour of homoousia was of great psychological importance, for it asserted that Christ is of the same nature as God. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
Christ, from the point of view of psychology and comparative religion, is a typical manifestation of the Self. For psychology the Self is an imago Dei and cannot be distinguished from it empirically. The two ideas are therefore of the same nature. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
Although the religion and philosophy of India are largely dominated by the idea of homoousia, there is less danger in this direction because the Indian has an equally homoousian idea of God (Brahman), which is very definitely not the case with the Christian. The Christian has far too little introspection to be able to realize what modifications in his present conception of God the homoousia of the Self (Atman) would involve. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
As most people know, one of the basic principles of analytical psychology is that dream-images are to be understood symbolically; that is to say, one must not take them literally, but must surmise a hidden meaning in them. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 4.
We must begin by overcoming our virtuousness, with the justifiable fear of falling into vice on the other side. This danger certainly exists, for the greatest virtuousness is always compensated inwardly by a strong tendency to vice, and how many vicious characters treasure inside themselves sugary virtues and a moral megalomania. Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 221
The psychic health of the adult individual, who in childhood was a mere particle revolving in a rotary system, demands that he should himself become the centre of a new system. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 644
That the highest summit of life can be expressed through the symbolism of death is a well-known fact, for any growing beyond oneself means death. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 432
I do not take kindly to the argument that because certain working hypotheses may not possess eternal validity or may possibly be erroneous, they must be withheld from the public. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 685
I do not regard the pursuit of science as a bickering about who is right, but as an endeavour to augment and deepen human knowledge. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 685
The world comes into being when man discovers it. But he only discovers it when he sacrifices his containment in the primal mother, the original state of unconsciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 652
Fear of our erotic fate is quite understandable, for there is something unpredictable about it. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 101
Symbols are not allegories and not signs; they are images of contents which for the most part transcend consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 114
The dream, we would say, originates in an unknown part of the psyche and prepares the dreamer for the events of the following day. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 5
One such successful interpretation has been, for instance, Mother Church, but once this form begins to show signs of age and decay a new interpretation becomes inevitable. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 351
The religious interest, which ought normally to be the greatest and most decisive factor, turned away from the inner world, and great figures of dogma dwindled to strange and incomprehensible vestiges, a prey to every sort of criticism. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 113.
One might expect, perhaps, that a man of genius would luxuriate in the greatness of his own thoughts and renounce the cheap approbation of the rabble he despises; yet he succumbs to the more powerful impulse of the herd instinct. His seeking and his finding, his heart’s cry, are meant for the herd and must be heeded by them. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 14
We quite forget that we can be as deplorably overcome by a virtue as by a vice. There is a sort of frenzied, orgiastic virtuousness which is just as infamous as a vice and leads to just as much injustice and violence. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 222
The wounding and painful shafts do not come from outside, through gossip which only pricks us only on the surface, but from the ambush of our own unconscious. It is our own repressed desires that stick like arrows in our flesh. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 438
Just as our bodies still retain vestiges of obsolete functions and conditions in many of their organs, so our minds, which have apparently outgrown those archaic impulses, still bear the marks of the evolutionary stages we have traversed and re-echo the dim bygone in dreams and fantasies. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 36
Therefore the sun is perfectly suited to represent the visible God of this world, i.e., the creative power of our own soul, which we call libido, and whose nature it is to bring forth the useful and to bring forth the useful and the harmful, the good and the bad. ~Carl Jung; CW 5, Para 176.
Purusha is evidently a sort of Platonic world-soul who surrounds the earth from outside: “Being born he overtopped the world before, behind, and in all places” (Rig-Veda) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 649
As the all-encompassing world-soul Purusha has a maternal character, for he represents the original “dawn state” of the psyche: he is the encompasser and the encompassed, mother and unborn child, an undifferentiated, unconscious state of primal being ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 650
As such a condition must be terminated, and as it is at the same time an object of regressive longing, it must be sacrificed in order that discriminated entities i.e., conscious contents may come into being. Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 650
The foregoing passage is very remarkable. If one attempted to put this mythologem on the Procrustean bed of logic sore violence would be done to it. How on earth ordinary “sages” come to be sacrificing the primal being side by side with the gods is an utterly fantastic conception, quite apart from the fact that in the beginning (i.e., before the sacrifice) nothing existed except the primal being! ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 651
But if this primal being [Purusha] means the great mystery of the original psychic state, then everything becomes clear: ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 651
It is evident that by this is meant not a physical, but a psychological cosmogony. The world comes into being when man discovers it. But he only discovers it when he sacrifices his containment in the primal mother, the original state of unconsciousness Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 652
The intellect is its progenitor and father, and what the intellect conceives the world-soul brings to birth in reality. “What lies enclosed in the intellect comes to birth in the world-soul as Logos, fills it with meaning and makes it drunken as if with nectar” (Plotinus, Enneads, III, 5, 9.) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 198
Nectar, like soma, is the drink of fertility and immortality. The soul is fructified by the intellect; as the “oversoul” it is called the heavenly Aphrodite, as the “under-soul” the earthly Aphrodite. It knows “the pangs of birth.” It is not without reason that the dove of Aphrodite is the symbol of the Holy Ghost ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 198
Certain early Christian sects gave a maternal significance to the Holy Ghost (world-soul or moon) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 198
But, on the other hand, “love” is an extreme example of anthropomorphism and, together with hunger, the immemorial psychic driving-force of humanity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 97
Love is, psychologically considered, a function of relationship on the one hand and a feeling-toned psychic condition on the other, which, as we have seen, practically coincides with the God-image ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 97
There can be no doubt that love has an instinctual determinant; it is an activity peculiar to mankind, and, if the language of religion defines God as “love,” there is always the great danger of confusing the love which works in man with the workings of God ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 97
This is an obvious instance of the above-mentioned fact that the archetype is inextricably interwoven with the individual psyche, so that the greatest care is needed to differentiate the collective type, at least conceptually, from the personal psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 97
In practice, however, this differentiation is not without danger if human “love” is thought of as the prerequisite for the divine presence (I John 4:12) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 97
“Love,” in the experience of psychology, proves to be the power of fate par excellence, whether it manifests itself as base concupiscentia or as the most spiritual affection. It is one of the mightiest movers of humanity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 98
If it is conceived as “divine,” this designation falls to it with absolute right, since the mightiest force in the psyche has always been described as “God.” Whether we believe in God or not, whether we marvel or curse, the word “God” is always on our lips ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 98
Anything psychically powerful is invariably called “God.” At the same time “God” is set over against man and expressly set apart from him ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 98
This means, psychologically, that the libido, regarded as the force of desire and aspiration, as psychic energy in the widest sense, stands in part at the disposal of the ego, and in part confronts the ego autonomously, sometimes influencing it so powerfully that it is either put in a position of unwilling constraint, or else discovers in the libido itself a new and unexpected source of strength ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 98
Just as Christ left behind his redeeming blood, a true pharmakon athanasias in the wine, so Agni is the soma, the holy drink of inspiration, the mead of immortality CW 5 Para 246
Soma and fire are identical in Vedic literature. The ancient Hindus saw fire both as a symbol of Agni and as an emanation of the inner libido-fire, and for them the same psychic dynamism was at work in the intoxicating drink (“fire-water,” Soma-Agni as rain and fire). The Vedic definition of soma as “seminal fluid” confirms this view ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 246
`The “somatic” significance of Agni has its parallel in the Christian interpretation of the Eucharistic Blood as the body of Christ ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 246
Soma is also the “nourishing drink.” Its mythological characteristics coincide with those of fire, and so both are united in Agni. The drink of immortality, Amrita, was stirred by the Hindu gods like the fire. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 247
The Sanskrit word for fire is agnis (Lat. ignis), personified as Agni, the god of fire, a divine mediator whose symbolism has certain affinities with Christian ideas CW 5 Para 239
Agni, fire, was worshipped as a golden-winged bird ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 271
After the birth of Buddha, the four genies of the East, West, North, and South come to offer their services as palanquin-bearers. To complete the symbolism, there is in the Buddha myth, besides the fertilization by star and wind, fertilization by a theriomorphic symbol, the elephant, who, as Bodhisattva, begets the Buddha. In Christian picture-language the unicorn, as well as the dove, is a symbol of the spermatic Word or Spirit ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Ser: 1
As Otto Rank has shown with a wealth of examples, the hero is frequently exposed and then reared by foster-parents. In this way he gets two mothers ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 494
An excellent example of this is the relation of Heracles to Hera. In the Hiawatha epic, Wenonah dies after giving birth, and her place is taken by Nokomis. Buddha, too, was brought up by a foster-mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 494
The foster-mother is sometimes an animal, e.g., the she-wolf mother of Romulus and Remus, etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 494
The light and fire attributes depict the intensity of the feeling-tone and are therefore expressions for the psychic energy which manifests itself as libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 128
If one worships God, sun, or fire, one is worshipping intensity and power, in other words the phenomenon of psychic energy as such, the libido. Every force and every phenomenon is a special form of energy ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 128
Form is both an image and a mode of manifestation. It expresses two things: the energy which takes shape in it, and the medium in which that energy appears. On the one hand one can say that energy creates its own image, and on the other hand that the character of the medium forces it into a definite form ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 128
One man will derive the idea of God from the sun, another will maintain that it is the but feelings it arouses which give the sun its godlike significance. The former, by attitude and temperament, believes more in the causal nexus of the environment, the latter more in the spontaneity of psychic experience ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 128
Since, psychologically speaking, the God-image is a complex of ideas of an archetypal nature, it must necessarily be regarded as representing a certain sum of energy (libido) which appears in projection ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 89
In most of the existing religions it seems that the formative factor which creates the attributes of divinity is the father-imago, while in older religions it was the mother-imago. These attributes are omnipotence, a sternly persecuting paternalism ruling through fear (Old Testament), and loving paternalism (New Testament) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 89
In certain pagan conceptions of divinity the maternal element is strongly emphasized, and there is also a wide development of the animal or theriomorphic element. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 89
The God-concept is not only an image, but an elemental force. The primitive power which Job’s Hymn of Creation vindicates, absolute and inexorable, unjust and superhuman, is a genuine and authentic attribute of the natural power of instinct and fate which “leads us into life,” which makes “all the world become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19), and against which all struggle is in vain. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 89
The archetype of the wise old man first appears in the father, being a personification of meaning and spirit in its procreative sense ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 515
The hero’s father is often a master carpenter or some kind of artisan. According to an Arabian legend, Terah, the father of Abraham, was a master craftsman who could cut a shaft from any bit of wood, which means in Arabic usage that he was a begetter of excellent sons. In addition, he was a maker of images ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 515
Tvashtri, the father of Agni, was the cosmic architect, a smith and carpenter, and the inventor of fire-boring ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 515
Joseph, the father of Jesus, was a carpenter, and so was Cinyras, the father of Adonis, who was supposed to have invented the hammer, the lever, roof-building and mining ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 515
The father of the many-faced Hermes, Hephaestus, was a cunning technician and sculptor `Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 515
In fairytales, the hero’s father is, more modestly, the traditional woodcutter ~Carl Jung, CW 5 Para 515
In the Rig-Veda the world is hewn from a tree by the cosmic architect, Tvashtri CW 5, Para 515
To say that Hiawatha’s father-in-law was an arrowsmith means, therefore, that the mythological attribute otherwise characteristic of the hero’s father has been transferred to the father-in-law. This corresponds to the psychological fact that the anima always stands in the relationship of a daughter to the wise old man. Nor is it uncommon to find the father-in-law so much emphasized that he replaces the real father ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 515
Finally, father-attributes may occasionally fall to the son himself, i.e., when it has become apparent that he is of one nature with the father. The hero symbolizes a man’s unconscious Self, and this manifest itself empirically as the sum total of all archetypes and therefore includes the archetype of the father and of the wise old man. To that extent the hero is his own father and his own begetter ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 516
This combination of motifs can be found in the legend of Mani. He performs his great deeds as a religious teacher, then goes into hiding for years in a cave, dies, and is skinned, stuffed, and hung up. Besides that, he is an artist and has a crippled foot. There is a similar combination of motifs in Wieland the Smith ~Carl Jung, CW 5. Para 516
The hero himself appears as a being of more than human stature. He is distinguished from the very beginning by his godlike characteristics ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
Since he is psychologically an archetype of the Self, his divinity only confirms that the Self is numinous, a sort of god, or having some share in the divine nature ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
The hero is the protagonist of God’s transformation in man; he corresponds to what I call the “mana personality.” The mana personality has such an immense fascination for the conscious mind that the ego all too easily succumbs to the temptation to identify with the hero, thus bringing on a psychic inflation with all its consequences. For this reason the repugnance felt by certain ecclesiastical circles for the “inner Christ” is understandable enough, at least as a preventive measure against the danger of psychic inflation which threatens the Christian European ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
Heroes are usually wanderers, and wandering is a symbol of longing, of the restless urge which never finds its object, of nostalgia for the lost mother. The sun comparison can easily be taken in this sense: the heroes are like the wandering sun, from which it is concluded that the myth of the hero is a solar myth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 299
It seems to us, rather, that he is first and foremost a self-representation of the longing of the unconscious, of its unquenched and unquenchable desire for the light of consciousness. But consciousness, continually in danger of being led astray by its own light and of becoming a rootless will o’ the wisp, longs for the healing power of nature, for the deep wells of being and for unconscious communion with life in all its countless forms ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 299
It is not man as such who has to be regenerated or born again as a renewed whole, but, according to the statements of mythology, it is the hero or god who rejuvenates himself. These figures are generally expressed or characterized by libido-symbols (light, fire, sun, etc.), so that it looks as if they represented psychic energy. They are, in fact, personifications of the libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 388
The hero is a hero just because he sees resistance to the forbidden goal in all life’s difficulties and yet fights that resistance with the whole-hearted yearning that strives towards the treasure hard to attain, and perhaps unattainable a yearning that paralyses and kills the ordinary man ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 510
The hero is an extraordinary being who is inhabited by a daemon, and it is this that makes him a hero. That is why the mythological statements about heroes are so typical and so impersonal ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 536
Taken purely as a psychologem the hero represents the positive, favourable action of the unconscious, while the dragon is its negative and unfavourable action not birth, but a devouring, not a beneficial and constructive deed, but greedy retention and destruction. (cf. fig. 035) and (fig. 030) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 580
He is the one who has the great longing for an understanding soul-mate ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 465
He is the seeker who survives the adventures which the conscious personality studiously avoids ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 465
He it is who, with a magnificent gesture, offers his breast to the slings and arrows of a hostile world, and displays the courage which is so sadly lacking to the conscious mind ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 465
He is the measure against which the man who comes in contact with such a woman is compared with, being relentlessly set up as the ideal who receives direct punishment from her should he ever be otherwise `Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 465
The animus, a typical “son”-hero, true to his ancient prototype, is seeking the mother. This youthful hero is always the son-lover of the mother-goddess and is doomed to an early death (fig. 020) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 466
The libido that will not flow into life at the right time regresses to the mythical world of the archetypes, where it activates images which, since the remotest times, have expressed the non-human life of the gods, whether of the upper world or the lower ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 466
He is therefore sure of his success and cuts out all possible rivals. He wins the soul of the dreamer, not in order to lead her back to normal life, but to her spiritual destiny ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 468
For he is a bridegroom of death, one of the son-lovers who die young because they have no life of their own but are only fast-fading flowers on the maternal tree. Their meaning and their vitality begin and end in the mother-goddess ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 468
The answer to this question is that the hero is not born like an ordinary mortal because his birth is a rebirth from the mother-wife. That is why the hero so often has two mothers ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 494
One would think it possible for a hero to be born in the normal manner, and then gradually to grow out of his humble and homely surroundings, perhaps with a great effort and in face of many dangers. (This motif is by no means uncommon in the hero-myths) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 493
As a general rule, however, the story of his origins is miraculous. The singular circumstances of his procreation and birth are part and parcel of the hero-myth. What is the reason for these beliefs? ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 493
As Rank (The Myth of the Birth of the Hero), has shown with a wealth of examples, the hero is frequently exposed and then reared by foster-parents. In this way he gets two mothers ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 494
An excellent example of this is the relation of Heracles to Hera. In the Hiawatha epic, Wenonah dies after giving birth, and her place is taken by Nokomis. Buddha, too, was brought up by a foster-mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 494
The world is not a garden of God the Father, it is also a place of horror. Not only is heaven no father and earth no mother and men are not brothers, but they represent as many hostile destructive forces to which we are the more surely delivered over the more confidently and thoughtlessly we entrust ourselves to the so-called fatherly hand of God. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 224
Nothing remains for mankind but to work in harmony with this will. To work in harmony with the libido does not mean letting oneself drift with it, for the psychic forces have no uniform direction, but are often directly opposed to one another. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 89
A mere letting go of oneself leads in the shortest space of time to the most hopeless confusion. It is often difficult, if not impossible, to feel the ground current and to know the true direction; at any rate collisions, conflicts, and mistakes are scarcely avoidable. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 89
We thus arrive at the objectionable conclusion that, from the psychological point of view, the God-image is a real but subjective phenomenon. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 129
This “game with oneself” is anything but ridiculous; on the contrary, it is extremely important. To carry a god around in yourself means a great deal; it is guarantee of happiness, or power, and even of omnipotence, in so far as these are attributes of divinity. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 130
To carry a god within oneself is practically the same as being God oneself. In Christianity, despite the weeding out of the most grossly sensual ideas and symbols, we can still find traces of this psychology. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 130
The idea of “becoming a god” is even more obvious in the pagan mystery cults, where the neophyte, after initiation, is himself lifted up to divine status: at the conclusion of the consecration rites in the syncretistic Isis mysteries he was crowned with a crown of palm leaves, set up on a pedestal, and worshipped as Helios. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 130
When man becomes God, his importance and power are enormously increased. That seems to have been its main purpose: to strengthen the individual against his all-too-human weakness and insecurity in personal life. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 134
But the strengthening of his power-consciousness is only the outward effect of his becoming God; far more important are the deeper lying processes in the realm of feeling. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 134
For whoever introverts libido, i.e., withdraws it from the external object, suffers the necessary consequences of introversion: the libido, which is turned inwards, into the subject, reverts to the individual past and digs up from the treasure-house of memory those images glimpsed long ago, which bring back the time when the world was a full and rounded whole. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 134
First and foremost are the memories of childhood, among them the imagos of father and mother. These are unique and imperishable, and in adult life not many difficulties are needed to reawaken those memories and make them active. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 134
The regressive reactivation of the father and mother imagos plays an important role in religion. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 134
The benefits of religion are equivalent, in their effects, to the parental care lavished upon the child, and religious feelings are rooted in unconscious memories of certain tender emotions in early infancy memories of archetypal intuitions. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 134
The sun is the only truly “rational” image of God, whether we adopt the standpoint of the primitive savage or of modern science ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 176
In either case the sun is the father-god from whom all living things draw life; he is the fructifier and creator, the source of energy for our world. ~Carl Jung, CW 5. Para 176
The discord into which the human soul has fallen can be harmoniously resolved through the sun as a natural object which knows no inner conflict. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 176
The sun is not only beneficial, but also destructive; hence the zodiacal sign for August heat is the ravaging lion which Samson slew in order to rid the parched earth of its torment. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 176
Yet it is the nature of the sun to scorch, and its scorching power seems natural to man. It shines equally on the just and the unjust and allows useful creatures to flourish as well as the harmful. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 176
The chthonic god was in all probability a snake that was housed in a cave and was fed with (fig. 258.57b). In the Asclepieia of the later period the sacred snakes were hardly ever visible, so they may have existed only figuratively ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
Here the serpent lies on the treasury as protector of the hoard. Fear of the deadly maternal womb has become the guardian of the treasure of life. That the snake really is a death-symbol is evident from the fact that the souls of the dead, like the chthonic gods, appear as serpents, as dwellers in the kingdom of the deadly mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 578
Thus the crevice at Delphi with the Castalian spring was the habitation of the chthonic Python who was vanquished by the sun-hero Apollo. The Python, incited by Hera, had pursued Apollo’s mother, Leto, when he was still in her womb; but she fled to the floating island of Delos on a “night sea journey” and was there safely delivered of her child, who later slew the Python ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
In Hierapolis (Edessa) a temple was built over the earth where the flood subsided, and in Jerusalem the foundation-stone of the temple was laid over the great abyss, in the same way that Christian churches are often built over caves, grottoes, wells, etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 5. Para 577
We find the same motif in the Grotto of Mithras and the various other cave-cults, including the Christian catacombs, which owe their importance not to legendary persecutions but to the cult of the dead ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
Even the burial of the dead in consecrated ground (“garden of the dead,” cloisters, crypts, etc.) is a rendering back to the mother with the hope of resurrection which such burials presuppose ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
Hence the Attic custom of giving the dead man the (same as, honey-cakes), with which to pacify the hound of hell, the three-headed monster guarding the door of the underworld ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
I have had occasion to observe, in the course of my daily professional work [that] a dream, often of visionary clarity, occurs about the time of the onset of the illness or shortly before, which imprints itself indelibly on the mind and, when analyzed, reveals to the patient a hidden meaning that anticipates the subsequent events of his life. ~Carl Jung; CW 5; para 78
A substitute for the gifts seems to have been the obolus given to Charon, which is why Rohde calls him the second Cerberus, akin to the jackal-headed Anubis of the Egyptians. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
The dog and the underworld serpent are identical. In the Greek tragedies the Erinyes are serpents as well as dogs; the monsters Typhon and Echidna are parents of the Hydra, of the dragon of the Hesperides, and of the Gorgon; they also spawned the dogs Cerberus, Orthros, and Scylla. Snakes and dogs are guardians of the treasure ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
It is hard to believe that this teeming world is too poor to provide an object for human love – it offers boundless opportunities to everyone. It is rather the inability to love which robs a person of these opportunities. The world is empty only to him who does not know how to direct his libido towards things and people, and to render them alive and beautiful. What compels us to create a substitute from within ourselves is not an external lack, but our own inability to include anything outside ourselves in our love. Certainly the difficulties and adversities of the struggle for existence may oppress us, yet even the worst conditions need not hinder love; on the contrary, they often spur us on to greater efforts. Carl Jung, CW 5, 253.
We have, therefore, two kinds of thinking: directed thinking, and dreaming or fantasy-thinking. The former operates with speech elements for the purpose of communication and is difficult and exhausting; the latter is effortless, working as it were spontaneously, with the contents ready to hand, and guided by unconscious motives. The one produces innovations and adaptation, copies reality, and tries to act upon it; the other turns away from reality, sets free subjective tendencies, and as regards adaptation, is unproductive ~Carl Jung, CW 5, para. 20.
What he is describing here is the libido, which is not only creative and procreative, but possesses an intuitive faculty, a strange power to “smell the right place,” almost as if it were a live creature with an independent life of its own (which is why it is so easily personified). It is purposive, like sexuality itself, a favorite object of comparison. ~Carl Jung; CW 5, Para. 182.
The sun is not only beneficial, but also destructive; hence the zodiacal sign for August heat is the ravaging lion which Samson slew in order to rid the parched earth of its torment. Yet it is in the nature of the sun to scorch, and its scorching power seems natural to man. It shines equally on the just and the unjust and allows useful creatures to flourish as well as the harmful. ~Carl Jung; CW 5, para 176.
Numerous mythological and philosophical attempts have been made to formulate and visualize the creative force which man knows only by subjective experience. To give but a few examples, I would remind the reader of the cosmogonic significance of Eros in Hesiod, and also of the Orphic figure of Phanes, the ‘Shining One,’ the first-born, the ‘Father of Eros.’ In Orphic terms, Phanes also denotes Priapos, a god of love, androgynous, and equal to the Theban Dionysus Lysios. The Orphic meaning of Phanes is the same as that of the Indian Kama, the God of love, which is also a cosmogonic principle. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, para. 198.
Our civilization enormously underestimates the importance of sexuality, but just because of the repressions imposed upon it, sexuality breaks through into every conceivable field where it does not belong and uses such an indirect mode of expression that we may expect to meet it all of a sudden practically everywhere. Thus the very idea of an intimate understanding of the human psyche, which is actually a very pure and beautiful thing, becomes besmirched and perversely distorted by the intrusion of an indirect sexual meaning. A direct and spontaneous expression of sexuality is a natural occurrence and, as such, never ugly or repulsive. It is “moral” repression that makes sexuality on the one hand dirty and hypocritical, and on the other shameless and blatant. This secondary significance, or rather the misuse which the repressed and suborned sexuality makes of the highest psychic functions, gives certain of our opponents an opportunity to sniff out the prurient eroticism of the confessional in psychoanalysis. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 295
An individual is infantile because he has freed himself insufficiently, or not at all, from his childish environment and his adaptation to his parents, with the result that he has a false reaction to the world on the one hand he reacts as a child towards his parents, always demanding love and immediate emotional rewards, while on the other hand he is so identified with his parents through his close ties with them that he behaves like his father or his mother. He is incapable of living his own life and finding the character that belongs to him. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 431
It is not possible to live too long amid infantile surroundings, or in the bosom of the family, without endangering one’s psychic health. Life calls us forth to independence, and anyone who does not heed this call because of childish laziness or timidity is threatened with neurosis. And once this has broken out, it becomes an increasingly valid reason for running away from life and remaining forever in the morally poisonous atmosphere of infancy. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 461
If we wish to stay on the heights we have reached, we must struggle all the time to consolidate our consciousness and its attitude. But we soon discover that this praiseworthy and apparently unavoidable battle with the years leads to stagnation and desiccation of soul. Our convictions become platitudes ground out on a barrel-organ, our ideals become starchy habits, enthusiasm stiffens into automatic gestures. The source of the water of life seeps away. We ourselves may not notice it, but everybody else does, and that is even more painful. If we should risk a little introspection, coupled perhaps with an energetic attempt to be honest for once with ourselves, we may get a dim idea of all the wants, longings, and fears that have accumulated down there—a repulsive and sinister sight. The mind shies away, but life wants to flow down into the depths. Fate itself seems to preserve us from this, for each of us tends to become an immovable pillar of the past. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
For all these things have taken on shape, and all shapes are worn thin by the working of time; they age, sicken, crumble to dust—unless they change. But change they can, for the invisible spark that generated them is potent enough for infinite generation. No one should deny the danger of the descent, but it can be risked. No one need risk it, but it is certain that some will. And let those who go down the sunset way do so with open eyes, for it is a sacrifice which daunts even the gods. Yet every descent is followed by an ascent; the vanishing shapes are shaped anew, and a truth is valid in the end only if it suffers change and bears witness in new images, in new tongues, like a new wine that is put into new bottles. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
Nature has the primary claim on mankind, and only long after that comes the luxury of reason. The medieval ideal of a life lived for death should gradually be replaced by a more natural attitude to life, in which the natural claims of man are fully acknowledged, so that the desires of the animal sphere need no longer drag down the higher values of the spiritual sphere in order to be able to function at all. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 295
What aroused a feeling of horror in the Greeks still remains true, but it is true for us only if we give up the vain illusion that we are different, i.e., morally better, than the ancients. We have merely succeeded in forgetting that an indissoluble link binds us to the men of antiquity. This truth opens the way to an understanding of the classical spirit such as has never existed before—the way of inner sympathy on the one hand and of intellectual comprehension on the other. By penetrating into the blocked subterranean passages of our own psyches we grasp the living meaning of classical civilization, and at the same time we establish a firm foothold outside our own culture from which alone it is possible to gain an objective understanding of its foundations. That at least is the hope we draw from the rediscovery of the immortality of the Oedipus problem. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 1
People who strive to be excessively ethical, who always think, feel, and act altruistically and idealistically, avenge themselves for their intolerable ideals by a subtly planned maliciousness, of which they are naturally not conscious as such, but which leads to misunderstandings and unhappy situations. All these difficulties appear to them as “especially unfortunate circumstances,” or the fault and the malice of other people, or as tragic complications. Consciously they imagine they are rid of the conflict, but it is still there, unseen, to be stumbled over at every step. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 62
The essential thing is that we should be able to stand up to our judgment of ourselves. From outside this attitude looks like self-righteousness, but it is so only if we are incapable of criticizing ourselves. If we can exercise self-criticism, criticism from outside will affect us only on the outside and not pierce to the heart, for we feel that we have a sterner critic within us than any who could judge us from without. And anyway, there are as many opinions as there are heads to think them. We come to realize that our own judgment has as much value as the judgment of others. One cannot please everybody; therefore it is better to be at peace with oneself. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 911
All through our lives we possess, side by side with our newly acquired directed and adapted thinking, a fantasy thinking which corresponds to the antique state of mind. Just as our bodies still retain vestiges of obsolete functions and conditions in many of their organs, so our minds, which have apparently outgrown those archaic impulses, still bear the marks of the evolutionary stages we have traversed and re-echo the dim bygone in dreams and fantasies. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 36
It would be a ridiculous and unwarranted assumption on our part if we imagined that we were more energetic or more intelligent than the men of the past. Our material knowledge has increased, but not our intelligence. This means that we are just as bigoted in regard to new ideas, and just as impervious to them, as people were in the darkest days of antiquity. We have become rich in knowledge, but poor in wisdom. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 23
The world changes its face —tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis—for we can grasp the world only as a psychic image in ourselves, and it is not always easy to decide, when the image changes, whether the world or ourselves have changed, or both. The picture of the world can change at any time, just as our conception of ourselves changes. Every new discovery, every new thought, can put a new face on the world. We must be prepared for this, else we suddenly find ourselves in an antiquated world, itself a relic of lower levels of consciousness. We shall all be as good as dead one day, but in the interests of life we should postpone this moment as long as possible, and this we can only do by never allowing our picture of the world to become rigid. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 700
If we do not fashion for ourselves a picture of the world, we do not see ourselves either, who are the faithful reflections of that world. Only when mirrored in our picture of the world can we see ourselves in the round. Only in our creative acts do we step forth into the light and see ourselves whole and complete. Never shall we put any face on the world other than our own, and we have to do this precisely in order to find ourselves. For higher than science or art as an end in itself stands man, the creator of his instruments. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 737
In the same way one can withhold the material content of primitive myths from a child but not take from him the need for mythology, and still less his ability to manufacture it for himself. One could almost say that if all the world’s traditions were cut off at a single blow, the whole of mythology and the whole history of religion would start all over again with the next generation. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 30
The conscious mind must have reason, firstly to discover some order in the chaos of disorderly individual events occurring in the world, and secondly to create order, at least in human affairs. We are moved by the laudable and useful ambition to extirpate the chaos of the irrational both within and without to the best of our ability. Apparently the process has gone pretty far. As a mental patient once told me: “Doctor, last night I disinfected the whole heavens with bichloride of mercury, but I found no God.” Something of the sort has happened to us as well. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 104A
The myth of the hero is first and foremost a self-representation of the longing of the unconscious, of its unquenched and unquenchable desire for the light of consciousness. But consciousness, continually in danger of being led astray by its own light and of becoming a rootless will o’the wisp, longs for the healing power of nature, for the deep wells of being and for unconscious communion with life in all its countless forms. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 299
People often behave as if they did not rightly understand what constitutes the destructive character of the creative force. A woman who gives herself up to passion, particularly under present-day civilized conditions, experiences this all too soon. We must think a little beyond the framework of purely bourgeois moral conditions to understand the feeling of boundless uncertainty which befalls the man who gives himself over unconditionally to fate. Even to be fruitful is to destroy oneself, for with the creation of a new generation the previous generation has passed beyond its climax. Our offspring thus become our most dangerous enemies, with whom we cannot get even, for they will survive us and so inevitably will take the power out of our weakening hands. Fear of our erotic fate is quite understandable, for there is something unpredictable about it. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 101
Fear of fate is a very understandable phenomenon, for it is incalculable, immeasurable, full of unknown dangers. The perpetual hesitation of the neurotic to launch out into life is readily explained by his desire to stand aside so as not to get involved in the dangerous struggle for existence. But anyone who refuses to experience life must stifle his desire to live—in other words, he must commit partial suicide. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 165
Flight from life does not exempt us from the laws of old age and death. The neurotic who tries to wriggle out of the necessity of living wins nothing and only burdens himself with a constant foretaste of aging and dying, which must appear especially cruel on account of the total emptiness and meaninglessness of his life. If it is not possible for the libido to strive forwards, to lead a life that willingly accepts all dangers and ultimate decay, then it strikes back along the other road and sinks into its own depths, working down to the old intimation of the immortality of all that lives, to the old longing for rebirth. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 617
The sun, rising triumphant, tears himself from the enveloping womb of the sea, and leaving behind him the noonday zenith and all its glorious works, sinks down again into the maternal depths, into all-enfolding and all regenerating night. This image is undoubtedly a primordial one, and there was profound justification for its becoming a symbolical expression of human fate: in the morning of life the son tears himself loose from the mother, from the domestic hearth, to rise through battle to his destined heights. Always he imagines his worst enemy in front of him, yet he carries the enemy within himself—a deadly longing for the abyss, a longing to drown in his own source, to be sucked down to the realm of the Mothers. His life is a constant struggle against extinction, a violent yet fleeting deliverance from ever-lurking night. This death is no external enemy, it is his own inner longing for the stillness and profound peace of all-knowing non-existence, for all-seeing sleep in the ocean of coming-to-be and passing away. Even in his highest strivings for harmony and balance, for the profundities of philosophy and the raptures of the artist, he seeks death, immobility, satiety, rest. If, like Peirithous, he tarries too long in this abode of rest and peace, he is overcome by apathy, and the poison of the serpent paralyses him for all time. If he is to live, he must fight and sacrifice his longing for the past in order to rise to his own heights. And having reached the noonday heights, he must sacrifice his love for his own achievement, for he may not loiter. The sun, too, sacrifices its greatest strength in order to hasten onward to the fruits of autumn, which are the seeds of rebirth. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
When the libido leaves the bright upper world, whether from choice, or from inertia, or from fate, it sinks back into its own depths, into the source from which it originally flowed, and returns to the point of cleavage, the navel, where it first entered the body. This point of cleavage is called the mother, because from her the current of life reached us. Whenever some great work is to be accomplished, before which a man recoils, doubtful of his strength, his libido streams back to the fountainhead—and that is the dangerous moment when the issue hangs between annihilation and new life. For if the libido gets stuck in the wonderland of this inner world, then for the upper world man is nothing but a shadow, he is already moribund or at least seriously ill. But if the libido manages to tear itself loose and force its way up again, something like a miracle happens: the journey to the underworld was a plunge into the fountain of youth, and the libido, apparently dead, wakes to renewed fruitfulness. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 449
To the degree that the modern mind is passionately concerned with anything and everything rather than religion, religion and its prime object—original sin—have mostly vanished into the unconscious. That is why, today, nobody believes in either. People accuse psychology of dealing in squalid fantasies, and yet even a cursory glance at ancient religions and the history of morals should be sufficient to convince them of the demons hidden in the human soul. This disbelief in the devilishness of human nature goes hand in hand with a blank incomprehension of religion and its meaning. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 106
At a time when a large part of mankind is beginning to discard Christianity, it may be worth our while to try to understand why it was accepted in the first place. It was accepted as a means of escape from the brutality and unconsciousness of the ancient world. As soon as we discard it, the old brutality returns in force, as has been made overwhelmingly clear by contemporary events. We have had bitter experience of what happens when a whole nation finds the moral mask too stupid to keep up. The beast breaks loose, and a frenzy of demoralization sweeps over the civilized world. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 341
The conflict between horse and snake or bull and snake represents a conflict within the libido itself, a striving forward and backwards at one and the same time. It is as if the libido were not only a ceaseless forward movement, an unending will for life, evolution, creation, such as Schopenhauer envisaged in his cosmic Will, where death is a mishap or fatality coming from outside; like the sun, the libido also wills its own descent, its own involution. During the first half of life it strives for growth; during the second half, softly at first and then ever more perceptibly, it points towards an altered goal. And just as in youth the urge for limitless expansion often lies hidden under veiling layers of resistance to life, so that “other urge” often hides behind an obstinate and purposeless cleaving to life in its old form. This apparent contradiction in the nature of the libido is illustrated by a statue of Priapus in the archaeological museum at Verona: Priapus, with a sidelong smile, points with his finger to a snake biting his phallus. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 680
“The demands of the unconscious act at first like a paralysing poison on a man’s energy and resourcefulness, so that it may well be compared to the bite of a poisonous snake. Apparently it is a hostile demon who robs him of energy, but in actual fact it is his own unconscious whose alien tendencies are beginning to check the forward striving of the conscious mind. The cause of this process is often extremely obscure, the more so as it is complicated by all kinds of external factors and subsidiary causes, such as difficulties in work, disappointments, failures, reduced efficiency due to age, depressing family problems, and so on and so forth. According to the myths it is the woman who secretly enslaves a man, so that he can no longer free himself from her and becomes a child again. It is also significant that Isis, the sister-wife of the sun-god, creates the poisonous serpent from his spittle, which, like all bodily secretions, has a magical significance, being a libido equivalent. She creates the serpent from the libido of the god, and by this means weakens him and makes him dependent on her. Delilah acts in the same way with Samson: by cutting off his hair, the sun’s rays, she robs him of his strength. This demon-woman of mythology is in truth the “sister-wife-mother,” the woman in the man, who unexpectedly turns up during the second half of life and tries to effect a forcible change of personality. I have dealt with certain aspects of this change in my essay on “The Stages of Life.” It consists in a partial feminization of the man and a corresponding masculinization of the woman. Often it takes place under very dramatic circumstances: the man’s strongest quality, his Logos principle, turns against him and as it were betrays him. The same thing happens with the Eros of the woman. The man becomes rigidly set in his previous attitude, while the woman remains caught in her emotional ties and fails to develop her reason and understanding, whose place is then taken by equally obstinate and inept “animus” opinions. The fossilization of the man shrouds itself in a smoke-screen of moods, ridiculous irritability, feelings of distrust and resentment, which are meant to justify his rigid attitude. A perfect example of this type of psychology is Schreber’s account of his own psychosis, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 458
But what we have here is a masculine figure which, in view of the role it plays in the Miller fantasies, must be regarded as a personification of the masculine component of the woman’s personality. (Cf. pi. xvii.) In my later writings I have called this personification the “animus.” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 267
The mother’s influence is mainly on the Eros of her son; therefore it was only logical that Oedipus should end up by marrying his mother. But the father exerts his influence on the mind or spirit of his daughter—on her “Logos.” This he does by increasing her intellectuality, often to a pathological degree which in my later writings I have described as “animus possession. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 272
The man becomes rigidly set in his previous attitude, while the woman remains caught in her emotional ties and fails to develop her reason and understanding, whose place is then taken by equally obstinate and inept “animus” opinions. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 458
Chiwantopel is a typical animus-figure, that is to say, a personification of the masculine side of the woman’s psyche. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 462
It is all up with the man whom the whims of fortune bring into contact with this infantile woman: he will at once be made identical with her animus-hero and relentlessly set up as the ideal figure, threatened with the direst punishments should he ever make a face that shows the least departure from the ideal! ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 465
The animus, a typical “son”-hero, is not after her at all; true to his ancient prototype, he is seeking the mother. This youthful hero is always the son-lover of the mother-goddess and is doomed to an early death. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 466
The hero as an animus-figure acts vicariously for the conscious individual; that is to say, he does what the subject ought, could, or would like to do, but does not do. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 469
Hiawatha to his task is represented by Nokomis, the mother, who is a feminine principle in the breast of the hero. The latter is Hiawatha’s anima, and the former would correspond to the animus of the Terrible Mother. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 543
These are archetypes like the anima, animus, wise old man, witch, shadow, earth-mother, etc., and the organizing dominants, the self, the circle, and the quaternity, i.e., the four functions or aspects of the self (cf. pis. lvi, lx) or of consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 611
The morally significant act is delegated to the hero, while Miss Miller only looks on admiringly and applaudingly, without, it seems, realizing that her animus-figure is constrained to do what she herself so signally fails to do. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 675
When Chiwantopel calls the snake his “little sister,” this is not without significance for Miss Miller, because the hero is in fact her brother-beloved, her “ghostly lover,” the animus. She herself is his life-snake which brings death to him. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 679
Any very intensive train of thought works itself out more or less in verbal form if, that is to say, one wants to express it, or teach it, or convince someone of it. It is evidently directed outwards, to the outside world ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 11
To that extent, directed or logical thinking is reality-thinking, a thinking that is adapted to reality, by means of which we imitate the successiveness of objectively real things, so that the images inside our mind follow one another in the same strictly causal sequence as the events taking place outside it ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 11
We also call this “thinking with directed attention.” It has in addition the particularity of causing fatigue, and is for that reason brought into play for short periods only ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 11
The whole laborious achievement of our lives is adaptation to reality, part of which consists in directed thinking. In biological terms it is simply a process of psychic assimilation that leaves behind a corresponding state of exhaustion, like any other vital achievement ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 11
The material with which we think is language and verbal concepts something which from time immemorial has been directed outwards and used as a bridge, and which has but a single purpose, namely that of communication. So long as we think directedly, we think for others and speak to others ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 12
Directed thinking or, as we might also call it, thinking in words, is manifestly an instrument of culture, and we shall not be wrong in saying that the tremendous work of education which past centuries have devoted to directed thinking, thereby forcing it to develop from the subjective, individual sphere to the objective, social sphere, has produced a readjustment of the human mind to which we owe our modern empiricism and technics ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 17
These are absolutely new developments in the history of the world and were unknown to earlier ages. Inquiring minds have often wrestled with the question of why the first-rate knowledge which the ancients undoubtedly had of mathematics, mechanics, and physics, coupled with their matchless craftsmanship, was never applied to developing the rudimentary techniques already known to them (e.g., the principles of simple machines) into real technology in the modern sense of the word, and why they never got beyond the stage of inventing amusing curiosities ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 17
There is only one answer to this: the ancients, with a few illustrious exceptions, entirely lacked the capacity to concentrate their interest on the transformations of inanimate matter and to reproduce the natural artificially, by which means alone they could have gained control of the forces of nature. What they lacked was training in directed thinking ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 17
The secret of cultural development is the mobility and disposability of psychic energy. Directed thinking, as we know it today, is a more or less modern acquisition which earlier ages lacked ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 17
Directed thinking operates with speech elements for the purpose of communication and is difficult and exhausting. It produces innovations and adaptation, copies reality, and tries to act upon it. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 20
History shows that directed thinking was not always as developed as it is today. The clearest expression of modern directed thinking is science and the techniques fostered by it. Both owe their existence simply and solely to energetic training in directed thinking. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 21
Our thinking then lacks all leading ideas and the sense of direction emanating from them. We no longer compel our thoughts along a definite track, but let them float, sink or rise according to their specific gravity. In Kuelpe’s view, thinking is a sort of “inner act of will,” and its absence necessarily leads to an “automatic play of ideas” (Outlines, p. 448). William James regards non-directed thinking, or “merely associative” thinking as the ordinary kind (Principles, II, p. 325) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 18
We can supplement James’s definitions by saying that this sort of thinking does not tire us, that it leads away from reality into fantasies of the past or future. At this point thinking in verbal forms ceases, image piles on image, feeling on feeling, and there is an ever-increasing tendency to shuffle things about and arrange then not as they are in reality but as one would like them to be. Naturally enough, the stuff of this thinking which shies away from reality can only be the past with its thousand-and-one memory images. Common speech calls this kind of thinking “dreaming” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 19
Dreaming or fantasy thinking is effortless, working as it were spontaneously, with the contents ready to hand, and guided by unconscious motives. It turns away from reality, sets free subjective tendencies, and as regards adaptation, is unproductive ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 20
At the time when the forerunners of our present-day culture, such as the poet Petrarch, were just beginning to approach nature in a spirit of understanding, an equivalent of our science already existed in scholasticism ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 21
Scholasticism took its subjects from fantasies of the past, but it gave the mind a dialectical training in directed thinking. The one goal of success that shone before the thinker was rhetorical victory in disputation, and not the visible transformation of reality ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 21
The subjects he thought about were often unbelievably fantastic; for instance, it was debated how many angels could stand on the point of a needle, whether Christ could have performed his work of redemption had he come into the world in the shape of a pea etc., etc. The fact that these problems could be posed at all and the stock metaphysical problem of how to know the unknowable comes into this category proves how peculiar the medieval mind must have been, that it could contrive questions which for us are the height of absurdity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 21
Nietzsche glimpsed something of the background of this phenomenon when he spoke of the “glorious tension of mind” which the Middle Ages produced ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 21
Scholasticism consisted essentially in a dialectical gymnastics which gave the symbol of speech, the word, an absolute meaning, so that words came in the end to have a substantiality with which the ancients could invest their Logos only by attributing to it a mystical value ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 22
The great achievement of scholasticism was that it laid the foundations of a solidly built intellectual function, the sine qua non of modern science and technology ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 22
All the creative power that modern man pours into science and technics the man of antiquity devoted to his myths. This creative urge explains the bewildering confusion, the kaleidoscopic changes and syncretistic regroupings, the continual rejuvenation, of myths in Greek culture ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 24
We move in a world of fantasies which, untroubled by the outward course of things, well up from an inner source to produce an ever-changing succession of plastic or phantasmal forms ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 24
This activity of the early classical mind was in the highest degree artistic: the goal of its interest does not seem to have been how to understand the real world as objectively and accurately as possible, but how to adapt it aesthetically to subjective fantasies and expectations ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 24
The naïve man of antiquity saw the sun as the great Father of heaven and earth, and the moon as the fruitful Mother. Everything had its demon, was animated like a human being, or like his brothers the animals. Everything was conceived anthropomorphically or theriomorphically, in the likeness of man or beast. Even the sun’s disc was given wings or little feet to illustrate its motion. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 24
Thus there arose a picture of the universe, which was completely removed from reality, but which corresponded exactly to man’s subjective fantasies. It needs no very elaborate proof to show that children think in much the same way. They too animate their dolls and toys, and with imaginative children it is easy to see that they inhabit a world of marvels ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 24
This idea is not at all strange; we know it quite well from comparative anatomy and from evolution, which show that the structure and function of the human body are the result of a series of embryonic mutations corresponding to similar mutations in our racial history ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 26
The supposition that there may also be in psychology a correspondence between ontogenesis and phylogenesis therefore seems justified. If this is so, it would mean that infantile thinking and dream-thinking are simply a recapitulation of earlier evolutionary stages. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 26
Faced by the vast uncertainty of the future, the adolescent puts the blame for it on the past, saying to himself: “If only I were not the child of my very ordinary parents, but the child of a rich and elegant count and had merely been brought up by foster-parents, then one day a golden coach would come and the count would take his long-lost child back with him to his wonderful castle,” and so on, just as in a Grimms’ fairy-story ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 34
There was a time, however, in the ancient world, when the fantasy was a legitimate truth that enjoyed universal recognition. Hence the fantasy of our adolescent is simply a re-echo of an ancient folk-belief which was once very widespread ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 34
The fantasy of ambition therefore chooses, among other things, a classical form which at one time had real validity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 34
The Judas legend is itself a typical motif, namely that of the mischievous betrayal of the hero. One is reminded of Siegfried and Hagen, Baldur and Loki: Siegfried and Baldur were both murdered by a perfidious traitor from among their closest associates ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 42
This myth is moving and tragic, because the noble hero is not felled in a fair fight but through treachery ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 42
At the same time it is an event that was repeated many times in history, for instance in the case of Caesar and Brutus. Through the myth is extremely old it is still a subject for repetition, as it expresses the simple fact that envy does not let mankind sleep in peace ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 42
This rule can be applied to the mythological tradition in general: it does not perpetuate accounts of ordinary everyday events in the past, but only of those which express the universal and ever-renewed thoughts of mankind ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 42
Thus the lives and deeds of the culture-heroes and founders of religions are the purest condensations of typical mythological motifs, behind which the individual figures entirely disappear ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 42
Why should the pious Abbé Oegger worry about the old Judas legend? We are told that he went out into the world to preach the gospel of God’s unending mercy. Not long afterwards he left the Catholic Church and became a Swedenborgian ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 43
Now we understand his fantasy: he was the Judas who betrayed his Lord. Therefore he had first of all to assure himself of God’s mercy in order to play the role of Judas undisturbed ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 43
Oegger’s case throws light on the mechanism of fantasies in general. The conscious fantasy may be woven of mythological or any other material; it should not be taken literally, but must be interpreted according to its meaning ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 44
If it is taken too literally it remains unintelligible, and makes one despair of the meaning and purpose of the psychic function ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 44
But the case of the Abbé Oegger shows that his doubts and his hopes are only apparently concerned with the historical person of Judas, but in reality revolve round his own personality, which was seeking a way to freedom through the solution of the Judas problem ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 44
Conscious fantasies therefore illustrate, through the use of mythological material, certain tendencies in the personality which are either not yet recognized or are recognized no longer ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 45
It will be readily understood that a tendency which we fail to recognize and which we treat as non-existent can hardly contain anything that would fit in with our conscious character. Hence it is mostly a question of things which we regard as immoral or impossible, and whose conscious realization meets with the strongest resistances ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 45
What would Oegger have said had one told him in confidence that he was preparing himself for the role of Judas ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 45
Because he found the damnation of Judas incompatible with God’s goodness, he proceeded to think about this conflict. That is the conscious causal sequence ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 45
Hand in hand with this goes the unconscious sequence: because he wanted to be Judas, or had to be Judas, he first made sure of God’s goodness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 45
For him Judas was the symbol of his own unconscious tendency, and he made use of this symbol in order to reflect on his own situation its direct realization would have been too painful for him ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 45
There must, then, be typical myths which serve to work out our racial and national complexes. Jacob Burckhardt seems to have glimpsed this truth when he said that every Greek of the classical period carries in himself a little bit of Oedipus, and every German a little bit of Faust. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 45
One might describe the theater, somewhat unaesthetically, as an institution for working out private complexes in public ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 48
The enjoyment of comedy, or of the blissful dénouement of the plot, is the direct reslt of identifying one’s own complexes with those personified by the actors, while enjoyment of tragedy lies in the thrilling yet satisfying feeling that what is happening to somebody else may very well happen to you ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 48
The fantasies reveal the symbolic transition from sun to man in the third and last of her creations which she calls “Chiwantopel, A hypnagogic drama” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 251
It is hardly to be supposed that Miss Miller, who evidently had not the faintest clue as to the real meaning of her visions would be able to meet the next phase of the process, namely the assimilation of the hero to her conscious personality, with the right attitude ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 683
Miss Miller’s fantasies show Chiwantopel as the hero, or brother-beloved of the author, Miss Miller, i.e., as her animus. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 679
In order to do so she would have had to recognize what fate demanded of her, and what was the meaning of the bizarre images that had broken in upon her consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 683
That there was already some degree of dissociation is obvious, since the unconscious went ahead independently and kept on churning out images which she had not consciously produced herself and which she felt as strange and portentous ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 683
Their melancholy outcome is due largely to the fact that they break off at the critical moment when the threat of invasion by the unconscious is plainly apparent ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 683
To the objective observer it is perfectly clear that the fantasies were products of a psychic energy not under the control of the conscious mind. They were longings, impulses, and symbolic happenings which it was quite unable to cope with either positively or negatively ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 683
The instinctual impulse that was trying to rouse the dreamer from the sleep of childhood was opposed by a personal pride that was distinctly out of place, and also, one must suppose, by a correspondingly narrow moral horizon, so that there was nothing to help her understand the spiritual content of the symbols ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 683
Our civilization has long since forgotten how to think symbolically, and even the theologian has no further use for the hermeneutics of the Church Fathers. The cure of souls in Protestantism is in an even more parlous condition. Whoever would go to the trouble, nowadays, of patching together the basic ideas of Christianity from a “welter of pathological fantasies”? ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 683
For patients in this situation it is a positive life-saver when the doctor takes such products seriously and gives the patient access to the meanings they suggest. In this way he makes it possible for the patient to assimilate at least part of the unconscious and to repair the menacing dissociation by just that amount ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 683
At the same time the assimilation guards against the dangerous isolation which everyone feels when confronted by an incomprehensible and irrational aspect of his personality. Isolation leads to panic, and that is only too often the beginning of a psychosis ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 683
The wider the gap between conscious and unconscious, the nearer creeps the fatal splitting of the personality, which in neurotically disposed individuals leads to neurosis, and, in those with a psychotic constitution, to schizophrenia and fragmentation of personality ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 683
The aim of psychotherapy is therefore to narrow down and eventually abolish the dissociation by integrating the tendencies of the unconscious into the conscious mind ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 683
We know from analytical experience that the initial dreams of patients at the beginning of an analysis are of especial interest, not least because they often bring out a critical evaluation of the personality of the doctor or psychoanalyst which previously he would have asked for in vain ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 62
They enrich the patient’s conscious impression of the doctor, often on very important points, and they frequently contain erotic comments which the unconscious had to make in order to counterbalance the patient’s underestimation and uncertain appraisal of the impression ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 62
Expressed in the drastic and hyperbolic manner peculiar to dreams, the impression often appears in almost unintelligible form owing to the incongruity of the symbolism ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 62
A further peculiarity, which seems due to the historical stratification of the unconscious, is that when an impression is denied conscious recognition it reverts to an earlier form of relationship ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 62
That explains why young girls, at the time of their first love, have great difficulty in expressing themselves owing to disturbances brought about by regressive reactivation of the father-imago ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 62
I purposely give preference to the term “imago” rather than to “complex,” in order to make clear, by this choice of a technical term, that the psychological factor which I sum up under “imago” has a living independence in the psychic hierarchy, i.e., possesses that autonomy which wide experience has shown to be the essential feature of feeling-toned complexes. This is brought out by the term “imago” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 62
My critics have seen in this view a return to medieval psychology and have therefore repudiated it. This “return” was made consciously and deliberately on my part, because the psychology of ancient and modern superstition furnishes abundant evidence for my point of view ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 62
Since, psychologically speaking, the God-image is a complex of ideas of an archetypal nature, it must necessarily be regarded as representing a certain sum of energy (libido) which appears in projection ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 89
In most of the existing religions it seems that the formative factor which creates the attributes of divinity is the father-imago, while in older religions it was the mother-imago. These attributes are omnipotence, a sternly persecuting paternalism ruling through fear (Old Testament), and loving paternalism (New Testament) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 89
I am of the opinion that, in general, psychic energy or libido creates the God-image by making use of archetypal patterns, and that man in consequence worships the psychic force active within him as something divine (fig. 258.05a) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 129
We thus arrive at the objectionable conclusion that, from the psychological point of view, the God-image is a real but subjective phenomenon ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 129
As Seneca says: “God is near you, he is with you, he is within you,” or, as in the First Epistle of John, “He who does not love does not know God; for God is love,” and “If we love one another, God abides in us” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 129
To anyone who understands libido merely as the psychic energy over which he has conscious control, the religious relationship, as we have defined it, is bound to appear as a ridiculous game of hide-and-seek with oneself. But it is rather a question of the energy which belongs to the archetype, to the unconscious, and which is therefore not his to dispose of ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 130
This idea of becoming a god is age-old. The old belief relegates it to the time after death, but the mystery cults bring it about in this world. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 133
The naïve intellect cannot help taking its autonomy into account and putting the dialectical relationship to practical use. It does this by calling upon the divine presence in all difficult or dangerous situations, for the purpose of unloading all its unbearable difficulties upon the Almighty and expecting help from that quarter ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 95
In the psychological sense this means that complexes weighing on the soul are consciously transferred to the God-image. This, it should be noted, is the direct opposite of an act of repression, where the complexes are handed over to an unconscious authority, inasmuch as one prefers to forget them ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 95
But in any religious discipline it is of the highest importance that one should remain conscious of one’s difficulties in other words, of one’s sins. An excellent means to this end is the mutual confession of sin (James 5: 16), which effectively prevents one from becoming unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 95
These measures aim at keeping the conflicts conscious, and that is also a sine qua non of the psychotherapeutic procedure. Just as medical treatment appoints the person of the doctor to take over the conflicts of his patients, so Christian practice appoints the Saviour, “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians I:7 and Colossians I:14) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 95
He is the deliverer and redeemer of our guilt, a God who stands above sin, who “committed no sin, no guile was found on his lips” (I Peter 2:22), who “himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (I Peter 2: 24) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 95
The conscious projection at which Christian education aims therefore brings a double psychic benefit: firstly, one keeps oneself conscious of the conflict (“sin”) of two mutually opposing tendencies, thus preventing a known suffering from turning into an unknown one, which is far more tormenting, by being repressed and forgotten; and secondly, one lightens one’s burden by surrendering it to God, to whom all solutions are known ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 95
Religious experience in antiquity was frequently conceived as bodily union with the deity, and certain cults were saturated with sexuality of every kind. Sexuality was all too close to the relations of people with one another ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 102
The Stoics called this condition Heimarmene, compulsion by the stars, to which every “unredeemed” soul is subject ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 644
The moral degeneracy of the first centuries of the Christian era produced a moral reaction which then, in the second and third centuries, after germinating in the darkness of the lowest strata of society, expressed itself at its purest in the two mutually antagonistic religions, Christianity and Mithraism ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 102
These religions strove after precisely that higher form of social intercourse symbolized by a projected (“incarnate”) idea (the Logos), whereby all the strongest impulses of man which formerly had flung him from one passion to another and seemed to the ancients like the compulsion of evil stars, Heimarmene, or like what we psychologists would call the compulsion of libido could be made available for the maintenance of society ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 102
There is no doubt this is one of the main causes of the singular melancholy that reigned all through the time of the Caesars ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 104
It was not in the long run possible for those who wallowed in pleasure not to be infected, through the mysterious working of the unconscious, by the deep sadness and still deeper wretchedness of their brothers ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 104
The old idea of a mediator in whose name new ways of love would be opened, became a fact, and with that human society took an immense stride forward. This was not the result of any speculative, sophisticated philosophy, but of an elementary need in the great masses of humanity vegetating in spiritual darkness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 104
They were evidently driven to it by the profoundest inner necessities, for humanity does not thrive in a state of licentiousness. The meaning of these cults Christianity and Mithraism is clear: moral subjugation of the animal instincts ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 104
The spread of both these religions betrays something of that feeling of redemption which animated their first adherents, and which we can scarcely appreciate today. We can hardly realize the whirlwinds of brutality and unchained libido that roared through the streets of Imperial Rome ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 104
The world and its beauty had to be shunned, not only because of their vanity and transitoriness, but because love of created nature soon makes man its slave. As St. Augustine says (X, 6): “they love these things too much and become subject to them, and subjects cannot judge” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 112
One would certainly think it possible to love something, to have a positive attitude towards it, without supinely succumbing to it and losing one’s power of rational judgment ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 112
But St. Augustine knew his contemporaries, and knew furthermore how much godliness and godlike power dwelt in the beauty of the world ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 112
Thus Lucretius extols “alma Venus” as the ruling principle of nature. To such a daimonion man falls an abject victim unless he can categorically reject its seductive influence at the outset. It is not merely a question of sensuality and of aesthetic corruption, butane this is the point of paganism and nature worship (fig. 001) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 113
Because gods dwell in created things, man falls to worshipping them, and for that reason he must turn away from them utterly lest he be overwhelmed. In this respect the fate of Alypius is extremely instructive ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 113
If the flight from the world is successful, man can then build up an inner, spiritual world which stands firm against the onslaught of sense-impressions ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 113
The struggle with the world of the senses brought to birth a type of thinking independent of external factors. Man won for himself that sovereignty of the idea, which was able to withstand the aesthetic impact, so that thought was no longer fettered by the emotional effect of sense-impressions, but could assert itself and even rise, later, to reflection and observation ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 113
In the flight from the world during the first few centuries after Christ (cities of the anchorites in the desert), the Desert Fathers mortified themselves through spirituality in order to escape the extreme brutality of the decadent Roman civilization ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 119
Asceticism occurs whenever the animal instincts are so strong that they need to be violently exterminated. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 119
I believe that miscegenation makes rather for a coarsened joie de vivre. To all appearances the ascetics were ethical people who, disgusted with the melancholy of the age which was merely an expression of the disruption of the individual, put an end to their lives in order to mortify an attitude that was itself obsolete ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 119
His [Faust] equally importunate longing for the beauties of this world plunged him into renewed ruin, doubt and wretchedness, which culminated in the tragedy of Gretchen’s death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 119
Faust’s mistake was that he made the worst of both worlds by blindly following the urge of his libido, like a man overcome by strong and violent passions. Faust’s conflict is a reflection of the collective conflict at the beginning of the Christian era, but in him, curiously enough, it takes the opposite course ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 119
Faust takes the opposite road; for him the ascetic ideal is sheer death. He struggles for liberation and wins life by binding himself over to evil, thereby bringing about the death of what he loves most: Gretchen ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 120
He tears himself away from his grief, and sacrifices his life in unceasing work, thus saving many lives. His double mission as saviour and destroyer had been hinted at from the beginning ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 120
Faust’s desire, like that of every hero, is a yearning for the mystery of rebirth, for immortality; therefore his way leads out to sea and down into the maw of death, that frighteningly narrow “passage” which signals the new day ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 417
Nature is beautiful because I love it, and good is everything that my feeling regards as good. Values are chiefly created by the quality of one’s subjective reactions ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 126
In the erotic sphere, it is abundantly evident how little the object counts, and how much the subjective reaction counts ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 126
The well-known fact that in worshipping the sun’s strength we pay homage to the great generative force of Nature is the plainest possible evidence if evidence were still needed that in God we honour the energy of the archetype ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 135
Religious regression makes use of the parental imago, but only as a symbol that is to say, it clothes the archetype in the image of the parents, just as it bodies forth the archetype’s energy by making use of sensuous ideas like fire, light, heat, fecundity, generative power, and so on ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 138
The phallus is the source of life and libido the creator and worker of miracles, and as such it was worshipped everywhere ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 146
Ikhnaton (Amenophis IV) achieved, by his reforms, a psychologically valuable work of interpretation. He united all the bull, ram, crocodile, and pile-dwelling gods into the sun-disc, and made it clear that their various attributes were compatible with those of the sun ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 148
But the striving for unity is opposed by a possibly even stronger tendency to create multiplicity, so that even in strictly monotheistic religions like Christianity the polytheistic tendency cannot be suppressed ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 149
The deity is divided into three parts, and on top of that come all the heavenly hierarchies. These two tendencies are in constant warfare: sometimes there is only one God with countless attributes, sometimes there are many gods, who are simply called by different names in different places, and who personify one or the other attribute of their respective archetype, as we have seen in the case of the Egyptian gods ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 149
We saw, however, that the snake is to be taken not only in the phallic sense, but as an attribute of the sun’s image (the Egyptian uraeus) and as a libido-symbol. It is therefore possible for the sun-disc to be equipped not only with hands and feet (cf.fig. 007) and (fig. 258.01), but also with a phallus. We find proof of this in a strange vision in the Mithraic liturgy: “And likewise the so-called tube, the origin of the ministering wind. For you will see hanging down from the disc of the sun something that looks like a tube” (Dieterich, Mithras liturgie, pp. 6-7) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 149
The Holy Ghost of the New Testament appeared to the apostles in the form of flames, because the pneuma was believed to be fiery ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 149
The Iranian conception of Hvareno was similar: it signified the “Grace of Heaven” through which the monarch ruled ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 149
This “Grace” was understood as a sort of fire or shining glory, something very substantial. We come across ideas of the same type in Kerner’s Seeress of Prevorst ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 149
The various attributes of the sun appear one after another in the Mithraic liturgy. After the vision of Helios, seven maidens appear with faces like snakes, and seven gods with the faces of black bulls. The maiden can easily be understood as a causative libido analogy ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 155
The bull is a notorious fertility-symbol. In the Mithraic liturgy, the bull-gods are called guardians of the world's axis,' who turn the
axle of the wheel of heaven’ ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 155
The serpent in Paradise is usually thought of as feminine, as the seductive principle in woman, and is represented as feminine by the old painters. Through a similar change of meaning the snake in antiquity became a symbol of the earth, which has always been considered feminine ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 155
The same attribute falls also to Mithras: sometimes he is the Sol invictus itself, sometimes the companion and ruler Helios; in his right hand he holds “the constellation of the Bear, which moves and turns the heavens round” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 155
The bull-head deities, sacred and valorous youths' like Mithras himself, who is also given the attribute,
the younger one,’ are merely aspects of the same divinity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 155
The chief god of the Mithraic liturgy is himself divided into Mithras and Helios both of whom have closely related attributes ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 155
Numerous fire- and light-symbols are attributed to the saints in Christian legend. The twelve apostles, for example, were likened to the twelve signs of the zodiac and were therefore represented each with a star over his head ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 163
The pictures in the catacombs likewise contain a good deal of sun symbolism. For instance there is a swastika (sun-wheel) on the robe of Fossor Diogenes in the cemetery of Peter and Marcellinus ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 163
The symbols of the rising sun bull and ramare found in the Orpheus frescoes in the cemetery of Domitilla; also the ram and peacock (a sun-symbol like the phoenix) on an epitaph in the Callistus catacomb ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 163
The power of God is menaced by the seductions of passion; heaven is threatened with a second fall of angels ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 170
If we translate this projection back into the psychological sphere whence it came, it would mean that the good and rational Power which rules the world with wise laws is threatened by the chaotic, primitive force of passion ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 170
Therefore passion must be exterminated, which means, in mythological projection, that the race of Cain and the whole sinful world must be wiped out, root and branch, by the Flood ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 170
That is the inevitable result of a passion that sweeps away all barriers. It is like the sea breaking through its dikes, like the waters of the deep and the torrential rains, the creative, fructifying, “motherly” waters, as Indian mythology calls them ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 170
Now [the waters] depart from their natural courses and surge over the mountain-tops and engulf all living things ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 170
If evil were to be utterly destroyed, everything daemonic, including God himself, would suffer a grievous loss; it would be like performing an amputation on the body of the Deity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 170
Passion raises a man not only above himself, but also above the bounds of his mortality and earthliness, and by the very act of raising him, it destroys him ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 171
This “rising above himself” is expressed mythologically in the building of the heaven-high tower of Babel that brought confusion to mankind, and in the revolt of Lucifer ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 171
(In Byron’s poem [ “Heaven and Earth,” CW 5: par. 169], it is the overweening ambition of the race of Cain, whose strivings make the stars subservient and corrupt the sons of God themselves. Even if a longing for the highest is legitimate in itself, the sinful presumption and inevitable corruption lie in the very fact that it goes beyond the fixed human boundaries ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 171
Through excess of longing man can draw the gods down into the murk of his passions. He seems to be raising himself up to the Divine, but in so doing he abandons his humanity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 171
There, where the deep fountains of the ocean are, dwells Leviathan; from there the all-destroying flood ascends, the tidal wave of animal passion ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 174
The choking, heart-constricting surge of instinct is projected outwards as a mounting flood to destroy everything that exists, so that a new and better world may arise from the ruins of the old ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 174
The sun’s the only truly “rational” image of God, whether we adopt the standpoint of the primitive savage or of modern science. (In either case the sun is the father-god from whom all living things draw life; he is the fructifier and creator, the source of energy for our world ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 176
Samson as a sun-god. The killing of the lion, like the Mithraic bull-sacrifice, is an anticipation of the god’s self-sacrifice ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 176
The same is true of many other sexual images which are found not only in dreams and fantasies but in everyday speech. In neither case should they be taken literally, for they are not to be understood semiotically, as signs for definite things, but as symbols ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 180
A symbol is an indefinite expression with many meanings, pointing to something not easily defined and therefore not fully known. But the sign always has a fixed meaning, because it is a conventional abbreviation for, or a commonly accepted indication of, something known ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 180
The symbol therefore has a large number of analogous variants, and the more of these variants it has at its disposal, the more complete and clear-cut will be the image it projects of its object ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 180
The same creative force, which is symbolized by Tom Thumb, etc., can also be represented by the phallus or by numerous other symbols which delineate further aspects of the process underlying them all. Thus the creative dwarfs toil away in secret; the phallus, also working in darkness, begets a living being and the key unlocks the mysterious forbidden door behind which some wonderful thing awaits discovery. One thinks, in this connection, of “The Mothers” in Faust: ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 180
Here the devil again puts into Faust’s hand the marvelous tool [the key], as once before when, in the form of the black dog, he introduced himself to Faust as part of that power which would ever work evil but engenders good. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 181
What he is describing here is the libido, which is not only creative and procreative, but possesses an intuitive faculty, a strange power to “smell the right place,” almost as if it were a live creature with an independent life of its own (which is why it is so easily personified). It is purposive, like sexuality itself, a favorite object of comparison ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 182
The “realm of the Mothers” has not a few connections with the womb with the matrix, which frequently symbolizes the creative aspect of the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 182
This libido is a force of nature, good and bad at once, or morally neutral. Uniting himself with it, Faust succeeds in accomplishing his real life’s work, at first with evil results and then for the benefit of mankind ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 182
In the realm of the Mothers he finds the tripod, the Hermetic vessel in which the “royal marriage” is consummated. But he needs the phallic wand in order to bring off the greatest wonder of all the creation of Paris and Helen. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 182
The insignificant-looking tool in Faust’s hand is the dark creative power of the unconscious, which reveals itself to those who follow its dictates and is indeed capable of working miracles ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 182
This paradox appears to be very ancient, for the Shvetashvatara Upanishad (9, 20) goes on to say of the dwarf-god, the cosmic purusha: ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 182
The phallus often stands for the creative divinity, Hermes being an excellent example. It is sometimes thought of as an independent being, an idea that is found not only in antiquity but in the drawings of children and artists of our own day ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 183
So we ought not to be surprised if certain phallic characteristics are also found in the seers, artists, and wonder-workers of mythology. Hephaestus, Wieland the Smith, and Mani (the founder of Manichaeism, famous also for his artistic gifts), had crippled feet ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 183
The foot, as I shall explain in due course, is supposed to possess a magical generative power. The ancient seer Melampus, who is said to have introduced the cult of the phallus, had a very peculiar name Blackfoot, and it also seems characteristic of seers to be blind ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 183
Ugliness and deformity are especially characteristic of those mysterious chthonic gods, the sons of Hephaestus, the Cabiri, to whom mighty wonder-working powers were ascribed ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 183
Their cult was closely bound up with that of the ithyphallic Hermes, who according to Herodotus was brought to Attica by the Pelasgians. They were called, ‘great gods’ ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 183
Their near relatives were the Idaean dactyls (fingers or else Tom Thumbs), to whom the mother of the gods had taught the blacksmith’s art (“Follow it down, it leads you to the Mothers!”) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 183
They [Idaean dactyls] were the first Wise Men, the teachers of Orpheus, and it was they who invented the Ephesian magic formulae and the musical rhythms ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 183
The characteristic disparity which we noted in the Upanishads and Faust crops up again here, since the giant Hercules was said to be an Idaean dactyl. Also the colossal Phrygians, Rhea’s technicians, were dactyls ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 183
The two Dioscuri are related to the Cabiri; they too wear the queer little pointed hat, the pileus, which is peculiar to these mysterious gods and was thenceforward perpetuated as a secret mark of identification. Attis and Mithras both wore the pileus (fig. 020). It had become the traditional headgear of our infantile chthonic gods today, the pixies and goblins ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 183
Cicero gives it a very wide meaning: will is a rational desire, but when it is divorced from reason and is too violently aroused, that is “libido,” or unbridled desire, which is found in all fools (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, Gook IV, vi, 12) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 185
Here libido means a want' or a
wish,’ and also, in contradiction to the will' of the Stoics,
unbridled desire.’ Cicero uses it in this sense when he says: (“to do something from willful desire and not from reason”) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 186
The use of libido is so general that the phrase “libido est scire” merely means: I like,'
it pleases me.’ In the phrase libido has the meaning of `urge’ ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 186
It can also have the nuance of `lasciviousness.’ St. Augustine aptly defines libido as a “general term for all desire” and says: There is a lust for revenge, which is called rage; a lust for having money, which is called avarice; a lust for victory at all costs, which is called stubbornness; a lust for self-glorification, which is called boastfulness. There are many and varied kinds of lust (De Civitate Dei, XIV, xv.) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 186
For St. Augustine libido denotes an appetite like hunger and thirst, and so far as sexuality is concerned he says: Pleasure is preceded by an appetite that is felt in the flesh, a kind of desire like hunger and thirst (De Civitate Dei, XIV, xv.) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 187
Libido is connected etymologically with: it pleases, gladly, willingly, to experience violent longing, excites longing, eager, love, hope, praise, and glory ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 188
We can say, then, that the concept of libido in psychology has functionally the same significance as the concept of energy in physics since the time of Robert Mayer ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 189
The term describes the Indian concept of tejas which denotes a subjective intensity, i.e., anything potent and highly charged with energy ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 238
Libido is symbolized by the human figure as demon or hero one that passes from joy to sorrow, from sorrow to joy, and like the sun, now stands high at the zenith and now plunged into darkest night, only to rise again in new splendor ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 251
Libido denotes a desire or impulse which is unchecked by any kind of authority, moral or otherwise. It appetite in its natural state ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 194
From the genetic point of view it is bodily needs like hunger, thirst, sleep, sex, and emotional states or affects which constitute the essence of libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 194
Like energy, the libido never manifests itself as such, but only in the form of a “force,” that is to say, in the form of something in a definite energic state, be it moving bodies, chemical or electrical tension, etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 505
The libido expresses itself in images of sun, light, fire, sex, fertility, and growth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 324
This leads to a conception of libido which expands into a conception of intentionality in general. We would be better advised, therefore, when speaking of libido, to understand it as an energy-value which is able to communicate itself to any field of activity whatsoever, be it power, hunger, hatred, sexuality, or religion, without ever being itself a specific instinct ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 197
Intricate overlapping’s of meaning can only be disentangled if we reduce them to a common denominator. This denominator is the libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 659
As a power which transcends consciousness the libido is by nature daemonic: it is both God and devil ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 170
As we know, an important change occurred in the principles of propagation during the ascent through the animal kingdom: the vast numbers of gametes which chance fertilization made necessary were progressively reduced in favor of assured fertilization and effective protection of the young ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 194
The decreased production of ova and spermatozoa set free considerable quantities of energy which soon sought and found new outlets ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 194
Thus we find the first stirrings of the artistic impulse in animals, but subservient to the reproductive instinct and limited to the breeding season ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 194
The original sexual character of these biological phenomena gradually disappears as they become organically fixed and achieve functional independence ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 194
Although there can be no doubt that music originally belonged to the reproductive sphere, it would be an unjustified and fantastic generalization to put music in the same category as sex ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 194
Such a view would be tantamount to treating of Cologne Cathedral in a text-book of mineralogy, on the ground that it consisted very largely of stones ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 194
According to Plotinus, the world-soul has a tendency towards separation and divisibility, the sine qua non of all change, creation, and reproduction. It is an “unending All of life” and wholly energy; a living organism of ideas which only become effective and real in it ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 198
It seems as if the process of analogy-making has gradually altered and added to the common stock of ideas and names, with the result that man’s picture of the world was considerably broadened ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 203
Specially colourful or intense contents (the “feeling-toned” complexes) were reflected in countless analogies, and gave rise to synonyms whose objects were thus drawn into the magic circle of the psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 203
In this way there came into being those intimate relationships by analogy which Lévy-Bruhl fittingly describes as participation mystique ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 203
It is evident that this tendency to invent analogies deriving from feeling-toned contents has been of enormous significance for the development of the human mind ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 203
We are in thorough agreement with Steinthal when he says that a positive overwhelming importance attaches to the little word “like” in the history of human thought ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 203
One can easily imagine that the canalization of libido into analogy-making was responsible for some of the most important discoveries ever made by primitive man ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 203
At the same time there develops in the motor sphere in general a pleasurable rhythmic movement of the arms and legs (kicking, etc.) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 206
With the growth of the individual and development of his organs the libido creates for itself new avenues of activity. The primary model of rhythmic movement, producing pleasure and satisfaction, is transferred to the zone of other functions, with sexuality as its ultimate goal ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 206
This is not to say that the rhythmic activity derives from the act of nutrition. A considerable part of the energy supplied by nutrition for growth has to convert itself into sexual libido and other forms of activity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 206
The transition of libido does not take place suddenly at the time of puberty, as is commonly supposed, but only very gradually during the course of childhood ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 206
Sucking still belongs to the sphere of the nutritive function, but outgrows it by ceasing to be a function of nutrition and becoming an analogous rhythmic activity without intake of nourishment ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 206
At this point the hand comes in as an auxiliary organ. It appears even more clearly as an auxiliary organ in the phase of rhythmic activity, which then leaves the oral zone and turns to other regions. Numerous possibilities now present themselves ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 206
As a rule, it is the other body openings that become the main object of interest; then the skin, or special parts of it; and finally rhythmic movements of all kinds ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 206
In the course of its migrations the libido carries traces of the nutritional phase into its new field of operations, which accounts for the many intimate connections between the nutritive and the sexual function. Should this more developed activity meet with an obstacle that forces it to regress, the regression will be to an earlier stage of development ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 206
The phase of rhythmic activity generally coincides with the development of mind and speech. I therefore propose to call the period from birth up to the time of the first clear manifestations of sexuality the “presexual stage.” As a rule it falls between the first and the fourth year and is comparable to the chrysalis stage in butterflies. It is characterized by a varying mixture of elements from the nutritional and sexual phases ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 206
They dig a hole in the ground, so shaping it and setting it about with bushes that it looks like a woman’s genitals ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 213
Then they dance round this hole all night, holding their spears in front of them in imitation of an erect penis. As they dance round, they thrust their spears into the hole, shouting:. Obscene dances of this kind are found among other tribes as well ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 213
In this rite of spring there is enacted a sacramental mating, with the hole in the earth representing the woman, and the spear the man. The hierosgamos was an essential component of many cults and played an important part in various sects ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 213
The tensions inside a primitive group are never greater than those involved in the struggle for existence of the group as a whole. Were it otherwise, the group would speedily perish ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 213
What does constitute a serious threat to the primitive group is the endogamous tendency, which has to be checked in order to exorcize the danger ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 217
The best means to this end seems to be the widespread custom of cross-cousin marriage because it keeps the endogamous (incestuous) and exogamous tendencies balanced ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 217
The danger that then threatens the group comes from the very advantages it has gained through checking the endogamous tendency [incest] to which the incest-taboo applies ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 217
The group acquires an inner stability, opportunities for expansion, and hence greater security. That is to say, the source of fear does not lie inside the group, but in the very real risks which the struggle for existence entails ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 217
Fear of enemies and of hunger predominates even over sexuality, which is, as we know, no problem at all for the primitive, as it is far simpler to get a woman than it is to get food ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 217
Fear of the consequences of being unadapted is a compelling reason for checking the instincts ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 217
Confronted with disaster, one is obliged to ask oneself how it is to be remedied. The libido that is forced into regression by the obstacle always reverts to the possibilities lying dormant in the individual. A dog, finding the door shut, scratches at it until it is opened, and a man unable to find the answer to a problem rubs his nose, pulls his lower lip, scratches his ear, and so on ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 217
If he gets impatient, all sorts of other rhythms appear; he starts drumming with his fingers, shuffles his feet about, and it will not be long before certain distinctly sexual analogies manifest themselves, such as masturbation gestures ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 217
Koch-Grünberg, writing on South American rock-paintings, tells us how the Indians sit on the rocks and scratch lines on them with sharp stones while waiting for their canoes to be transported round the rapids ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 217
Now when the libido is forced back by an obstacle, it does not necessarily regress to earlier sexual modes of application, but rather to the rhythmic activities of infancy which serve as a model both for the act of nutrition and for the sexual act itself. The material before us does not seem to preclude the possibility that the invention of fire-making came about in the manner suggested, that is, through the regressive reawakening of rhythm ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 218
If certain tribes can dance all night long to a monotonous tune of three notes, then, to our way of thinking, the play-element is entirely lacking: it is more like an exercise with a set purpose ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 219
This is in the fact the case, for rhythm is a classic device for impressing certain ideas or activities on the mind, and what has to be impressed and firmly organized is the canalization of libido into a new form of activity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 219
Since the rhythmic activity can no longer find an outlet in the act of feeding after the nutritional phase of development is over, it transfers itself not only to the sphere of sexuality in the strict sense, but also to the “decoy mechanisms,” such as music and dancing, and finally to the sphere of work ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 219
The close connection which work always has with music, singing, dancing, drumming, and all manner of rhythms in primitive societies, indeed its absolute dependence on these things, is very striking ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 219
This [Music] connection forms the bridge to sexuality, thus giving the primitive an opportunity to sidetrack and evade the task in hand ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 219
Because diversions of this kind are a frequent occurrence and are to be found in all spheres of culture, people have been led to believe that there is no differentiated achievement that is not a substitute for some form of sexuality. I regard this as an error, albeit a very understandable one considering the enormous psychological importance of the sexual instinct ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 219
The rhythmic tendency does not come from the nutritional phase at all, as if it had migrated from there to the sexual, but that it is a peculiarity of emotional processes in general ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 219
Any kind of excitement, no matter in what phase of life, displays a tendency to rhythmic expression, perseveration, and repetition, as can easily be seen from the repetition, assonance, and alliteration of complex-toned reaction words in the association experiment ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 219
Rhythmic patterns therefore offer no ground for assuming that the function they affect originated in sexuality ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 219
The psychological importance of sexuality and the existence of plausible sexual analogies make a deviation into sex extremely easy in cases of regression, so that it naturally seems as if all one’s troubles were due to a sexual wish that is unjustly denied fulfilment. This reasoning is typical of the neurotic ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 220
Primitives seem to know instinctively the dangers of this deviation: when celebrating the heiros gamos, the Wachandi, of Australia, may not look at a woman during the entire ceremony. Among a certain tribe of American Indians, it was the custom for the warriors, before setting out on the warpath, to move in a circle round a beautiful young girl standing naked in the center. Whoever got an erection was disqualified as unfit for military operation ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 220
The deviation into sex is used not always, but very frequently as a means of escaping the real problem ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 220
One makes oneself and others believe that the problem is purely sexual, that the trouble started long ago and that its causes lie in the remote past ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 220
This provides a heaven-sent way out of the problem of the present by shifting the whole question on to another and less dangerous plane. But the illicit gain is purchased at the expense of adaptation, and one gets a neurosis into the bargain ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 220
The checking of the instincts can be traced back to fear of the very real dangers of existence in this world ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 221
But external reality is not the only source of this instinct-inhibiting fear, for primitive man is often very much more afraid of “inner” reality the world of dreams, ancestral spirits, demons, gods, magicians, and witches ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 221
Although we, with our rationalism, think we can block this source of fear by pointing to its unreality, it nevertheless remains one of those psychic realities whose irrational nature cannot be exorcized by rational argument ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 221
There is a psychic reality which is just as pitiless and just as inexorable as the outer world, and just as useful and helpful, provided one knows how to circumvent its dangers and discover its hidden treasures ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 221
“Magic is the science of the jungle,” a famous explorer once said. Civilized man contemptuously looks down on primitive superstitions, which is about as sensible as turning up one’s nose at the pikes and halberds, the fortresses and tall-spired cathedrals of the Middle Ages ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 221
Primitive methods are just as effective under primitive conditions as machine-guns or the radio are under modern conditions ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 221
If there is an inhibition of sexuality, a regression will eventually occur in which the sexual energy flowing back from this sphere activates a function in some other sphere. In this way the energy changes its form ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 226
Let us take as an example the Wachandi ceremony: in all probability the hole in the earth is an analogy of the mother’s genitals, for when a man is forbidden to look at a woman, his Eros reverts to the mother. But as incest has to be avoided at all costs, the hole in the earth acts as a kind of mother-substitute ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 226
Thus, by means of ceremonial exercise, the incestuous energy-component becomes, as it were, desexualized, is led back to an infantile level where, if the operation is successful, it attains another form, which is equivalent to another function ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 226
It is to be assumed, however, that the operation is accomplished only with difficulty, for the primary instinct is composed of an endogamous (“incestuous”) tendency and an exogamous one and must therefore be split into two. This splitting is connected with consciousness and the process of becoming conscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 226
The regression is always attended by certain difficulties because the energy clings with specific force to its object, and on being changed from one form carries something of its pervious character into the next form. So although the resultant phenomena have the character of a sexual act, it is not a sexual act any longer ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 226
In the same way, fire-boring is only an analogy of the sexual act, just as the latter often has to serve as a linguistic analogy for all sorts of other activities. The presexual, early infantile state to which the libido reverts is characterized by numerous possibilities of application, because, once the libido has arrived there, it is restored to its original undifferentiated polyvalency ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 226
It is therefore understandable that the libido which regressively “invests” this stage sees itself confronted with a variety of possible applications ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 226
Since, in the Wachandi ceremony, the libido is bound to its object sexuality it will carry at least part of this function into the new form as an essential characteristic ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 226
But the aim of the action is to bring forth the fruits of the field, and it is magical rather than sexual. Here the regression leads to a reactivation of the mother as the goal of desire, this time as a symbol not of sex but of the giver of nourishment ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 226
The libido, forced into regression by the checking of instinct, reactivates the infantile boring and provides it with objective material to work unfittingly called “material” because the object at this stage is the mother (mater) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 227
As I have pointed out above, the act of boring requires only the strength and perseverance of an adult man and suitable “material” in order to generate fire ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 227
Consequently, the production of fire may have originally occurred as the objective expression of a quasi-masturbatory activity analogous to the aforementioned case of masturbatory boring. Though we can never hope to advance any real proof of our contention, it is at least thinkable that some traces of these first exercises in fire-making may have been preserved. I have succeeded in finding a passage in a monument of Indian literature [the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad] which describes this conversion of libido into fire-making ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 227
The pleasure and satisfaction the baby finds in feeding is localized in the mouth, but to interpret this pleasure as sexual is quite unjustified. Feeding is a genuine activity, satisfying in itself, and because it is a vital necessity nature has here put a premium on pleasure ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 229
The mouth soon begins to develop another significance as the organ of speech. The extreme importance of speech doubles the significance of the mouth in small children ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 229
The rhythmic activities it carries out express a concentration of emotional forces, i.e., of libido, at this point. Thus the mouth (and to a lesser degree the anus) becomes the prime place of origin ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 229
According to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the most important discovery ever made by primitive man, the discovery of fire, came out of the mouth. As we might expect, there are texts which draw a parallel between fire and speech. The Aitareya Upanishad says: From the mouth came speech, and from speech fire ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 229
Tejas, therefore, describes the psychological situation covered by the word “libido.” It really denotes subjective intensity. Anything potent, any content highly charged with energy, therefore has a wide range of symbolic meanings ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 238
Agni is the sacrificial flame, the sacrificer and the sacrificed ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 246
The wise Diotima in Plato’s Symposium has a conception of the divine messenger and mediator. She teaches Socrates that Eros is “the intermediary between mortals and immortals a mighty daemon, dear Socrates; for everything daemonic is the intermediary between God and man” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 242
His function is to “interpret and convey messages to the gods from men and to men from the gods, prayers and sacrifices from the one, and commands and rewards from the other, thus bridging the gap between them, so that by his mediation the universe is at one with itself” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 242
He is neither mortal nor immortal; but on one and the same day he will live and flourish (when things go well with him), and also meet his death; and then come to life again through the force of his father’s nature ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 242
We read in the third chapter of the book of the prophet Daniel that Nabuchodonosor, the King of Babylon, caused three men to be placed in a glowing furnace, and that the king came to the furnace and looked in, and saw with the three a fourth, who was like the Son of God. The three signify for us the Holy Trinity of the person, and the fourth the unity of being. Thus Christ in his transfiguration signified the Trinity of the person and the unity of being ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 244
The fiery furnace, like the fiery tripod in Faust, is a mother symbol. From the tripod come Paris and Helen, the royal pair of alchemy, and in popular tradition children are baked in the oven ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 245
The alchemical athanor, or melting pot, signifies the body, while the alembic or cucurbita, the Hermetic vessel, represents the uterus ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 245
The “fourth” in the fiery furnace appears like a son of God made visible in the fire. Jehovah himself is a fire. Isaiah 10:17 (RSV) says of the saviour of Israel: “And the light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 245
A hymn of Ephraem the Syrian says of Christ: “Thou who art all fire, have pity on me.” This view is based on the apocryphal saying of our Lord: “He who is near unto me is near unto the fire” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 245
So far our exposition has been based on the pramantha component of the Agni sacrifice, and we have concerned ourselves with only one meaning of the word manthami or mathnami, namely with that which expresses the idea of rubbing ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 248
It is the custom in the Catholic Church to light a new fire at Easter. So, even in the Occident, fire-making is an element in a religious mystery, which testifies to its symbolical and ambiguous character. The rules of the ritual must be scrupulously observed if it is to have its intended magical effect ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 248
Speech and fire-making represent primitive man’s victory over his brutish unconsciousness and subsequently became powerful magical devices for overcoming the ever present “daemonic” forces lurking in the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 248
The blocking of libido leads to an accumulation of instinctuality and, in consequence, to excesses and aberrations of all kinds. Among them, sexual disturbances are fairly frequent, as we might expect ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 249
A particularly instructive example is the psychology of incendiarism: incendiarism is really a regressive act of fire-making, and in certain cases it is combined with masturbation ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 249
Schmid tells of an imbecile peasant youth who started numerous fires. On one occasion he aroused suspicion by standing in the door of a house with his hands in his trouser pockets, gazing with delight at the conflagration. Later, under examination, he admitted that he always masturbated while enjoying the spectacle of the fires he had started (“Zu Psychologie der Brandstifter,” p. 80) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 249
But there was always a tendency to prepare fire in a mysterious ceremonial manner on special occasions just as with ritual eating and drinking and to do it according to prescribed rules from which no one dared to differ ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 250
This ritual serves to remind us of the original numinosity of fire-making, but apart from that it has no practical significance. The anamnesis of fire-making is on a level with the recollection of the ancestors among primitives and of the gods at a more civilized stage ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 250
From the psychological point of view the ceremony has the significance of a meaningful institution, inasmuch as it represents a clearly defined procedure for canalizing the libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 250
It has, in fact, the functional value of a paradigm, and its purpose is to show us how we should act when the libido gets blocked. What we call the “blocking of libido” is, for the primitive, a hard and concrete fact: his life ceases to flow, things lose their glamour, plants, animals, and men no longer prosper ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 250
The ancient Chinese philosophy of the I Ching devised some brilliant images for this state of affairs. Modern man, in the same situation, experiences a standstill (“I am stuck”), a loss of energy and enjoyment (“the zestlibidohas gone out of life”), or a depression ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 250
One frequently has to tell the patient what is happening to him, for modern man’s powers of introspection leave much to be desired ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 250
If, even today, the new fire is kindled at Eastertide, it is in commemoration of the redemptive and saving significance of the first fire-boring. In this way man wrested a secret from nature the Promethean theft of fire. He made himself guilty of an unlawful intervention, incorporating a fragment of the age-old unconscious into the darkness of his mind. With this theft he appropriated something precious and offended against the gods ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 250
Anyone who knows the primitive’s fear of innovations and their unforeseen consequences can imagine the uncertainty and uneasy conscience which such a discovery would arouse ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 250
This primordial experience finds an echo in the widespread motif of robbery (sun-cattle of Geryon, apples of the Hesperides, herb of immortality). And it is worth remembering that in the cult of Diana at Aricia [Lake Nemi], only he could become her priest who plucked the golden bough from the sacred grove of the goddess ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 250
The pramantha, or instrument of the manthana (fire-sacrifice), is conceived under a purely sexual aspect in India ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 210
The fire-stick being the phallus or man, and the bored wood underneath the vulva or woman ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 210
The fire that results from the boring is the child, the divine son Agni. The two pieces of wood are ritually known as pururavas and urvasi, and, when personified, are thought of as man and woman ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 210
The fire is born from the genitals of the woman. Weber gives the following account of the fire-producing ceremony: ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 210
A sacrificial fire is kindled by rubbing two fire-sticks together ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 210
One of the fire-sticks is taken up with the words: “Thou art the birthplace of fire,” and two blades of grass are placed upon it: “Ye are the two testicles” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 210
The priest then places on them the adhararani (the underlying piece of wood), saying: “Thou art Urvasi,” and anoints the uttararani (uppermost piece) with butter: “Thou art the power” (semen) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 210
This is then placed on the adhararani, with the words: “Thou art Pururavas.” Rubbing them together three times the priest says: “I rub thee with the Gayatrimetrum: I rub thee with the Trishtubhmetrum: I rub thee with the Jagatimetrum” (Weber, Indische Studien, I, p. 197, cited in Kuhn, p. 71) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 210
The sexual symbolism is unmistakable. We find the same idea and symbolism in a hymn of the Rig-Veda ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 211
These examples, coming from different periods of history and from different peoples, prove the existence of a widespread tendency to equate fire-making with sexuality ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 213
The ceremonial or magical repetition of this age-old discovery shows how persistently the human mind clings to the old forms, and how-deep rooted is the memory of fire-boring ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 213
The finest of all symbols of the libido is the human figure, conceived as a demon or hero. Here the symbolism leaves the objective, material realm of astral and meteorological images and takes on human form, changing into a figure who passes from joy to sorrow, from sorrow to joy, and, like the sun, now stands high at the zenith and now is plunged into darkest night only to rise again in new splendour ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 251
Hence the beautiful name of the sun-hero Gilgamesh, “The Man of Joy and Sorrow,” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 251
Just as the sun, by its own motion and in accordance with its own inner law, climbs from morn till noon, crosses the meridian and goes its downward way towards evening, leaving its radiance behind it, and finally plunges into all-enveloping night, so man sets his course by immutable laws and, his journey over, sinks into darkness to rise again in his children and begin the cycle anew ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 251
The symbolic transition from sun to man is easily made, and the third and last creation of the Miller Fantasies follows this pattern. She calls it “Chiwantopel, A hypnogogic drama” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 251
These, so far as psychological experience is concerned, are the archetypal contents of the (collective) unconscious, the archaic heritage of humanity, the legacy left behind by all differentiation and development and bestowed upon all men like sunlight and air ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 259
But in loving this inheritance men love that which is common to all; they turn back to the mother of humanity, to the psyche, which was before consciousness existed, and in this way they make contact with the source and regain something of that mysterious and irresistible power which comes from the feeling of being part of the whole ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 259
It is the problem of Antaeus, who could only keep his giant strength through contact with mother earth. This temporary withdrawal into oneself seems, within certain limits, to have a favourable effect upon the psychic well-being of the individual ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 259
The concrete reality of religious figures assists the canalization of libido into the equivalent symbols, provided that the worship of them does not get stuck at the outward object ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 259
But even if it does, it at least remains bound to the representative human figure and loses its original primitive form, even though it does not attain the desired symbolic form ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 259
These, so far as psychological experience is concerned, are the archetypal contents of the (collective) unconscious, the archaic heritage of humanity, the legacy left behind by all differentiation and development and bestowed upon all men like sunlight and air ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 259
But in loving this inheritance men love that which is common to all; they turn back to the mother of humanity, to the psyche, which was before consciousness existed, and in this way they make contact with the source and regain something of that mysterious and irresistible power which comes from the feeling of being part of the whole ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 259
Dreams are full of these theriomorphic representations of libido. Hybrids and monsters, like the one found here, are not at all infrequent. Bertschinger has given us a series of illustrations in which the lower (animal) half in particular is represented theriomorphically. The libido so represented is the “animal” instinct which has got repressed ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 261
It is therefore conceivable that my patient was damaging his instinct precisely through his manifest lack of sexual repression. His fear of my imposing some medical prohibition on him is reflected a little too faithfully in the dream for the latter to be altogether above suspicion ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 261
Dreams which repeat the real situation too emphatically, or insist too plainly in some anticipated reality, are making use of conscious contents as a means of expression ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 261
His dream is really expressing a projection: he projects the killing of the animal on to the doctor. That is the way it appears to him, because he does not know that he himself is injuring his instinct ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 261
The pointed instrument generally means the needle of the intellect, with which insects are pinned down and classified ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 261
He has “modern” ideas about sex and does not know that he has an unconscious fear of my taking his pet theories away from him. This possibility is rightly feared, for if it were not in him he would hardly have had this dream ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 261
Thus the theriomorphic symbols always refer to unconscious manifestations of libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 261
Repression, as we have seen, is not directed solely against sexuality, but against the instincts in general which are the vital foundations, the laws governing all life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 263
The regression caused by repressing the instincts always leads back to the psychic past, and consequently to the phase of childhood where the decisive factors appear to be, and sometimes actually are, the parents ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 263
But the inborn instincts of the child play a distinct role aside from the parents, as can be seen from the fact that the parents do not exercise a uniform influence on their children, who each react to them in a different way. They [inborn instincts] must, therefore, possess individual determinants ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 263
Yet, to the empty consciousness of the child, it must seem as if all the determining influences came from outside, because children cannot distinguish their own instincts from the influence and will of their parents ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 263
This lack of discrimination in the child makes it possible for the animals which represent the instincts to appear at the same time as attributes of the parents, and for the parents to appear in animal form, the father as a bull, the mother as a cow, and so on ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 263
If the regression goes still further back, beyond the phase of childhood to the preconscious, prenatal stage, then archetypal images appear, no longer connected with the individual’s memories, but belonging to the stock of inherited possibilities of representation that are born anew in every individual ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 264
It is from them [archetypal images] that there arise those images of “divine” beings which are part animal, part human. The guise in which these figures appear depend on the attitude of the conscious mind: if it is negative towards the unconscious, the animals will be frightening: if positive, they appear as the “helpful animals” of fairytale and legend ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 264
It frequently happens that if the attitude towards the parents is too affectionate and too dependent, it is compensated in dreams by frightening animals, who represent the parents just as much as the helpful animals did. The Sphinx is a fear-animal of this kind and still shows clear traces of a mother derivative ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 264
Oedipus, thinking he had overcome the Sphinx sent by the mother-goddess merely because he had solved her childishly simple riddle, fell victim to matriarchal incest and had to marry Jocasta, his mother, for the throne and the hand of the widowed queen belonged to him who freed the land from the plague of the Sphinx. This had all those tragic consequences which could easily have been avoided if only Oedipus had been sufficiently intimidated by the frightening appearance of the terrible' or
devouring’ Mother whom the Sphinx personified ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 264
It is evident that a factor of such magnitude cannot be disposed of by solving a childish riddle. The riddle was, in fact, the trap which the Sphinx laid for the unwary wanderer. Overestimating his intellect in a typically masculine way, Oedipus walked right into it, and all unknowingly committed the crime of incest. The riddle of the Sphinx was herself the terrible mother-imago, which Oedipus would not take as a warning ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 265
Echidna was a monster with the top half of a beautiful maiden, and a hideous serpent below ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 265
This double-being corresponds to the mother-imago: above, the lovely and attractive human half; below, the horrible animal half, changed into a fear-animal by the incest prohibition ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 265
Echidna was born of the All-Mother, Mother Earth, Gaia, who conceived her with Tartarus, the personification of the underworld ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 265
Echidna herself was the mother of all terrors, of the Chimera, Scylla, the Gorgon, of frightful Cerberus, of the Nemean lion, and of the eagle that devoured the liver of Prometheus ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 265
She also gave birth to a number of dragons. One of her sons was Orthrus, the dog of the monster Geryon, who was slain by Heracles. With this dog, her own son, Echidna incestuously begat the Sphinx ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 265
The act of naming is, like baptism, extremely important as regards the creation of personality, for a magical power has been attributed to the name since time immemorial ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 274
To know the secret name of a person is to have power over him. A well-known example of this is the tale of Rumpelstiltskin. In an Egyptian myth, Isis permanently robs the sun-god Ra of his power by compelling him to tell her his real name ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 274
Therefore, to give a name means to give power, to invest with a definite personality or soul. Hence the old custom of giving children the names of saints ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 274
The anal region is very closely connected with veneration. An Oriental fairy-tale relates that the Crusaders used to anoint themselves with the excrement of the Pope in order to make themselves more formidable ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 276
One of my patients, who had a special veneration for her father, had a fantasy in which she saw her father sitting on a commode in a dignified manner, while people filed past greeting him effusively ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 276
We might also mention the intimate connection between excrement and gold: the lowest value allies itself to the highest ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 276
The alchemists sought their prima materia in excrement, one of the arcane substances from which it was hoped that the mystic figure of the filius philosophorum would emerge (“in stercore invenitur”). A very religiously brought-up young patient once dreamt that she saw the Crucifix formed of excrement on the bottom of a blue-flowered chamber-pot ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 276
The contrast is so enormous that one can only assume that the valuations of childhood are totally different from ours. And so, indeed, they are ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 276
Children bring to the act of defecation and its products an interest such as is later evinced only by the hypochondriac ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 276
We can only begin to understand this interest when we realize that the young child connects defecation with a theory of propagation. This puts a somewhat different complexion on the matter. The child thinks: that is how things are produced, how they “come out” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 276
In popular humour excrement is often regarded as a monument or souveniran idea related to anal birth or creation by throwing something behind oneself ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 279
The two-horned derives from an Arabic term referring to the strength of the sun-bull. Alexander is often found on coins with the horns of Jupiter Ammon.This is one of the identifications of the legendary ruler with the spring sun in the sign of the Ram. There can be no doubt that mankind felt a great need to eliminate everything personal and human from its heroes so as to make them equal to the sun, i.e., absolute libido-symbols, through a kind of metastasis ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 283
Dhulqarnein brought his “friend” Khidr to the source of life, that he might drink of immortality. Alexander himself bathed in the stream of life and performed the ritual ablutions ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 288
There are, therefore, two figures who resemble one another but are nevertheless distinct ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 288
The analogous situation in Christianity is the scene by the Jordan, where John leads Christ to the source of life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 288
Christ, as the baptized, is here the subordinate, while John plays the superior role, as in the case of Dhulqarnein and Khidr, or Khidr and Moses, and Khidr and Elias ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 288
The god, Tages, bore the epithet `the fresh-ploughed boy,’ because, according to legend, he sprang out of a furrow behind a peasant ploughing his fields. This image illustrates the Mondamin motif very clearly; the plough has the well-known phallic meaning, and the furrow, as in India, stands for the woman ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 527
Psychologically this image is a symbolical equivalent of copulation, the son being the edible fruit of the field ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 527
The Etruscan Tages, the boy who sprang from the freshly ploughed furrow, was also a teacher of wisdom. In the Litaolane myth of the Basuto, we are told how a monster devoured all human beings and left only one woman alive, who gave birth to a son, the hero, in a cowshed (instead of a cave). Before she could prepare a bed of straw for the infant, he was already grown up and spoke “words of wisdom” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 291
The rapid growth of the hero, a recurrent motif, seems to indicate that the birth and apparent childhood of the hero are extraordinary because his birth is really a rebirth, for which reason he is able to adapt so quickly to his heroic role ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 291
The journey of Moses with his servant Joshua is a life-journey (it lasted eighty years). They grow old together and lose the life-force, i.e., the fish, which “in wondrous wise took its way to the sea” (setting of the sun) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 291
When the two notice their loss, they discover at the place where the source of life is found (where the dead fish revived and sprang into the sea) Khidr wrapped in his mantle, sitting on the ground ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 291
Where the fish vanished Khidr, the Verdant One, was born as a “son of the watery deep,” his head veiled, proclaiming divine wisdom ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 291
They form a pair of brothers whose characters are revealed by the symbolic position of the torches. Cumont not unjustly connects then with the sepulchral Erotes, who as genies with inverted torches have a traditional meaning. One would stand for death, the other for life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 294
There are certain points of resemblance between the Mithraic sacrifice (where the bull in the center is flanked on either side by dadophors) and the Christian sacrifice of the lamb (or ram). The Crucified is traditionally flanked by two thieves, one of whom ascends to paradise while the other descends to hell ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 294
The two dadophors are, as Cumont has offshoots from the main figure of Mithras, who was supposed to have a secret triadic character. Dionysius the Areopagite reports that the magicians held a feast in honor of (the threefold Mithras) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 294
As Cumont observes Cautes and Cautopates sometimes carry in their hands the head of a bull and of a scorpion respectively ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 295
Taurus and Scorpio are equinoctial signs, and this is a clear indication that the sacrifice was primarily connected with the sun cycle: the rising sun that sacrifices itself at the summer solstice, and the setting sun. Since it was not easy to represent sunrise and sunset in the sacrificial drama, this idea had to be shown outside it ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 295
We have already pointed out that the Dioscuri represent a similar idea in somewhat different form: one sun is mortal, the other immortal. As this whole solar mythology is psychology projected into the heavens, the underlying idea could probably be paraphrased thus: just as man consists of a mortal and an immortal part, so the sun is a pair of brothers, one of whom is mortal (the setting sun), the other immortal (the ever-renewing sun). Man is mortal, yet there is something immortal in us ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 296
Thus the gods, or figures like Khidr and the Comte de Saint-Germain, are our immortal part which continue intangibly to exist 296.
The sun comparison tells us over and over again that the dynamic of the gods is psychic energy. This is our immortality, the link through which man feels inextinguishably one with the continuity of all life. The life of the psyche is the life of mankind. Welling up from the depths of the unconscious, its springs gush forth from the root of the whole human race, since the individual is, biologically speaking, only a twig broken off from the mother and transplanted ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 296
Both possibilities are found on a late Babylonian gem from Lajard’s collection. In the middle stands an androgynous deity. On the masculine side there is a snake with a sun halo round its head; on the feminine side another snake with a sickle moon above it ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 297
This picture has a symbolic sexual nuance: on the masculine side there is a lozenge, a favourite symbol of the female genitals, and on the feminine side a wheel without its rim. The spokes are thickened at the ends into knobs, which, like the fingers we mentioned earlier, have a phallic meaning ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 297
It seems to be a phallic wheel such as was not unknown in antiquity. There are obscene gems on which Cupid is shown turning a wheel consisting entirely of phalli. As to what the sun signifies, I discovered in the collection of antiquities at Verona a late Roman inscription ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 297
The symbolism is plain: sun = phallus, moon = vessel (uterus). This interpretation is confirmed by another monument from the same collection. The symbols are the same, except that the vessel has been replaced by the figure of a woman ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 298
Certain symbols on coins can probably be interpreted in a similar manner. In Lajard’s Recherches sur la culte de Vénus there is a coin from Perga, showing Artemis as a conical stone flanked by a masculine figure (alleged to be the deity Men) and a female figure (alleged to be Artemis). Men (otherwise called Lunus) appears on an Attic bas-relief with a spear, flanked by Pan with a club, and a female figure. From this it is clear that sexuality as well as the sun can be used to symbolize the libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 298
Sex being one of the most obvious examples of instinctuality, it is sex which is liable to be most affected by these sacrificial measures, i.e., through abstinence ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 299
Just as Attis unmans himself for the sake of his mother, and his effigy was hung on the pine-tree in memory of this deed, so Christ hangs on the tree of life, on the wood of martyrdom, the and mother, and ransoms creation from death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
Attis also wears the pileus [or “Phrygian cap”] like Men, Mithras, and the dadophors ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 29
The hero himself appears as a being of more than human stature. He is distinguished from the very beginning by his godlike characteristics ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
Since he is psychologically an archetype of the Self, his divinity only confirms that the Self is numinous, a sort of god, or having some share in the divine nature ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
The hero is the protagonist of God’s transformation in man; he corresponds to what I call the “mana personality.” The mana personality has such an immense fascination for the conscious mind that the ego all too easily succumbs to the temptation to identify with the hero, thus bringing on a psychic inflation with all its consequences. For this reason the repugnance felt by certain ecclesiastical circles for the “inner Christ” is understandable enough, at least as a preventive measure against the danger of psychic inflation which threatens the Christian European ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
Heroes are usually wanderers, and wandering is a symbol of longing, of the restless urge which never finds its object, of nostalgia for the lost mother. The sun comparison can easily be taken in this sense: the heroes are like the wandering sun, from which it is concluded that the myth of the hero is a solar myth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 299
It seems to us, rather, that he is first and foremost a self-representation of the longing of the unconscious, of its unquenched and unquenchable desire for the light of consciousness. But consciousness, continually in danger of being led astray by its own light and of becoming a rootless will o’ the wisp, longs for the healing power of nature, for the deep wells of being and for unconscious communion with life in all its countless forms ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 299
It is not man as such who has to be regenerated or born again as a renewed whole, but, according to the statements of mythology, it is the hero or god who rejuvenates himself. These figures are generally expressed or characterized by libido-symbols (light, fire, sun, etc.), so that it looks as if they represented psychic energy. They are, in fact, personifications of the libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 388
The hero is a hero just because he sees resistance to the forbidden goal in all life’s difficulties and yet fights that resistance with the whole-hearted yearning that strives towards the treasure hard to attain, and perhaps unattainable yearning that paralyses and kills the ordinary man ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 510
The hero is an extraordinary being who is inhabited by a daemon, and it is this that makes him a hero. That is why the mythological statements about heroes are so typical and so impersonal ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 536
It is therefore understandable that the three mother-goddesses, Rhea, Cybele, and Diana, all wear the mural crown. The Old Testament treats the cities of Jerusalem, Babylon, etc. just as if they were women ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 303
The Boeotian city of Thebes founded by Cadmus received on that account the cognomen “Ogygian.” This cognomen was also applied to the great Flood, which was called “Ogygian” because it happened under Ogyges. We shall see later on that this coincidence can hardly be accidental ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 306
There is a similar idea in Hindu mythology, where Indra appears as the husband of Urvara. But Urvara means the “fertile land.” In the same way the seizure of a country by the king was regarded as his marriage with the land ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 306
Similar ideas must also have existed in Europe. Princes at their accession had to guarantee a good harvest. The Swedish king Domaldi was actually killed as a result of failure of the crops. In the Hindu Ramayana, the hero Rama marries Sita, the furrow ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 306
To the same circle of ideas belongs the Chinese custom of the emperor’s having to plough a furrow on ascending the throne ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 306
The motif of continuous cohabitation is expressed in the well-known lingam symbol found everywhere in Indian temples: the base is a female symbol, and within it stands the phallus (fig. 258.25). This symbol is rather like the phallic baskets and chests of the Greeks ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 306
The chest or casket is a female, i.e., the womb, a common enough conception in the older mythologies. The chest, barrel, or basket with its precious contents was often thought of as floating on the water, thus forming an analogy to the course of the sun. The sun sails over the sea like an immortal god who every evening is immersed in the maternal waters and is born anew in the morning ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 306
Another form of the same motif is the Persian idea of the tree of life, which stands in the lake of rain, Vouru-Kasha. The seeds of this tree were mixed with the water and so maintained the fertility of the earth. The Vendidad, says that the waters flow “to the sea Vouru-Kasha, towards the well-watered tree, whereon grow the seeds of my plants of every kind” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 306
It is easy to see what the battle with the sea monster means: it is the attempt o free the ego-consciousness from the deadly grip of the unconscious. The making of a fire in the monster’s belly suggests as much, for it is a piece of apotropaic magic aimed at dispelling the darkness of unconsciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 539
The bird probably signifies the renewed ascent of the sun, the rebirth of the phoenix, and is at the same time one of those “helpful animals” who render supernatural aid during the birth: birds as aerial beings, symbolize spirits or angels ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 538
Divine messengers frequently appear at these mythological births, as can be seen from the use we still make of god-parents ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 538
The sun-symbol of the bird rising from the water is preserved etymologically in the idea of the singing swan. Swan' derives from the root sven, like
sun’ and `sound’ ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 538
This ascent signifies rebirth, the bringing forth of life from the mother, and the ultimate conquest of death, which, according to an African Negro myth, came into the world through the carelessness of one old woman: when the season of universal skin-casting came round again (for in those days people renewed themselves by casting their skins like snakes), she was absent-minded enough to put on her old skin instead of the new one, and in consequence died ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 538
The myth often spans a period of three-days. The “three-days” are a stereotyped expression for the “night sea imprisonment” (December 21-24). Christ, too, spent three days in the underworld ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 512
The myth is exemplified in the battle of Hiawatha with Mishe-Nahma, the fish-king. Mishe-Nahma is a monster fish who lives at the bottom of the waters. Challenged to battle by Hiawatha, he swallows the hero together with his boat 537.
Just as Hera, in her role of the pursuing mother, is the real source of the mighty deeds performed by Heracles, so Nokomis allows Hiawatha no rest, but piles up new difficulties in his path, hazardous adventures in which the hero may be victorious, but may also meet with his death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 540
Man with his consciousness is always a long way behind the goals of the unconscious; unless his libido calls him forth to new dangers he sinks into slothful inactivity, or in the prime of life he is overcome with longing for the past and is paralysed ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 540
A Polynesian myth tells how the hero, in the belly of Kombili, the King Fish, seized his obsidian knife and cut open the fish’s belly. “He slipped out and beheld a splendour. Then he sat down and began to think. `I wonder where I am?’ he said to himself” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 311
In the light of these ideas we can understand the mythological statements about Ogyges: it is he who possesses the mother, the city, and is thus united with the mother; therefore under him came the great flood, for it is typical of the sun myth that the hero, once he is united with the woman “hard to attain,” is exposed in a cask and thrown out to sea, and then lands on a distant shore to begin a new life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 312
The middle section, the night sea journey in the ark, is lacking in the Ogyges tradition. But the rule in mythology is that the typical parts of a myth can be fitted together in every conceivable variation, which makes it extraordinarily difficult to interpret one myth without a knowledge of all the others ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para312
The meaning of this cycle of myths is clear enough: it is the longing to attain rebirth through a return to the womb, and to become immortal like the sun. This longing for the mother is amply expressed in the literature of the Bible ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 312
The symbol-creating process substitutes for the mother the city, the well, the cave, the Church, etc. This substitution is due to the fact that the regression of libido reactivates the ways and habits of childhood, and above all the relation to the mother; but what was natural and useful to the child is a psychic danger for the adult, and this is expressed by the symbol of incest ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 313
Because the incest taboo opposes the libido and blocks the path to regression, it is possible for the libido to be canalized into the mother analogies thrown up by the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 313
In that way the libido becomes progressive again, and even attains a level of consciousness higher than before ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 313
The meaning and purpose of this canalization are particularly evident when the city appears in place of the mother: the infantile attachment (whether primary or secondary) is a crippling limitation for the adult, whereas attachment to the city fosters his civic virtues and at least enables him to lead a useful existence ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 313
In primitives the tribe takes the place of the city ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 313
The birds are soul-images, by which are meant the souls of the damned and evil spirits. Thus the mother becomes the underworld, the City of the Damned ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 315
In this primordial image of the woman on the dragon we recognize Echidna, the mother of every hellish horror ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 315
Babylon is the symbol of the Terrible Mother, who leads the peoples into whoredom with her devilish temptations and makes them drunk with her wine. Here the intoxicating drink is closely associated with fornication, for it too is a libido symbol, as we have already seen in the soma-fire-sun parallel ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 31
From water comes life; hence, of the two deities who here interest us most, Christ and Mithras, the latter is represented as having been born beside a river, while Christ experienced his “rebirth” in the Jordan ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 319
Christ, moreover, was born of the, the sempiternal fons amoris or Mother of God, whom pagan-Christian legend turned into a nymph of the spring ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 319
The spring is also found in Mithraism. A Pannonian dedication reads “Fonti perenni.” An inscription from Apulum is dedicated to the “Fons aeternus.” In Persian, Ardvisura is the fount of the water of life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 319
Ardvisura-Anahita is a goddess of water and love (just as Aphrodite is the “foam-born”) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 319
In the Vedas, the waters are called matritamah, `most maternal.’ All living things rise, like the sun, from water, and sink into it again at evening ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 319
Born of springs, rivers, lakes, and seas, man at death comes to the waters of the Styx, and there embarks on the “night sea journey.” Those black waters of death are the water of life, for death with its cold embrace is the maternal womb, just as the sea devours the sun but brings it forth again ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 319
The projection of the mother-imago upon water endows the water with a number of numinous or magical qualities peculiar to the mother. A good example of this is the baptismal water symbolism in the Church ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 320
The maternal aspect of water coincides with the nature of the unconscious, because the unconscious (particularly in men) can be regarded as the mother or matrix of consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 320
Numerous myths say that human beings came from trees, and many of them tell how the hero was enclosed in the maternal tree-trunk, like the dead Osiris in the cedar-tree, Adonis in the myrtle, ecocar Jung, CW 5, Para 321
Hence when Attis castrates himself under a pine-tree, he did so because the tree has a maternal significance ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 321
Not only the gods, but the goddesses, too, are libido-symbols, when regarded from the point of view of their dynamism. The libido expresses itself in images of sun, light, fire, sex, fertility, and growth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 324
In this way the goddesses, as we have seen, come to possess phallic symbols, even though the latter are essentially masculine. One of the main reasons for this is that, just as the female lies hidden in the male (fig. 258.29), so the male lies hidden in the female ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 324
The feminine quality of the tree that represents the goddesses contaminated with the phallic symbolism, as is evident from the genealogical tree that grows out of Adam’s body. In my Psychology and Alchemy I have reproduced, from a manuscript in Florence, a picture of Adam showing the membrum virile as a tree Thus the tree has a bisexual character, as is also suggested by the fact that in Latin the names of trees have masculine endings and feminine gender ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 324
She was in a garden, where she found an exotic-looking tree with strange red fleshy flowers or fruits. She picked and ate them. Then, to her horror, she felt that she was poisoned ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 325
It is the tree of libido, which here represents the feminine as well as the masculine side, because it simply expresses the relationship of the two to one another ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 326
The various meanings of the treesun, tree of Paradise, mother, phallus are explained by the fact that it is a libido-symbol and not an allegory of this or that concrete object. Thus a phallic symbol does not denote the sexual organ, but the libido, and however clearly it appears as such, it does not mean itself but is always a symbol of the libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 329
Symbols are not signs or allegories for something known; they seek rather to express something that is little known or completely unknown. The tertium comparationis [the `third for comparison’] for all these symbols is the libido, and the unity of meaning lies in the fact that they are all analogies of the same thing. In this realm the fixed meaning of things comes to an end ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 329
The sole reality is the libido, whose nature we can only experience through its effect on us. Thus, it is not the mother who is symbolized, but the libido of the son, whose object was once the mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 329
We take mythological symbols much too concretely and are puzzled at every turn by the endless contradictions of myths. But we always forget that it is the conscious creative force which wraps itself in images ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 329
When, therefore, we read: “His mother was a wicked witch,” we must translate it as: the son is unable to detach his libido from the mother-imago, he suffers from resistances because he is tied to the mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 329
One of the simplest ways would be to impregnate the mother and beget oneself in identical form all over again. But here the incest prohibition intervenes; consequently the sun myths and rebirth myths devise every conceivable kind of mother-analogy for the purpose of canalizing the libido into new forms and effectively preventing it from regressing to actual incest ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
The effect of the incest-taboo and of the attempts at canalization is to stimulate the creative imagination, which gradually opens up possible avenues for the self-realization of libido. In this way the libido becomes imperceptibly spiritualized ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
The power which “always desires evil” thus creates spiritual life. That is why the religions exalt this procedure into a system. It is instructive to see the pains they take to further the translation into symbols ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
To the above, I would add that it is hardly possible to restrict this impulse to sexuality. It is primarily a question of primitive instinctuality, of insufficiently differentiated libido which prefers to take a sexual form. Sexuality is by no means the only form of the “full feeling of life.” There are some passions that cannot be derived from sex ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
It is not possible to discuss the problem of symbol-formation without reference to the instinctual processes, because it is from them that the symbol derives its motive power. It has no meaning whatever unless it strives against the resistance of instinct, just as undisciplined instincts would bring nothing but ruin to man if the symbol does not give them form ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 338
Vollers compares Khidr and Elias on the one hand with Gilgamesh and his primitive brother Eabani or Enkidu, and on the other hand with the Dioscuri, one of whom was mortal and the other immortal (Vollers, “Chidher,” pp. 234-84) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 288
The rapid growth of the hero, a recurrent motif, seems to indicate that the birth and apparent childhood of the hero are extraordinary because his birth is really a rebirth, for which reason he is able to adapt so quickly to his heroic role ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 291
The journey of Moses with his servant Joshua is a life-journey (it lasted eighty years). They grow old together and lose the life-force, i.e., the fish, which “in wondrous wise took its way to the sea” (setting of the sun) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 291
It is not man as such who has to be regenerated or born again as a renewed whole, but, according to the statements of mythology, it is the hero or god who rejuvenates himself. These figures are generally expressed or characterized by libido-symbols (light, fire, sun, etc.), so that it looks as if they represented psychic energy. They are, in fact, personifications of the libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 388
The hero is a hero just because he sees resistance to the forbidden goal in all life’s difficulties and yet fights that resistance with the whole-hearted yearning that strives towards the treasure hard to attain, and perhaps unattainable yearning that paralyses and kills the ordinary man ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 510
The hero is an extraordinary being who is inhabited by a daemon, and it is this that makes him a hero. That is why the mythological statements about heroes are so typical and so impersonal ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 536
He [the hero] shares this paradoxical nature with the snake. According to Philo the snake is the most spiritual of all creatures; it is of a fiery nature, and its swiftness is terrible. It has a long life and sloughs off old age with its skin. In actual fact the snake is a cold-blooded creature, unconscious and unrelated. It is both toxic and prophylactic, equally a symbol of the good and bad daemon (the Agathodaimon), of Christ and the devil. Among the Gnostics it was regarded as an emblem of the brain-stem and spinal cord, as is consistent with its predominantly reflex psyche. It is an excellent symbol for the unconscious, perfectly expressing the latter’s sudden and unexpected manifestations, its painful and dangerous intervention in our affairs, and it’s frightening effects ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 580
It is therefore understandable that the three mother-goddesses, Rhea, Cybele, and Diana, all wear the mural crown. The Old Testament treats the cities of Jerusalem, Babylon, etc. just as if they were women ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 303
The fact that the city and the wife of Ogyges both have the same name indicates that there must be some relation between the city and the woman, which is not difficult to understand because the city is identical with the woman ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 306
Another form of the same motif is the Persian idea of the tree of life, which stands in the lake of rain, Vouru-Kasha. The seeds of this tree were mixed with the water and so maintained the fertility of the earth. The Vendidad, says that the waters flow “to the sea Vouru-Kasha, towards the well-watered tree, whereon grow the seeds of my plants of every kind” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 306
Frobenius describes the hero’s journey as going through eight stages: ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 310
Jung believed that the causal explanation was incorrect because the so-called “incest prohibition” which is supposed to operate here is not in itself a primary phenomenon, but goes back to something much more fundamental, namely the primitive system of marriage classes which, in its turn, is a vital necessity in the organization of the tribe ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
So it is more a question of phenomena requiring a teleological explanation than of simple causalities. Moreover it must be pointed out that the basis of the “incestuous” desire is not cohabitation, but, as every sun myth shows, the strange idea of becoming a child again, of returning to the parental shelter, and of entering into the mother in order to be reborn through her. But the way to this goal lies through incest, i.e., the necessity of finding some way into the mother’s body ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
It is not incestuous cohabitation that is desired, but rebirth. The incest prohibition acts as an obstacle and makes the creative fantasy inventive: for instance, there are attempts to make the mother pregnant by means of fertility magic ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
The effect of the incest-taboo and of the attempts at canalization is to stimulate the creative imagination, which gradually opens up possible avenues for the self-realization of libido. In this way the libido becomes imperceptibly spiritualized ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
The power which “always desires evil” thus creates spiritual life. That is why the religions exalt this procedure into a system. It is instructive to see the pains they take to further the translation into symbols ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
It is less than two thousand years since the cult of sex was in full bloom. In those days, of course, they were heathens and did not know any better, but the nature of the symbol-creating forces does not change from age to age ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 339
If one has any conception of the sexual content of those ancient cults, and if one realizes that the experience of union with God was understood in antiquity as a more or less concrete coitus, then one can no longer pretend that the forces motivating the production of symbols have suddenly become different since the birth of Christ ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 339
The fact that primitive Christianity resolutely turned away from nature and the instincts in general, and, through its asceticism, from sex in particular, clearly indicates the source from which its motive forces came ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 339
So it is not surprising that this transformation has left noticeable traces in Christian symbolism. Had it not done so; Christianity would never have been able to transform libido. It succeeded in this largely because its archetypal analogies were for the most part in tune with the instinctual forces it wanted to transform ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 339
At a time when a large part of mankind is beginning to discard Christianity, it may be worth our while to try to understand why it was accepted in the first place ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 341
It was accepted as a means of escape from the brutality and unconsciousness of the ancient world. As soon as we discard it [Christianity], the old brutality returns in force, as has been made overwhelmingly clear by contemporary events ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 341
He who throws Christianity overboard and with it the whole basis of morality, is bound to be confronted with the age-old problem of brutality. We have had bitter experience of what happens when a whole nation finds the moral mask too stupid to keep up. The beast breaks loose, and a frenzy of demoralization sweeps over the civilized world ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 341
Today there are countless neurotics who are neurotic simply because they do not know why they cannot be happy in their own way they do not even know that the fault lies with them ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 342
Besies these neurotics there are many more normal people, men and women of the better kind, who feel restricted and discontented because they have no symbol which would act as an outlet for their libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 342
For all these people a reductive analysis down to the primal facts should be undertaken, so that they can become acquainted with their primitive personality and learn how to take due account of it. Only in this way can certain requirements be fulfilled and others rejected as unreasonable because of their infantile character ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 342
We like to imagine that our primitive traits have long since disappeared without trace. In this we are cruelly disappointed, for never before has our civilization been so swamped with evil. Mere faith cannot be counted as an ethical ideal either, because it too is an unconscious transformation of libido. Faith is a charisma for those who possess it, but it is no way for those who need to understand before they can believe. This is a matter of temperament and cannot be discounted as valueless. For, ultimately, even the believer believes that God gave man reason, and for something better than to lie and cheat with ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 342
Although we naturally believe in symbols in the first place, we can also understand them, and this is indeed the only viable way for those who have not been granted the charisma of faith ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 342
Psychological truth by no means excludes metaphysical truth, though psychology, as a science, has to hold aloof from all metaphysical assertions. Its subject is the psyche and its contents. Both are realities, because they work ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 344
Though we do possess a physics of the soul, and are not even able to observe it and judge it from some Archimedean point “outside” ourselves, and can therefore know nothing objective about it since all knowledge of the psyche is itself psychic, in spite of all this the soul is the only experiment of life and existence ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 344
It is, in fact, the only immediate experience we can have and the sine qua non of the subjective reality of the world. The symbols it creates are always grounded in the unconscious archetype, but their manifest forms are moulded by the ideas acquired by the conscious mind ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 344
The archetypes are the numinous, structural elements of the psyche and possess a certain autonomy and specific energy which enables them to attract, out of the conscious mind, those contents which are best suited to themselves ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 344
The symbols act as transformers, their function to convert libido from a “lower” into a “higher” form. This function is so important that feeling accords it the highest values ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 344
The symbol works by suggestion; that is to say, it carries conviction and at the same time expresses the content of the conviction. It is able to do this because of the numen, the specific energy stored up in the archetype. Experience of the archetype is not only impressive, but it also seizes and possesses the whole personality, and is naturally productive of faith ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 344
Rhea was pregnant with Osiris and his twin sister Isis, and they mated together even in their mother’s womb (night sea journey with incest) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 349
Isis is said to have been born in the “All-Wetness”, and of Osiris it is related that a certain Pamyles of Thebes, whilst drawing water, heard a voice from the temple of Zeus which commanded him to proclaim that Osiris, “the great and beneficent king”, was born. In honour of this Pamyles the Pamylia were celebrated, similar to the Phallophoria ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 349
Pamyles seems, therefore, to have been originally a phallic daimon, like Dionysus. In his phallic form he represents the creative power which “draws” things out of the unconscious (i.e., the water) and begets the god (Osiris) as a conscious content ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 349
This process can be understood both as an individual experience: Pamyles drawing water, and as a symbolic act or experience of the archetype: a drawing up from the depths ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 349
What is drawn up is a numinous, previously unconscious content which would remain dark were it not interpreted by the voice from above as the birth of a god. This type of experience recurs in the baptism [Christ’s] in the Jordan (Matthew 3: 17) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 349
Typical of the trees found in myth is the tree of paradise, or tree of life; most people know of the pine-tree of Attis, the tree or trees of Mithras, and the word-ash Yggdrasill of Nordic mythology, and so on ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 349
The hanging of Attis, in effigy, on a pine-tree, the hanging of Marsyas, which became a popular theme for art, the hanging of Odin, the Germanic hanging sacrifices and the whole series of hanged gods all teach us that the hanging of Christ on the Cross is nothing unique in religious mythology, but belongs to the same circle of ideas ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 349
In this world of images the Cross is the Tree of Life and at the same time a Tree of Death coffin (fig. 258.36). Just as the myths tell us that human beings were descended from trees, so there were burial customs where people were buried in hollow tree-trunks, whence the German Totenbaum, `tree of death,’ for coffin, which is still in use today ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 349
If we remember that the tree is predominantly a mother-symbol, then the meaning of this mode of burial becomes clear. The dead are delivered back to the mother for rebirth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 349
Osiris was killed in a crafty manner by the god of the underworld, Set (Typhon in Greek) who locked him in a chest ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 350
After completing the night sea journey, the coffer containing Osiris was cast ashore at Byblos and came to rest in the branches of a cedar-tree which shot up and enclosed the coffer in its trunk (fig. 023) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 353
The king of the country, admiring the splendid tree, caused it to be cut down and made into a pillar supporting the roof of his house time that coincides with the age-old lament for the dead god ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 353
Isis collected the pieces together again with the help of the jackal-headed Anubis. Here the dogs and jackals, devourers of corpses by night, assist in the reconstitution or reproduction of Osiris. To this necrophagous function the Egyptian vulture probably owes its symbolic mother significance ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 354
Although Isis had managed to collect the pieces of the body, its resuscitation was only partially successful because the phallus could not be found; it had been eaten by the fishes, and the reconstituted body lacked vital force ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 356
The phantom Osiris lay once more with Isis, but the fruit of their union was Harpocrates [the young Horus] who was weak “in the lower limbs,” i.e., in the feet ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 356
Osiris, although only a phantom, now makes the young sun (his son Horus), ready for battle with Set, the evil spirit of darkness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 356
Osiris and Horus represent the father-son symbolism mentioned at the beginning. Osiris is thus flanked by the comely Horus and the misshapen Harpocrates, who is mostly shown as a cripple, sometimes distorted to the point of freakishness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 356
The serpent symbolizes the mysterious numen of the “mother” (and of other daimonia) who kills, but who is at the same time man’s only security against death, as she is the source of life. Accordingly, only the mother can cure him who is sick unto death, and the hymn goes on to describe how the gods were called together to take counsel: ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 452
Finally Ra decides to utter his true name. He was only partially cured, just as Osiris was only incompletely reconstituted, and in addition he lost his power and finally had to retire on the back of the heavenly cow ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 454
From this wound Ra never recovered, so that he finally had to retire on the back of the heavenly cow. But the cow was the cow-headed mother-goddess (fig. 258.30b), just as Osiris was the bull Apis. The mother is accused as though she were the cause of his having to fly to her in order to be cured of the wound she herself had inflicted ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 351
So when the sun-god Ra retires on the back of the heavenly cow, it means that he is going back into the mother in order to rise again as Horus. In the morning the goddess is the mother, at noon she is the sister-wife, and at evening once more the mother who takes back the dead into her womb ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 360
The poisonous worm is a deadly form of libido instead of an animating form. The “true name” is Ra’s soul and magic power (his libido). What Isis demands is the transference of libido to the mother. This request is fulfilled to the letter, for the aging god returns to the heavenly cow, the symbol of the mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 455
But the real cause of the wound is the incest-taboo, which cuts a man off from the security of childhood and early youth, from all those unconscious, instinctive happenings that allow the child to live without responsibility as an appendage of his parents ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 351
It is significant that it is “evil” which lures Osiris into the chest; for, in the light of teleology, the motif of containment signifies the latent state that precedes regeneration ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 351
Actually Isis collected the pieces of Osiris’ body together with the help of the jackal-headed Anubis. Here the dogs and jackals, devourers of corpses by night, assist in the reconstitution or reproduction of Osiris. To this necrophagous function the Egyptian vulture probably owes its symbolic mother significance ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 354
In ancient times the Persians used to throw out their corpses for the dogs to devour, just as, today in Tiber, the dead are left to the vultures, and in Bombay, where the Parsis expose their corpses on the “tower of silence” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 354
The Persians had the custom of leading a dog to the bedside of a dying man, who then had to give the dog a morsel to eat. This custom suggests that the morsel should belong to the dog, so that he will spare the body of the dying man, just as Cerberus was pacified with the honey-cakes which Heracles gave him on his journey to hell ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 354
Hence the bringing in of the dog would have a compensatory significance, death being made equal to the sun at its highest point. This is a thoroughly psychological interpretation, as can be seen from the fact that death is quite commonly regarded as an entry into the mother’s womb (for rebirth) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 354
The interpretation would seem to be supported by the otherwise enigmatic function of the dog in the Mithraic sacrifice. In the monuments a dog is often shown leaping upon the bull killed by Mithras. In the light of the Persian legend, and on the evidence of the monuments themselves, this sacrifice should be conceived as the moment of supreme fruitfulness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 354
This moment of supreme fruitfulness is most beautifully portrayed in the Mithraic relief at Heddernheim. On one side of a large (formerly rotating) stone slab there is a stereotyped representation of the overthrow and sacrifice of the bull, while on the other side stand Sol with a bunch of grapes in his hand, Mithras with the cornucopia, and the dadophors bearing fruits, in accordance with the legend that from the dead bull comes all fruitfulness: fruits from his horns, wine from his blood, corn from his tail, cattle from his semen, garlic from his nostrils, and so forth. Over this scene stands Sylvanus, the beasts of the forest leaping away from him ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 354
In this context the dog might very well have the significance suspected by Creuzer. Moreover the goddess of the underworld, Hecate, is dog-headed, like Anubis. As Canicula, she received dog sacrifices to keep away the pest ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 355
Hecate’s close relation to the moon-goddess suggests that she was a promoter of growth. Hecate was the first to bring Demeter news of her stolen daughter, another reminder of Anubis ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 355
Dog sacrifices were also offered to Eileithyia, the goddess of birth, and Hecate herself (fig. 258.58) is, on occasion, a goddess of marriage and birth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 355
The dog is also the regular companion of Aesculapius, the god of healing, who, while still a mortal, raised a man from the dead and was struck by a thunderbolt as a punishment. These associations help to explain the following passage in Petronius: I earnestly beseech you to paint a small dog round the foot of my statue so that by your kindness I may attain to life after death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 355
Diocletian dedicated a crypt to Hecate, with 365 steps leading down to it. Cave mysteries in her honor seem also to have been celebrated in Samothrace. The Hecate mysteries flourished in Rome towards the end of the fourth century ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
Hecate plays an important part in Greek syncretism, being confused with Artemis, who was also called the, ‘far-hitting,’ or `she who hits at will,’ a name that once more reveals her superordinate power. Artemis is the huntress with hounds, and Hecate too is the wild huntress prowling at night ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
The goddess of the underworld, Hecate, is sometimes represented with a horse’s head As goddess of the underworld, Hecate, is dog-headed, like Anubis. As Canicula, she received dog sacrifices to keep away the pest ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 355
As guardian of the gate of Hades and as the triple-bodied goddess of dogs, she is more or less identical with Cerberus. Thus, in bringing up Cerberus, Heracles was really bringing the vanquished mother of death to the upper world ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
It is she who sends that horrible and fearful night-time apparition, the Empusa, which Aristophanes says comes wrapped in a bladder swollen with blood. According to Libanius, the mother of Aischines was also called Empusa, because she “rushed out upon women and children from dark places” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
As an incubus or vampire she appears in the form of Empusa, or as a man-eating lamia or again in that more beautiful guise, the “Bride of Corinth”. The Empusa had peculiar feet: one foot was of brass, the other of ass’s dung ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
Hecate is a real spook-goddess of the night and phantoms, a nightmare; she is sometimes shown riding a horse, and in Hesiod she is counted the patron goddess of riders ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
She [Hecate] is the mother of all witchcraft and witches, the patron goddess of Medea, because the power of the Terrible Mother is irresistible, coming as it does from the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
The pillory where criminals were scourged was also known as the Hekate; and to her, as to the Roman Trivia, were dedicated junctions of three roads, forked roads, and crossroads. Where the roads branch off or meet, dog-sacrifices were offered to her, and there too were thrown the bodies of the executed: the sacrifice occurs at the point of union ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
Where the roads cross and enter into one another, thereby symbolizing the union of opposites, there is the “mother,” the object and epitome of all union ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
Where the roads divide, where there is parting, separation, splitting, there we find the “division,” the cleft the symbol of the mother and at the same time the essence of what the mother means for us, namely cleavage and farewell. Accordingly, the meaning of a sacrifice on this spot would be propitiation of the mother in both senses ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
Hecate is a birth-goddess (), the `multiplier of cattle,’ and goddess of marriage. In Orphic cosmogony, she occupies the centre of the world as Aphrodite and Gaia, if not as the world-soul itself ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
In Tralles, Hecate appears side by side with Priapus; there is also a Hecate Aphrodisias ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
The identification of Hecate with Brimo as the underworldly mother is understandable, also her identification with Persephone and Rhea, the primitive All-Mother. Her maternal significance also explains her confusion with Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
In the Hecate mysteries a wand, named the (`white leaved’) was broken. This wand protected the purity of virgins and caused madness in anyone who touched it. We recognize here the motif of the sacred tree, the mother who might not be touched. Only a madman would attempt to do so ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
Her close relation to the moon-goddess suggests that she was a promoter of growth. Hecate was the first to bring Demeter news of her stolen daughter, another reminder of Anubis. Hecate herself is, on occasion, a goddess of marriage and birth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 355
As the “spirit-mother” she sends madness, the moon sickness. This idea is perfectly sensible, because most forms of lunacy consist of affections which amount to an invasion by the unconscious and an inundation of the conscious mind ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
Nun is therefore invoked as Amon, the primordial waters, which was in the beginning.” He is also called the father of fathers, the mother of mothers ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 358
The word nun means `young, fresh, new,’ and also the new flood-waters of the Nile. In a metaphorical sense it is used for the chaotic waters of the beginning, and for the birth-giving primary substance, which is personified as the goddess Naunet ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 359
From her sprang Nut, the sky-goddess, who is represented with a starry body or as a heavenly cow dotted with stars ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 359
A primitive myth tells of a sun-hero who has to be freed from a creeping plant. The girl dreams that her lover has fallen into the water; she tries to rescue him, but first has to pull seaweed out of the water, then she catches him ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 362
In an African myth the hero, after his deed, has to be disentangled from the seaweed ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 362
In a Polynesian story the hero’s canoe is caught in the tentacles of a giant polyp, just as Ra’s barge was entwined by the nocturnal serpent on the night sea journey ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 362
The motif of entwining also occurs in Sir Edwin Arnold’s poetic version of the story of Buddha’s birth:
Queen Maya stood at noon, her days fulfilled,
Under a palsa in the palace-grounds,
A stately trunk, straight as a temple-shaft,
With crown of glossy leaves and fragrant blooms.
And knowing the time come for all things knew
The conscious tree bent down its boughs to make.
A bower about Queen Maya’s majesty:
And Earth put forth a thousand sudden flowers.
To spread a couch; while, ready for the bath,
The rock hard by gave out a limpid stream.
Of crystal flow. So brought she forth her child (The Light of Asia, p. 5) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 362
There is a very similar motif in the cult-legend of the Samian Hera. Every year her image “disappeared” from the temple, attached itself to a lygos-tree somewhere on the seashore, and was entwined in its branches ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 363
In Plataea and Argos a wedding procession was staged in their honour with bridesmaids, wedding feast, etc. The festival took place in the “wedding month” of Gamelion (beginning of February). The image was carried to a lonely spot in the woods, which is in keeping with Plutarch’s story that Zeus kidnapped Hera and hid her in a cave on Mount Cithaeron ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 363
After our previous remarks we have to conclude that there is still another train of thought connected with the hierosgamos, namely, rejuvenation magic. The disappearance and hiding of the image in the wood, in the cave, on the seashore, its twining-about by the lygos-treefall this points to death and rebirth. The early springtime, Gamelion, fits in very well with this theory. In fact, Pausanias tells us that the Argive Hera became a virgin again by taking a yearly dip in the fountain of Kanathos ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 363
The motif of “devouring” which Frobenius has shown to be one of the commonest components of the sun myth, is closely connected with embracing and entwining ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 365
The “whale-dragon” always “devours” the hero, but the devouring can also be partial. For instance, a six-year-old girl who hated going to school once dreamt that her leg was encircled by a large red worm. Contrary to what might be expected, she evinced a tender interest in the creature ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 365
The motif of entwining is a mother-symbol. The entwining trees are at the same time birth-giving mothers, as in the Greek myth where there ash-trees, the mothers of the men of the Bronze Age. According to a Nordic myth, God created man by breathing life into a substance called tre (tree, wood) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 367
In the wood of the world-ash Yggdrasill a human pair hide themselves at the end of the world, and from them will spring a new race of men. At the moment of universal destruction the world-ash becomes the guardian mother, the tree pregnant with death and life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 367
The regenerative function of the world-ash helps to explain the image in the chapter of the Egyptian Book of the Dead called “The Gate of Knowledge of the Souls of the East”: ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 367
The hero often has to steer his ship between two rocks that clash together. (A similar idea is that of the biting door or the snapping tree-trunk.) In its passage the stern of the ship (or the tail of the bird) is pinched off, another reminder of the mutilation motif (twisting out the arm) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 367
The 19th-cent. German poet J. V. von Scheffel uses this image in his poem “A herring loved an oyster.” The poem ends with the oyster nipping off the herring’s head in a kiss. The doves which bring Zeus his ambrosia have to pass through the clashing rocks ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 367
Frobenius points out that these rocks are closely connected with the rocks or caves that only open at a magic word. The most striking illustration of this is a South African myth: “You must call the rock by name and cry loudly: `Rock Untunjambili, open, so that I may enter.’” But if the rock does not want to open, it answers: “The rock will not open to children, it opens to the swallows that fly in the air” (Frobenius, Zeitalter p. 407) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 367
The remarkable thing is that no human power can open the rock, only the magic word or a bird. This formulation implies that opening the rock is an undertaking that can never be accomplished in reality, it can only be wished. Wünschen (wish) in Middle High German means the “power to do something extraordinary.” The bird is a symbol of “wishful thinking” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 367
The idea is that Ra rises up, born from the tree. The representations of the sun-god Mithras should probably be interpreted in the same way ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
In the Heddernheim Relief, Mithras is shown with half his body rising from the top of a tree, and in other monuments half his body is stuck in the rock, which clearly points to the rock-birth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
Often there is a stream near Mithras’ birthplace. This conglomeration of symbols is also found in the birth of Aschanes, the first Saxon king, who grew from the Harz rocks in the middle of a wood near a fountain ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
Nor is it surprising that Christian legend transformed the tree of death, the Cross, into the Tree of Life, so that Christ is often shown hanging on a green tree among the fruit ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
The derivation of the Cross from the Tree of Life, which was an authentic religious symbol even in Babylonian times, is considered entirely probable by Zöckler, an authority on the history of the Cross. The pre-Christian meaning of so universal a symbol does not contradict this view; quite the contrary, for its meaning is life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
Nor does the existence of the cross in the sun-cult (where the regular cross and the swastika represent the sun-wheel) and in the cult of the love-goddesses in any way contradict its historical significance. Christian legend has made abundant use of this symbolism ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
As we know, it was through Adam’s guilt that sin and death came into the world, and Christ through his death redeemed us from the guilt. If we ask, In what did Adam’s guilt consist? the answer is that the unpardonable sin to be punished by death was that he dared to eat of the tree of Paradise ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
The consequences of this are described in a Jewish legend: one who was permitted to gaze into Paradise after the Fall saw the tree and the four streams, but the tree was withered, and in its branches lay a babe. The “mother” had become pregnant ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
According to German legend, the saviour will be born when he can be rocked in a cradle made from the wood of a tree that is now but a feeble shoot sprouting from a wall ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
The formula runs: “A lime tree shall be planted, that shall throw out two plantschen [boughs] above, and out of their wood is a poie [buoy] to be made; the first child that therein lies is doomed to be brought from life to death by the sword, and then will salvation ensue” (Grimm, III, p. 969) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
The legend relates that Lilith rose up into the air through the magic of God’s name and hid herself in the sea. Adam forced her to come back with the help of three angels, whereupon Lilith changed into a nightmare or lamia who haunted pregnant women and kidnapped new-born infants ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 369
The original legend is that Lamia seduced Zeus, but the jealous Hera caused her to bring only dead children into the world. Ever since then, the raging Lamia has persecuted children, whom she destroys whenever she can ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 369
This motif is a recurrent one in fairytales, where the mother often appears as a murderess or eater of human flesh; a well-known German paradigm is the story of Hansel and Gretel. Lamia is also the name of a large, voracious fish, which links up with the whale-dragon motif worked out by Frobenius. Once again we meet the idea of the Terrible Mother in the form of a voracious fish, a personification of death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 369
As mentioned above, Adam forced Lilith to come back with the help of three angels. Here we may discern, perhaps, the motif of the “helpful bird “angels are really birds. Cf. the feather-dress of the “soul-birds” in the underworld ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 369
In the Mithraic sacrifice the messenger of the gods the “angel “was a raven; the messenger is winged (Hermes) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 369
In Jewish tradition angels are masculine. The symbolism of the three angels is important because it signifies the upper, aerial, spiritual triad in conflict with the one lower, feminine power ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 369
The riding takes on a special aspect in the light of researches into child psychology: the two contributions of Freud and myself have established the fear-significance of horses on the one hand, and the sexual meaning of riding fantasies on the other ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 370
The essential feature is the rhythm, which assumes a sexual significance only secondarily. If we take these factors into account, it will not surprise us to hear that the maternal world-ash Yggdrasill is called the Schreckross (terrible horse) in German ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 370
Cannegieter says of nightmares: Even today the peasants drive away these female spirits (mother-goddesses, moirae) by throwing the bone of a horse’s head upon the roof, and you can often see such bones on peasant houses hereabouts. But at night lamias are believed to ride at the time of the first sleep and to tire out the horses for long journeys (Epistola de ara ad Noviomagum reperta, p. 25) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 370
A synonym for the nightmare is the troll or “treader.” The treading movement has been verified by the experience of Freud and myself with children, which shows that a secondary sexual meaning attaches to stamping or kicking, though the rhythm is obviously primary ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 370
May it perhaps point back to the great primordial image of the mother, who was once our only world and later became the symbol of the whole world? ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 373
Goethe says of the Mothers that they are “thronged round with images of all creation.” Even the Christians could not refrain from reuniting their Mother of God with the water: “Ave maris stella” are the opening words of a hymn to Mary ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 373
It is probably significant that the infantile word ma-ma (mother’s breast) is found in all languages, and that the mothers of two religious heroes were called Mary and Maya ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 373
Horus vanquished the wicked Set who had murdered his father Osiris, but Isis set him free again ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 374
Outraged, Horus lifted his hand against his mother and snatched the royal diadem from her head, in place of which Thoth gave her a cow’s head. Horus then vanquished Set for a second time ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 374
In the Greek legend, Typhon (Set) is a dragon. But even without this confirmation it is evident that Horus’ fight is the typical fight of the sun-hero with the “whale dragon” who, as we know, is a symbol of the Terrible Mother, of the voracious maw, the jaws of death in which men are crunched and ground to pieces ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 374
Whoever conquers this monster wins to eternal youth. But to this end, defying all danger, he must descend into the belly of the monster (“journey to hell”) and sojourn there for some time (“night sea imprisonment:” Frobenius) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 374
The fight with the “nocturnal serpent” accordingly signifies conquest of the mother, who is suspected of an infamous crime, namely the betrayal of her son. Complete confirmation of all this is furnished by the fragments of the Babylonian Creation Epic discovered by George Smith, most of which come from the library of Assurbanipal. The text dates from about the time of Hammurabi (2000 B.C.) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 375
From this account of the Creation we learn that Ea, the son of the watery deep and god of wisdom, has overthrown Apsu. Apsu is the progenitor of the great gods, so Ea has conquered the father. But Tiamat, the mother of the gods, plots revenge, and arrays herself for battle against them ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 375
Against the fearful hosts of Tiamat the gods finally put up Marduk, the god of spring, who represents the victorious sun. Marduk prepares himself for battle and forges his invincible weapons ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 376
Since he [Marduk] is psychologically an archetype of the Self, his divinity only confirms that the Self is numinous, a sort of god, or having some share in the divine nature ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
The hero is the protagonist of God’s transformation in man; he corresponds to what I call the “mana personality.” The mana personality has such an immense fascination for the conscious mind that the ego all too easily succumbs to the temptation to identify with the hero, thus bringing on a psychic inflation with all its consequences. For this reason the repugnance felt by certain ecclesiastical circles for the “inner Christ” is understandable enough, at least as a preventive measure against the danger of psychic inflation which threatens the Christian European ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
Heroes are usually wanderers, and wandering is a symbol of longing, of the restless urge which never finds its object, of nostalgia for the lost mother. The sun comparison can easily be taken in this sense: the heroes are like the wandering sun, from which it is concluded that the myth of the hero is a solar myth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 299
It seems to us, rather, that he is first and foremost a self-representation of the longing of the unconscious, of its unquenched and unquenchable desire for the light of consciousness. But consciousness, continually in danger of being led astray by its own light and of becoming a rootless will o’ the wisp, longs for the healing power of nature, for the deep wells of being and for unconscious communion with life in all its countless forms ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 299
It is not man as such who has to be regenerated or born again as a renewed whole, but, according to the statements of mythology, it is the hero or god who rejuvenates himself. These figures are generally expressed or characterized by libido-symbols (light, fire, sun, etc.), so that it looks as if they represented psychic energy. They are, in fact, personifications of the libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 388
Thus Khnum, the maker,' the
potter,’ the `builder,’ shapes his egg on the potter’s wheel, for he is “immortal growth, his own generation and his own self-birth, the creator of the egg that came out of the primeval waters” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 389
The Egyptian Book of the Dead says: “I have risen like the mighty hawk that comes forth from his egg,” and: “I am the creator of Nun, who has taken up his abode in the underworld. My nest is not seen and my egg is not broken” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 389
Yet another passage speaks of “that great and glorious god in his egg, who created himself for that which came forth from him”. Therefore the god is also called Nagaga-uer, the “Great Cackler.” (Book of the Dead 98:2: “I cackle like the goose, and whistle like the hawk”) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 389
The legend says that all creatures had pledged themselves not to harm Baldur; only the mistletoe was forgotten, because she was supposed to be too young ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 392
Mistletoe was also a sovereign remedy against barrenness. In Gaul, it was only after offering sacrifice that the Druid was allowed, amid solemn ceremonies, to climb the sacred oak and cut the ritual branch of mistletoe ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 392
That which grows on the tree is the child, or oneself, in renewed and rejuvenated form; and that is precisely what one cannot have, because the incest prohibition forbids it ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 392
We are told that the mistletoe which killed Baldur was “too young”; hence this clinging parasite could be interpreted as the “child of the tree” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 392
But as the tree signifies the origin in the sense of the mother, it represents the source of life, of that magical life-force whose yearly renewal was celebrated in primitive times by the homage paid to a divine son, a puer aeternus ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 392
The graceful Baldur is such a figure. This type is granted only a fleeting existence, because he is never anything but an anticipation of something desired and hoped for ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 392
This is so literally true that a certain type of “mother’s son” actually exhibits all the characteristics of the flower-like, youthful god, and even dies an early death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 392
The reason is that he only lives on and through the mother and can strike no roots in the world, so that he finds himself in a state of permanent incest. He is, as it were, only a dream of the mother, an ideal which she soon takes back to herself, as we can see from the Near Eastern “son-gods,” like Tammuz, Attis, Adonis, and Christ ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 392
The mistletoe, like Baldur, represents the “child of the mother,” the longed-for, revivified life-force that flows from her ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 392
But, separated from its host, the mistletoe dies. Therefore, when the Druid cuts it, he kills it and by this act symbolically repeats the fatal self-castration of Attis and the wounding of Adonis by the boar’s tusk ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 392
This is the dream of the mother in matriarchal times, when there was as yet no father to stand by the side of the son ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 392
But why should the mistletoe kill Baldur, since it is, in a sense, his sister or brother? The lovely apparition of the puer aeternus is, alas, a form of illusion. In reality he is a parasite on the mother, a creature of her imagination, who only lives when rooted in the maternal body ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 393
In actual psychic experience the mother corresponds to the collective unconscious, and the son to consciousness, which fancies itself free but must ever again succumb to the power of sleep and a deadening unconsciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 393
The mistletoe, however, corresponds to the shadow brother, and whom the psychotherapist regularly meets as a personification of the personal unconscious. Just as, at evening, the shadows lengthen and finally engulf everything, so the mistletoe betokens Baldur’s end. Being an equivalent of Baldur himself, it is fetched down from the tree like the “treasure hard to attain “The shadow becomes fatal when there is too little vitality or too little consciousness in the hero for him to complete his heroic task ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 393
The “son of the mother” as a mere mortal, dies young, but as a god he can do that which is forbidden and superhuman: he commits the magical incest and thus obtains immortality. In the myths the hero does not die; instead, he has to overcome the dragon of death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 394
The black horse Apaosha also has this meaning in the old Persian Song of Tishtriya, where he blocks up the sources of the rain-lake. The white horse, Tishtriya, makes two futile attempts to vanquish Apaosha; at the third attempt he succeeds with the help of Ahura-Mazda. Whereupon the sluices of heaven are opened and the fertilizing rain pours down upon the earth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 395
In this symbolism we can see very clearly how libido fights against libido, instinct against instinct, how the unconscious is in conflict with itself, and how mythological man perceived the unconscious in all the adversities and contrarieties of external nature without ever suspecting that he was gazing at the paradoxical background of his own consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 395
The dragon represents the negative mother-imago and thus expresses resistance to incest or fear of it. Dragon and snake are symbolic representations of the fear of the consequences of breaking the taboo and regressing to incest. It is therefore understandable that we should come over and over again upon the motif of the tree and the snake. Snakes and dragons are especially significant as guardians or defenders of the treasure ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 395
The tree entwined by the snake may therefore be taken as the symbol of the mother who is protecting against incest by fear. This symbol is frequently found on Mithraic monuments. The rock with a snake coiled round it has a similar meaning, for Mithras was born from a rock, as was the god Men ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
This fact points to the father as the cause of the fear, which as we know prompted Freud to his famous aetiological myth of the primal horde with the jealous old patriarch at the top ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
The immediate model for this is obviously the jealous Yahweh, struggling to protect his wife Israel from whoredoms with strange gods ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
The father represents the world of moral commandments and prohibitions, although, for lack of information about conditions in prehistoric times, it remains an open question how far the first moral laws arose from dire necessity rather than from the family preoccupations of the tribal father. At all events it would be easier to keep one’s eye on a box full of spiders than on the females of a primal horde ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
The father is the representative of the spirit, whose function it is to oppose pure instinctuality. That is his archetypal role, which falls to him regardless of his personal qualities; hence he is very often an object of neurotic fears for the son ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
Accordingly, the monster to be overcome by the son frequently appears as a giant who the treasure ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
An excellent example of this is the giant Humbaba in the Gilgamesh Epic, who guards the garden of Ishtar. Gilgamesh conquers the giant and wins Ishtar, whereupon Ishtar immediately makes sexual advances to her deliverer. These facts should be sufficient to explain the role played by Horus in Plutarch, and especially the violent treatment of Isis ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
Here the bull has the same significance as the monster and may be compared with the bull that was conquered by Gilgamesh. He represents the father who paradoxically enforces the incest prohibition as a giant and dangerous animal ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
The paradox lies in the fact that, like the mother who gives life and takes it away again as the “terrible” or “devouring” mother, the father apparently lives a life of unbridled instinct and yet is the living embodiment of the law that thwarts instinct ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
There is, however, a subtle though important distinction to be made here: the father commits no incest, whereas the son has tendencies in that direction. The paternal law is directed against incest with all the violence and fury of the uninhibited instinct. Freud overlooks the fact that the spirit too is dynamic, as indeed it must be if the psyche is not to lose its self-regulating equilibrium ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
But as the “father,” the representative of moral law, is not only an objective fact, but a subjective psychic factor in the son himself, the killing of the bull clearly denotes an overcoming of animal instinct, and at the same time a secret and furtive overcoming of the power of the law, and hence a criminal usurpation of justice. Since the better is always the enemy of the good, every drastic innovation is an infringement of what is traditionally right, and may sometimes even be a crime punishable by death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
As we know, this dilemma played an important part in the psychology of early Christianity, at the time when it came into conflict with Jewish law. In the eyes of the Jews, Christ was undoubtedly a law-breaker. Not unjustly is he called Adam Secundus; for just as the first Adam became conscious through sin, through eating of the tree of knowledge, so the second Adam broke through to the necessary relation with a fundamentally different God ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
A third image shows Mithras reaching for the nimbus on the head of Sol. This act recalls the Christian idea that those who have conquered win the crown of eternal life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 397
In the fourth image Sol kneels before Mithras These last two pictures [3 and 4], show that Mithras has arrogated to himself the strength of the sun and become its lord. He has conquered his animal nature (the bull). Animals represent instinct, and also the prohibition of instinct, so that man becomes human through conquering his animal instinctuality. Mithras has thus sacrificed his animal naturae solution already anticipated in the Gilgamesh Epic by the hero’s renunciation of the terrible Ishtar ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 398
In the Mithraic sacrifice the conquest of instinctuality no longer takes the archaic form of overpowering the mother, but of renouncing one’s own instinctive desires. The primitive idea of reproducing oneself by entering into the mother’s body has become so remote that the hero, instead of committing incest, is now sufficiently far advanced in the domestic virtues to seek immortality through the sacrifice of the incest tendency ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 398
This significant change finds its true fulfillment only in the symbol of the crucified God. In atonement for Adam’s sin a bloody human sacrifice is hung upon the tree of life. Although the tree of life has a mother significance, it is no longer the mother, but a symbolic equivalent to which the hero offers up his life. One can hardly imagine a symbol which expresses more drastically the subjugation of instinct ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 398
Underlying all fertility magic is the thought of renewal, which in turn is intimately connected with the cross. The idea of union expressed in the cross symbol is found in Plato’s Timaeus, where the demiurge joins the parts of the world-soul together by means of two sutures, which form a X (chi) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 404
A peculiar use is made of the cross symbol by the Muyscas Indians, of Peru; two ropes are stretched crosswise over the surface of the water (pool or stream), and fruits, oil, and precious stones are thrown in as a sacrifice at the point of intersection ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 407
Here the divinity is evidently the water, not the cross, which only signifies the place of sacrifice. The symbolism is somewhat obscure. Water, and particularly deep water, usually has a maternal significance, roughly corresponding to “womb.” The point of intersection of the two ropes is the point of union where the “crossing” takes place ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 407
t is clear from all this that the cross is a many-faceted symbol, and its chief meaning is that of the “tree of life” and the “mother.” Its symbolization in human form is therefore quite understandable ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 411
Underlying all fertility magic is the thought of renewal, which in turn is intimately connected with the cross. The idea of union expressed in the cross symbol is found in Plato’s Timaeus, where the demiurge joins the parts of the world-soul together by means of two sutures, which form a X (chi) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 404
It is important to know something about the attributes of this life-giving god. Tum of On-Heliopolis bears the name “the father of his mother,” and his attendant goddess, Jusas or Nebit-Hotpet, is called sometimes the mother, sometimes the daughter, and sometimes the wife of the god ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 408
The first day in autumn is known in the Heliopolitan inscriptions as the “feast-day of the goddess Jusasit,” as the arrival of the “sister who makes ready to unite herself with her father.” It is the day on which “the goddess Mehnit completes her work, so that the god Osiris may enter the left eye.” It is also called “the day for filling the sacred eye with what it needs” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 408
In the autumn equinox the heavenly cow with the moon-eye, Isis, receives the seed that begets Horus (the moon being the guardian of the seed) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 408
The “eye” evidently stands for the female genitals, as is clear from the myth of Indra, who, as a punishment for his wantonness, was smitten with yonis all over his body, but was so far pardoned by the gods that the shameful yonis were changed into eyes ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 408
The little image reflected in the eye, the “pupilla,” is a “child.” The great god becomes a child again: he enters into the mother’s womb for self-renewal ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 408
Tum of Pithum-Heroopolis not only carries the crux ansata as a symbol, but even has this emblem as the commonest of his titles, ankh or ankhi, which means life' or the
Living One’ ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 410
Tum was chiefly worshipped as the Agathodaimon serpent, of whom it was said: “The sacred Agathodaimon serpent goes forth from the city of Nezi.” The snake, because it casts its skin, is a symbol of renewal, like the scarab beetle, a sun-symbol, which was believed to be of masculine sex only and to beget itself ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 410
“Khnum” (another name for Tum, but always the sun-god is meant) comes from the verb num, `to combine or unite.’ Khnum appears as the potter and maker of his own egg ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 410
The various forms of the crux ansata have the meaning of “life” and “fruitfulness,” and also of “union,” which can be interpreted as the hierosgamos of the god with his mother for the purpose of conquering death and renewing life. This mythologem, it is plain, has passed into Christianity CW~Carl Jung, CW 5, 411
The separation of the son from the mother signifies man’s leave-taking from animal unconsciousness. It was only the power of the “incest prohibition” that created the self-conscious individual, who before had been mindlessly one with the tribe; and it was only then that the idea of the final death of the individual became possible ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 415
Thus through Adam’s sin, which lay precisely in his becoming conscious, death came into the world ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 415
The neurotic who cannot leave his mother has good reasons for not doing so: ultimately, it is the fear of death that holds him there. It seems as if no idea and no word were powerful enough to express the meaning of this conflict ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 415
Certainly the struggle for expression which has continued through the centuries cannot be motivated by what is narrowly and crudely conceived as “incest” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 415
We ought rather to conceive the law that expresses itself first and last in the “incest prohibition” as the impulse to domestication, and regard the religious systems as institutions which take up the instinctual forces of man’s animal nature, organize them, and gradually make them available for higher cultural purposes ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 415
Incest prohibition is more a question of phenomena requiring a teleological explanation than of simple causalities ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
The incest prohibition acts as an obstacle and makes the creative fantasy inventive: for instance, there are attempts to make the mother pregnant by means of fertility magic ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
It does not constitute a primary phenomenon [as Freud believed] in the process of symbol-formation, but goes back to something more fundamental, namely the primitive system of marriage classes ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 332
His [Faust] equally importunate longing for the beauties of this world plunged him into renewed ruin, doubt and wretchedness, which culminated in the tragedy of Gretchen’s death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 119
Faust’s mistake was that he made the worst of both worlds by blindly following the urge of his libido, like a man overcome by strong and violent passions. Faust’s conflict is a reflection of the collective conflict at the beginning of the Christian era, but in him, curiously enough, it takes the opposite course ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 119
Faust takes the opposite road; for him the ascetic ideal is sheer death. He struggles for liberation and wins life by binding himself over to evil, thereby bringing about the death of what he loves most: Gretchen ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 120
He [Faust] tears himself away from his grief, and sacrifices his life in unceasing work, thus saving many lives. His double mission as saviour and destroyer had been hinted at from the beginning ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 120
Faust’s desire, like that of every hero, is a yearning for the mystery of rebirth, for immortality; therefore his way leads out to sea and down into the maw of death, that frighteningly narrow “passage” which signals the new day ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 417
We have already seen that the libido directed towards the mother actually symbolizes her as a horse. The mother-imago is a libido-symbol and so is the horse; at some points the meaning of the two symbols overlaps. But the factor common to both is the libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5 Para 421
The steeds of mythology are always invested with great significance and very often appear anthropomorphized. Thus Men’s horse has human forelegs, Balaam’s ass human speech, and the bull upon whose back Mithras springs to deliver the death blow is a life-giving deity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
In the Iliad, the horse prophesies evil. They hear the words the corpse utters on its way to the grave words which no human can hear. Caesar was told by his human-footed horse (probably derived from an identification of Caesar with the Phrygian Men) that he would conquer the world ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
An ass prophesied to Augustus the victory of Actium. Horses also see ghosts. All these things are typical manifestations of the unconscious. We can therefore see why the horse, as a symbol of the animal component in man, has numerous connections with the devil ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
The Creator God [takes] on an astromythological, or rather an astrological, character. He has become the sun, and thus finds a natural expression that transcends his moral division into a Heavenly Father and his counterpart the devil. ~Carl Jung; CW 5, Para 176.
Horses also signify fire and light, like the fiery horses of Helios. Hector’s horses were called Xanthos (yellow, glaring), Podargos (swift-footed), Lampos (shining), and Aithon (burning). Siegfried leaps over the wall of fi re on the thunder-horse Grani, who was sired by Sleipnir and was the only one capable of taking the fiery hedge. There is a distinct fi re symbolism in the mysticquadriga mentioned by Dio Chrysostom: the highest god always drives his chariot round in a circle. The chariot is drawn by four horses, and the outside horse moves very quickly. He has a shining coat, bearing on it the signs of the zodiac and the constellations. The second horse goes more slowly and is illuminated on one side only. The third horse is slower still, and the fourth horse runs round himself. Once, however, the outside horse set the mane of the second horse on fi re with his fiery breath, and the third horse drenched the fourth with streams of sweat. Then the horses dissolve and merge with the substance of the strongest and most fiery, which now becomes the charioteer. The horses represent the four elements. The catastrophe signifies world conflagration and the deluge, after which the division of God into Many cases, and the divine One is restored. 27 There can be no doubt that the quadriga is meant as an astronomical symbol of Time. We saw in Part I that the Stoic conception of fate is a fi re-symbol, so it is a logical continuation of this idea when the closely related conception of time exhibits the same libido symbolism. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 423
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says:
~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 424
Here the horse is undoubtedly conceived as a time-symbol, besides being the whole world. In the Mithraic religion we meet with a strange god, Aion (pl. XLIV), also called Chronos or deus leontocephalus because he is conventionally represented as a lion-headed human figure. He stands in a rigid attitude, wrapped in the coils of a serpent whose head juts forward over the head of the lion. In each hand he holds a key, on his breast is a thunderbolt, on his back are the four wings of the wind, and on his body are the signs of the zodiac.
His attributes are a cock and implements. In the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter, which was based on classical models, Aion is shown as a naked man bearing in his hand a snake. As the name indicates, he is a time-symbol, and is composed entirely of libido-images. The lion, the zodiacal sign for the torrid heat of summer, is the symbol of concupiscentia effrenata, “frenzied desire.” (“My soul roars with the voice of a hungry lion,” says Mechthild of Magdeburg.)
In the Mithraic mysteries the snake is often shown as the antagonist of the lion, in accordance with the myth of the sun’s fight with the dragon. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Tum is addressed as a tom-cat, because in that form he fought the Apophis-serpent. To be “entwined” or embraced is the same as to be “devoured,” which as we saw means entering into the mother’s womb. Time is thus defined by the rising and setting sun, by the death and renewal of libido, the dawning and extinction of consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 425
The attribute of the cock again points to time, and the implements to creation through time (Bergson’s “durée créatrice”). Oazdes (Ahura-Mazda) and Ahriman came into being through Zrwan akarana, “infinitely long duration.” So time, this empty and purely formal concept, is expressed in the mysteries through transformations of the creative force, libido, just as time in physics is identical with the flow of the energic process. Macrobius remarks: “By the lion’s head the present time is indicated . . . because its condition is strong and fervent.” 31 Philo Judaeus evidently knows better: Time is regarded as a god by evil men who wish to hide the Essential Being. . .. Vicious men think that Time is the cause of the world, but the wise and good think it is God. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 425
There is a similar instinct-sacrificing symbolism in the Mithraic religion, where the essential portions of the mystery consisted in the catching and subduing of the bull. A parallel figure to Mithras is the Original Man, Gayomart. He was created together with his ox, and the two lived in a state of bliss for six thousand years. But when the world entered the Aeon of Libra (the seventh zodiacal sign), the evil principle broke loose. In astrology, Libra is known as the “Positive House” of Venus, so the evil principle came under the dominion of the goddess of love, who personifies the erotic aspect of the mother. Since this aspect, as we have seen, is psychologically extremely dangerous, the classical catastrophe threatened to overtake the son. As a result of this constellation, Gayomart and his ox died only thirty years later. (The trials of Zarathustra also lasted for thirty years.) Fifty-five species of grain and twelve kinds of healing plants came from the dead ox. His seed entered into the moon for purification, but the seed of Gayomart entered into the sun. This seems to suggest that the bull has a hidden feminine significance. Gosh or Drvashpa was the bull’s soul and it was worshipped as a female divinity. At first she was so faint-hearted that she refused to become the goddess of cattle until, as a consolation, the coming of Zarathustra was announced to her. This has its parallel in the Purana where the earth received the promise of Krishna’s coming. 33 Like Ardvisura, the goddess of love, Gosh rides in a chariot. So the bull-anima appears to be decidedly feminine. In astrology Taurus, too, is a House of Venus. The myth of Gayomart repeats in modified form the primitive “closed circle” of a self-reproducing masculine and feminine divinity. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 662
That the thing perceived as an inner light, as the sun of the other world, is an emotional component of the psyche, is clear from Symeon’s words: And questing after it, my spirit sought to comprehend the splendour it had seen but found it not as a creature and could not get away from created things, that it might embrace that uncreated and uncomprehended splendour. Nevertheless it wandered everywhere and strove to behold it. It searched through the air, it wandered over the heavens, it crossed the abysses, it searched, so it seemed, to the ends of the world. 36 But in all that it found nothing, for all was created. And I lamented and was sorrowful, and my heart burned, and I lived as one distraught in mind. But it came as it was wont, and descending like a luminous cloud, seemed to envelop my whole head, so that I cried out dismayed. But flying away again it left me alone. And when I wearily sought it, I realized suddenly that it was within me, and in the midst of my heart it shone like the light of a spherical sun. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 141
Amenophis IV achieved, by his reforms, a psychologically valuable work of interpretation. He united all the bull, ram, crocodile, and pile-dwelling gods into the sun-disc and made it clear that their various attributes were compatible with those of the sun. A similar fate overtook Hellenic and Roman polytheism as a result of the syncretistic strivings of later centuries. An excellent illustration of this is in the beautiful prayer of Lucius to the Queen of Heaven (the moon): Queen of heaven, whether thou be named Ceres, bountiful mother of earthly fruits, or heavenly Venus, or Phoebus’ sister, or Proserpina, who strikest terror with midnight ululations . . .. thou that with soft feminine brightness dost illume the walls of all cities . . . ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 138
Not a few traces of sun-worship are preserved in ecclesiastical art, for instance the nimbus round the head of Christ, and the haloes of the saints. Numerous fi re- and light-symbols are attributed to the saints in Christian legend. The twelve apostles, for example, were likened to the twelve signs of the zodiac and were therefore represented each with a star over his head. No wonder the heathen, as Tertullian reports, took the sun for the God of the Christians! “Some, in a more human and probable way, believe the Sun to be our god.” Among the Manichees the sun actually was God. One of the most remarkable records of this period, an amalgam of pagan-Asiatic, Hellenistic, and Christian beliefs, is the ‘Εξηϒησις περι τϖν εν ΙΙερσιδι πραχθεντων, a book of fables which affords deep insight into syncretistic symbolism. There we find the following magical dedication: Διι ‘Ηλιω θεϖ μεϒαλω βασιλει ‘Ιησον. In certain parts of Armenia, Christians still pray to the rising sun, that it may “let its foot rest on the face of the worshipper.” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 163
Before I enter upon the contents of this second part, it seems necessary to cast a backward glance over the singular train of thought which the analysis of the poem “The Moth to the Sun” has revealed. Although this poem is very different from the preceding “Hymn of Creation,” closer investigation of the longing for the sun has led us into a realm of mythological ideas that are closely related to those considered in the first poem: the Creator God, whose dual nature was plainly apparent in the case of Job, has now taken on an astromythological, or rather an astrological, character. He has become the sun, and thus finds a natural expression that transcends his moral division into a Heavenly Father and his counterpart the devil. The sun, as Renan has observed, is the only truly “rational” image of God, whether we adopt the standpoint of the primitive savage or of modern science. In either case the sun is the father-god from whom all living things draw life; he is the fructifier and creator, the source of energy for our world. The discord into which the human soul has fallen can be harmoniously resolved through the sun as a natural object which knows no inner conflict. The sun is not only beneficial, but also destructive; hence the zodiacal sign for August heat is the ravaging lion which Samson slew in order to rid the parched earth of its torment. Yet it is in the nature of the sun to scorch, and its scorching power seems natural to man. It shines equally on the just and the unjust and allows useful creatures to flourish as well as the harmful. Therefore the sun is perfectly suited to represent the visible God of this world, i.e., the creative power of our own soul, which we call libido, and whose nature it is to bring forth the useful and the harmful, the good and the bad. That this comparison is not just a matter of words can be seen from the teachings of the mystics: when they descend into the depths of their own being they find “in their heart” the image of the sun, they find their own life-force which they call the “sun” for a legitimate and, I would say, a physical reason, because our source of energy and life actually is the sun. Our physiological life, regarded as an energy process, is entirely solar. The peculiar nature of this solar energy as inwardly perceived by the mystic is made clear in Indian mythology. The following passages, referring to Rudra, are taken from the Shvetashvatara Upanishad: There is one Rudra only, they do not allow a second, who rules all the worlds by his powers. Behind all creatures he stands, the Protector; having treated them, he gathers all beings together at the end of time. He has eyes on all sides, faces on all sides, arms on all sides, feet on all sides. He is the one God who created heaven and earth, forging all things together with his hands and wings. You who are the source and origin of the gods, the ruler of all, Rudra, the great seer, who of old gave birth to the Golden Seed – give us enlightenment! ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 176
The symbol for that portion of the zodiac in which the sun re-enters the yearly cycle at the time of the winter solstice is Capricorn, originally known as the “Goat-Fish” (αίγόχερως, “goat-horned”): the sun mounts like a goat to the tops of the highest mountains, and then plunges into the depths of the sea like a fish. The fish in dreams occasionally signifies the unborn child, because the child before its birth lives in the water like a fish; similarly, when the sun sinks into the sea, it becomes child and fish at once. The fish is therefore a symbol of renewal and rebirth. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 290
The journey of Moses with his servant Joshua is a life-journey (it lasted eighty years). They grow old together and lose the life-force, i.e., the fish, which “in wondrous wise took its way to the sea” (setting of the sun). When the two notice their loss, they discover at the place where the source life is found (where the dead fish revived and sprang into the sea) Khidr wrapped in his mantle, sitting on the ground. In another version he was sitting on an island in sea, “in the wettest place on earth,” which means that he had just been born from the maternal depths. Where the fish vanished Khidr, the Verdant One, was born as a “son of the watery deep,” his head veiled, proclaiming divine wisdom, like the Babylonian Oannes-Ea, who was represented in fish form and daily came out of the sea as a fish to teach the people wisdom. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 291
Oannes’ name was brought into connection with John’s. With the rising of the reborn sun the fish that dwelt in darkness, surrounded by all the terrors of night and death, becomes the shining, fiery day-star. This gives the words of John the Baptist a special significance (Matthew 3:11): I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I . . . he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 292
Following Vollers, we may compare Khidr and Elias (or Moses and his servant Joshua) with Gilgamesh and his brother Eabani (Enkidu). Gilgamesh wanders through the world, driven by fear and longing, to find immortality. His journey takes him across the sea to the wise Utnapishtim (Noah), who knows how to cross the waters of death. There Gilgamesh has to dive down to the bottom of the sea for the magical herb that is to lead him back to the land of men. On the return journey he is accompanied by an immortal mariner, who, banished by the curse of Utnapishtim, has been forbidden to return to the land of the blessed. But when Gilgamesh arrives home, a serpent steals the magic herb from him (i.e., the fish slips back into the sea). Because of the loss of the magic herb, Gilgamesh’s journey has been in vain; instead he comes back in the company of an immortal, whose fate we cannot learn from the fragments of the epic. Jensen believes that this banished immortal is the prototype of Ahasuerus. Once again we meet the motif of the Dioscuri: mortal and immortal, the setting and rising sun. The Mithraic bull-sacrifice is often represented as flanked by the two dadophors, Gautes and Cautopates, one with a raised and the other with a lowered torch. They form a pair of brothers whose characters are revealed by the symbolic position of the torches. Cumont not unjustly connects them with the sepulchral Erotes, who as genies with inverted torches have a traditional meaning. One would stand for death, the other for life. There are certain points of resemblance between the Mithraic sacrifice (where the bull in the centre is flanked on either side by dadophors and the Christian sacrifice of the lamb (or ram). The Crucified is traditionally flanked by two thieves, one of whom ascends to paradise while the other descends to hell. The Semitic gods were often flanked by two paredroi; for instance, the Baal of Edessa was accompanied by Aziz and Monimos (Baal being astrologically interpreted as the sun, and Aziz and Monimos as Mars and Mercury). According to the Babylonian view, the gods are grouped into triads. Thus the two thieves somehow go together with Christ. The two dadophors are, as Cumont has shown, offshoots 61 from the main figure of Mithras, who was supposed to have a secret triadic character. Dionysius the Areopagite reports that the magicians held a feast in honour of τοϋ τρι-πλασίου Μίθρον (the threefold Mithras). ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 293
As Cumont observes, Cautes and Cautopates sometimes carry in their hands the head of a bull and of a scorpion respectively. Taurus and Scorpio are equinoctial signs, and this is a clear indication that the sacrifice was primarily connected with the sun cycle: the rising sun that sacrifices itself at the summer solstice, and the setting sun. Since it was not easy to represent sunrise and sunset in the sacrificial drama, this idea had to be shown outside it. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 295
We have already pointed out that the Dioscuri represent a similar idea in somewhat different form: one sun is mortal, the other immortal. As this whole solar mythology is psychology projected into the heavens, the underlying idea could probably be paraphrased thus: just as man consists of a mortal and an immortal part, so the sun is a pair of brothers, one of whom is mortal, the other immortal. Man is mortal, yet there are exceptions who are immortal, or there is something immortal in us. Thus the gods, or figures like Khidr and the Comte de Saint-Germain, are our immortal part which continues intangibly to exist. The sun comparison tells us over and over again that the dynamic of the gods is psychic energy. This is our immortality, the link through which man feels inextinguishably one with the continuity of all life. The life of the psyche is the life of mankind. Welling up from the depths of the unconscious, its springs gush forth from the root of the whole human race, since the individual is, biologically speaking, only a twig broken off from the mother and transplanted. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 296
The psychic life-force, the libido, symbolizes itself in the sun or personifies itself in figures of heroes with solar attributes. At the same time it expresses itself through phallic symbols. Both possibilities are found on a late Babylonian gem from Lajard’s collection. In the middle stands an androgynous deity. On the masculine side there is a snake with a sun halo round its head; on the feminine side another snake with a sickle moon above it. This picture has a symbolic sexual nuance: on the masculine side there is a lozenge, a favourite symbol of the female genitals, and on the feminine side a wheel without its rim. The spokes are thickened at the ends into knobs, which, like the fingers we mentioned earlier, have a phallic meaning. It seems to be a phallic wheel such as was not unknown in antiquity. There are obscene gems on which Cupid is shown turning a wheel consisting entirely of phalli. As to what the sun signifies, I discovered in the collection of antiquities at Verona a late Roman inscription with the following symbols. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 297
The symbolism is plain: sun = phallus, moon = vessel (uterus). This interpretation is confirmed by another monument from the same collection. The symbols are the same, except that the vessel has been replaced by the figure of a woman. Certain symbols on coins can probably be interpreted in a similar manner. In Lajards Recherches sur la culte de Vénus there is a coin from Perga, showing Artemis as a conical stone flanked by a masculine figure (alleged to be the deity Men) and a female figure (alleged to be Artemis). Men (otherwise called Lunus) appears on an Attic bas-relief with a spear, flanked by Pan with a club, and a female figure. From this it is clear that sexuality as well as the sun can be used to symbolize the libido. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 298
One further point deserves mention here. The dadophor Cautopates is often represented with a cock and pine-cones. These are the attributes of the Phrygian god Men; whose cult was very widespread. He was shown with the pileus (or “Phrygian cap”) and pine-cones, riding on the cock, and also in the form of a boy, just as the dadophors were boyish figures. (This latter characteristic relates both them and Men to the Cabiri and Dactyls.) Now Men has affinities with Attis, the son and lover of Cybele. In Imperial times Men and Attis merged into one. Attis also wears the pileus like Men, Mithras, and the dadophors. As the son and lover of his mother he raises the incest problem. Incest leads logically to ritual castration in the Attis-Cybele cult; for according to legend the hero, driven mad by his mother, mutilates himself. I must refrain from going into this question more deeply at present, as I would prefer to discuss the incest problem at the end of this book. Here I would only point out that the incest motif is bound to arise, because when the regressing libido is introverted for internal or external reasons it always reactivates the parental imagos and thus apparently re-establishes the infantile relationship. But this relationship cannot be re-established, because the libido is an adult libido which is already bound to sexuality and inevitably imports an incompatible, incestuous character into the reactivated relationship to the parents. It is this sexual character that now gives rise to the incest symbolism. Since incest must be avoided at all costs, the result is either the death of the son lover or his self-castration as punishment for the incest he has committed, or else the sacrifice of instinctuality, and especially of sexuality, as a means of preventing or expiating the incestuous longing. Sex being one of the most obvious examples of instinctuality, it is sex which is liable to be most affected by these sacrificial measures, i.e., through abstinence. The heroes are usually wanderers, and wandering is a symbol of longing, of the restless urge which never finds its object, of nostalgia for the lost mother. The sun comparison can easily be taken in this sense: the heroes are like the wandering sun, from which it is concluded that the myth of the hero is a solar myth. It seems to us, rather, that he is first and foremost a self-representation of the longing of the unconscious, of its unquenched and unquenchable desire for the light of consciousness. But consciousness, continually in danger of being led astray by its own light and of becoming a rootless will o’ the wisp, longs for the healing power of nature, for the deep wells of being and for unconscious communion with life in all its countless forms. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 299
The devil has a horse’s hoof and sometimes a horse’s form. At critical moments he shows the proverbial cloven hoof, just as, during the abduction of Hadding, Sleipnir suddenly looked out from behind Wotan’s mantle. The devil, like the nightmare, rides the sleeper; hence it is said that those who have nightmares are ridden by the devil. In Persian lore the devil is the steed of God. He represents the sexual instinct; consequently at the Witches’ Sabbath he appears in the form of a goat or horse ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
The sexual nature of the devil is imparted to the horse as well, so that this symbol is found in contexts where the sexual interpretation is the only one that fits. Loki propagates in the form of a horse, and so does the devil, as an ancient god of fire ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
Lightning, too, is represented theriomorphically as a horse. An uneducated hysterical patient once told me that as a child she was terrified of thunderstorms, because after each flash of lightning she saw a huge black horse rearing up to the sky. Indian legend tells of the black thunder-horse of Yama, the god of death, who dwells in the south, the mythical place of storms. In German folklore the devil is a god of lightning who hurls the horse’s hoof lightning on the rooftops ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
In accordance with the primitive idea that thunder fertilizes the earth, lightning and horses’ hoofs both have a phallic meaning. An uneducated woman patient who had been violently forced by her husband to have coitus with him often dreamt that a wild horse leapt over her and kicked her in the abdomen with his hind foot ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
Pegasus struck the fountain of Hippocrene from the earth with his hoof. A Corinthian statue of Bellerophon, which was also a fountain, was made so that the water flowed from the hoof of the horse. Baldur’s horse struck forth a spring with his kick. The horse’s foot is therefore the dispenser of fruitful moisture ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
In German legend, Mother Holle, the goddess of childbirth, comes on horseback. Pregnant women nearing confinement would often give oats to a white horse from their aprons and ask him for a speedy delivery. Originally it was the custom for the horse to nuzzle the woman’s genitals ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
The horse, like the ass, has the significance of a priapic animal. Hoof-marks were once worshipped as dispensers of blessings and fertility; they also established the right of possession and were of importance in determining boundaries, like the Priapic statues of Latin antiquity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
It was a horse who, like the Dactyls, discovered the mineral wealth of the Harz Mountains with his hoof. The horse-shoe, an equivalent for the horse’s foot, brings luck and has an apotropaic meaning. In the Netherlands, a hoof is hung up in the stable to ward off sorcery. The analogous effect of the phallus is well known, hence the phalli on gates. The shank in particular is supposed to keep off lightning, on the principle that like cures like ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
The goddess of the underworld, Hecate, is sometimes represented with a horse’s head. Demeter and Philyra, wishing to escape the attentions of Kronos or Poseidon, change themselves into mares ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
Witches can easily change into horses; hence the nail-marks of the horseshoe may be seen on their hands. The devil rides on the witch’s horse, and priests’ housekeepers are changed after death into horses ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
On account of their speed, horses signify wind, and here again the tertium comparationis is the libido-symbol. German legend knows the wind as the wild huntsman in lustful pursuit of the maiden. Wotan gallops along in a storm after the wind-bride (Frigg) fleeing before him ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 422
Storm-centres often get their names from horses, e.g., the Schimmelberge (`white horse hills’) on Lüneburg heath. The centaurs are, among other things, wind-gods ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 422
We have already seen that the horse is connected through Yggdrasill with the symbolism of the tree. The horse too is a “tree of death;” for instance in the Middle Ages the bier was called “St. Michael’s Horse,” and the modern Persian word for coffin means `wooden horse.’ The horse also plays the part of a psychopomp who leads the way to the other world the souls of the dead are fetched by horsewomen, the Valkyries. Modern Greek songs speak of Charon as riding on a horse ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 427
Finally, the horse symbol appears in yet another form: sometimes the devil rides on a three-legged horse. The goddess of death, Hel, rides on a three-legged horse in time of pestilence ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 428
In the Bundahish there is a monstrous three-legged ass who stands in the heavenly rain-lake Vouru-Kasha; his urine purifies its waters, and at his cry all useful animals become pregnant and all harmful animals drop their young. The contrasting symbolism of Hel is fused into one image in the ass of Vouru-Kasha. The libido is fructifying as well as destructive ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 428
Mithras springs upon the bull to deliver the death blow the bull being a life-giving deity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 421
The conquered bull has the same significance as the monster conquered by Gilgamesh who represents the father as a giant and dangerous animal ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 396
Hector’s horses were called Xanthos (yellow, glaring), Podargus (swift-footed), Lampos (shining), and Aithon (burning) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 423
Siegfried leaps over the wall of fire on the thunder-horse Grani, who was sired by Sleipnir and was the only one capable of taking the fiery hedge ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 423
The idea is that Ra rises up, born from the tree. The representations of the sun-god Mithras should probably be interpreted in the same way ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
In the Heddernheim Relief, Mithras is shown with half his body rising from the top of a tree, and in other monuments half his body is stuck in the rock, which clearly points to the rock-birth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
Often there is a stream near Mithras’ birthplace. This conglomeration of symbols is also found in the birth of Aschanes, the first Saxon king, who grew from the Harz rocks in the middle of a wood near a fountain ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
Here all the mother symbols are united earth, wood, and water. So it is only logical that in the Middle Ages the tree was poetically addressed with the honorific title of “Lady” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
Nor is it surprising that Christian legend transformed the tree of death, the Cross, into the Tree of Life, so that Christ is often shown hanging on a green tree among the fruit ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
The derivation of the Cross from the Tree of Life, which was an authentic religious symbol even in Babylonian times, is considered entirely probable by Zöckler, an authority on the history of the Cross. The pre-Christian meaning of so universal a symbol does not contradict this view; quite the contrary, for its meaning is life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
Nor does the existence of the cross in the sun-cult (where the regular cross and the swastika represent the sun-wheel) and in the cult of the love-goddesses in any way contradict its historical significance. Christian legend has made abundant use of this symbolism ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
The student of medieval art will be familiar with the representation of the Cross growing from Adam’s grave (fig. 258.37). The legend says that Adam was buried on Golgotha, and that Seth planted on his grave a twig from the tree of Paradise, which grew into Christ’s Cross, the Tree of Death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
What is remarkable that in the German legends the heralding of the future event is connected with a budding tree. Christ was sometimes called a “branch” or a “rod” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 368
In mythology, too, the blossoming and withering of the tree of life denotes the turning point, the beginning of a new age ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 423
The highest god always drives his chariot round in a circle. The chariot is drawn by four horses, and the outside horse moves very quickly. He has a shining coat, bearing on it the sign of the zodiac and the constellations ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 423
The horses represent the four elements. The catastrophe signifies world conflagration and the deluge, after which the division of God into Many cases, and the divine One is restored ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 423
As the name indicates, he is a time-symbol, and is composed entirely of libido-images. The lion, the zodiacal sign for the torrid heat of summer, is the symbol of concupiscentia effrenata, `frenzied desire.’ (“My soul roars with the voice of a hungry lion,” says Mechthild of Magdeburg) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 425
In the Mithraic mysteries the snake is often shown as the antagonist of the lion, in accordance with the myth of the sun’s fight with the dragon. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Tum is addressed as a tom-cat, because in that form he fought the Apophis-serpent. To be “entwined” or embraced is the same as to be “devoured,” which as we saw means entering into the mother’s womb ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 425
So time, this empty and purely formal concept, is expressed in the mysteries through transformations of the creative force, libido, just as time in physics is identical with the flow of the energic process ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 425
The hero Chiwantopel represents her ideal, who is here projected as a masculine figure; for Miss Miller is still youthful enough to see her ideal in a man. She has evidently received no salutary disappointments in this respect, but is still enjoying her illusions ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 432
She does not yet know that her ideal figure ought really to be feminine, because such a figure might touch her too closely. So long as the ideal is portrayed in the person of a man, it does not commit her to anything; it merely stimulates her fantastic demands ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 432
This yearning for death anticipates the inevitable end of the illusion that the other person is the ideal. Miss Miller’s ideal figure is evidently about to change his psychic localization he might even take up his abode in the author herself. That would mark a very critical point in her career ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 432
For when such a vitally important figure as the ideal is about to change, it is as though that figure had to die. It then creates in the individual all sorts of unaccountable and apparently unfounded presentiments of death romantic world weariness. Her infantile world wants to come to an end and be replaced by the adult phase ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 432
The wish of young girls to die is often only an indirect expression of this, but it remains a pose even if they really do die, for even death can be dramatized. Such an outcome merely makes the pose more effective ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 432
As an infantile person Miss Miller cannot realize what her task is in life; she cannot set herself any goal or standard for which she feels responsible. Therefore she is not yet prepared to accept the problem of love either, for this demands full consciousness and responsibility, circumspection and foresight. It is a decision in favour of life, at whose end death stands. Love and death have not a little to do with one another ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 432
It is a well-known fact that hysterics substitute a physical pain for a psychic pain which is not felt because repressed. Catherina Emmerich’s biographer has understood this more or less correctly, but her own interpretation of the pain is based, as usual, on a projection: it is always the others who secretly say all sorts of wicked things about her, and this is the cause of her pains ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 436
The facts of the matter are rather different: the renunciation of all life’s joys, this fading before the flower, is always painful, and especially painful are the unfulfilled desires and the attempts of nature to break through the barrier of repression, without which no such differentiation would be possible ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 436
It is a well-known fact that scenes of mystic union with the Saviour are strongly tinged with erotic libido. Stigmatization amounts to an incubation with the Saviour, a slight modification of the ancient conception of the unio mystica as cohabitation with the god ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 438
[Dr. Jung acknowledges the work of Sabina Spielrein] Spielrein, Sabina: on archaic definitions of words, in paranoia, 140; on death-instinct, 32871; on symbols, 141; case, 13972, 28172, 43777; allusions to dismemberment, 237; “arrows from God.” 353; association of boring with fire and procreation, 153; communion, 40972; God’s ray, 412; images, 30277; sickness, 3017?; snake, 437; splitting the earth, 28872; wine and water, 37672 ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 549
“To make sharp arrows” is an Arabic expression for begetting valiant sons. To announce the birth of a son the Chinese used to hang a bow and arrow in front of the house. Accordingly the Psalms declare (127: 4, RV): “As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the children of youth” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 439
A similar significance attaches to the lance: men are descended from the lance; the ash is the mother of lances; therefore the men of the Bronze Age are derived from her ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 439
Kaineus commanded that his lance was to be worshipped. Pindar says of this Kaineus that, in the legend, “he descended into the depths, splitting the earth with a straight foot.” Originally he is supposed to have been a maiden named Kainis, who, as a reward for her submissiveness, was changed by Poseidon into an invulnerable man ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 439
“Iron is used for boring into the earth With iron you can make menthe earth is split, burst open, man is divided Man is cut up and put together again In order to put a stop to being buried alive, Jesus told his disciples to bore into the earth” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 439
Mithras shoots water from the rock with his arrow in order to stop the drought. On Mithraic monuments the knife, otherwise used as the sacrificial instrument for killing the bull, is sometimes found stuck in the earth (Cumont, Textes, I, pp. 115, 116, 165) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 439
In other words, they remained stuck in the mother and were lost to the upper world. Later Theseus was rescued by Heracles, who appeared in the role of the death-conquering hero. The Theseus myth is therefore a representation of the individuation process ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 449
When the libido leaves the bright upper world, whether from choice, or from inertia, or from fate, it sinks back into its own depths, into the source from which it originally flowed, and returns to the point of cleavage, the navel, where it first entered the body. This point of cleavage is called the mother, because from her the current of life reached us ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 449
Whenever some great work is to be accomplished, before which a man recoils, doubtful of his strength, his libido streams back to the fountainhead and that is the dangerous moment when the issue hangs between annihilation and new life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 449
For if the libido gets stuck in the wonderland of this inner world, then for the upper world man is nothing but a shadow, he is already moribund or at least seriously ill ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 449
But if the libido manages to tear itself loose and force its way up again, something like a miracle happens: the journey to the underworld was a plunge into the fountain of youth, and the libido, apparently dead, wakes to renewed fruitfulness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 449
Vishnu sank into a profound trance, and in his slumber brought forth Brahma who, enthroned on a lotus, rose out of Vishnu’s navel, bringing with him the Vedas, which he diligently read (Birth of creative thought from introversion) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 449
But through Vishnu’s ecstatic absentmindedness a mighty flood came upon the world (Devouring and destruction of the world through introversion) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 449
For if the libido gets stuck in the wonderland of this inner world, then for the upper world man is nothing but a shadow, he is already moribund or at least seriously ill ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 449
A state of introversion. What this means we already know: the libido sinks “into its own depths” (a favourite image of Nietzsche’s), and discovers in the darkness a substitute for the upper world it has abandoned the world of memories (“Amidst a hundred memories”), the strongest and most influential of which are the earliest ones ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 448
It is the world of the child, the paradisal state of early infancy, from which we are driven out by the relentless law of time. In this subterranean kingdom slumber sweet feelings of home and the hopes of all that is to be ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 448
The deadly arrows do not strike the hero from without; it is himself who hunts, fights, and tortures himself. In him, instinct wars with instinct; therefore the poet says, “Thyself pierced through,” which means that he is wounded by his own arrow. As we know that the arrow is a libido-symbol, the meaning of this “piercing” is clear: it is the act of union with oneself, a sort of self-fertilization, and also a self-violation, a self-murder ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 447
These are the primordial images, the archetypes, which have been so enriched with individual memories through the introversion of libido as to become perceptible to the conscious mind, in much the same way as the crystalline structure latent in the saturated solution takes visible shape from the aggregation of molecules ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 450
Since these introversions and regressions only occur at moments when a new orientation and a new adaptation are necessary, the constellated archetype is always the primordial image of the need of the moment ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 450
Although the changing situations of life must appear infinitely various to our way of thinking, their possible number never exceeds certain natural limits; they fall into more or less typical patterns that repeat themselves over and over again ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 450
The archetypal structure of the unconscious corresponds to the average run of events. When therefore a distressing situation arises, the corresponding archetype will be constellated in the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 450
Since this archetype is numinous, i.e., possesses a specific energy, it will attract to itself the contents of consciousness conscious ideas that render it perceptible and hence capable of conscious realization. Its passing over into consciousness is felt as an illumination, a revelation, or repeated experience of this process has had the general result that, whenever a critical situation arises, the mechanism of introversion is made to function artificially by means of ritual actions which bring about a spiritual preparation, e.g., magical ceremonies, sacrifices, invocations, prayers, and suchlike. The aim of these ritual actions is to direct the libido towards the unconscious and compel it to introvert ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 450
If the libido connects with the unconscious, it is as though it were connecting with the mother, and this raises the incest-taboo. But as the unconscious is infinitely greater than the mother and is only symbolized by her, the fear of incest must be conquered if one is to gain possession of those “saving” contents the treasure hard to attain ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 450
Since the son is not conscious of his incest tendency, it is projected upon the mother or her symbol. But the symbol of the mother is not the mother herself, so in reality there is not the slightest possibility of incest, and the taboo can therefore be ruled out as a reason for resistance. In so far as the mother represents the unconscious, the incest tendency, particularly when it appears as the amorous desire of the mother (e.g., Ishtar and Gilgamesh) or of the anima (e.g., Chryse and Philoctetes), is really only the desire of the unconscious to be taken notice of ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 450
The rejection of the unconscious usually has unfortunate results; its instinctive forces, if persisently disregarded, rise up in opposition: Chryse changes into a venomous serpent ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 450
The more negative the attitude of the conscious towards the unconscious, the more dangerous does the latter become. Chryse’s curse was fulfilled so completely that Philoctetes, on approaching her altar, wounded himself in the foot with his own poison-tipped arrow, or, according to other versions which are in fact better attested, was bitten in the foot by a poisonous snake, and fell into a decline ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 450
So when the sun-god Ra retires on the back of the heavenly cow, it means that he is going back into the mother in order to rise again as Horus. In the morning the goddess is the mother, at noon she is the sister-wife, and at evening once more the mother who takes back the dead into her womb ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 360
The poisonous worm is a deadly form of libido instead of an animating form. The “true name” is Ra’s soul and magic power (his libido). What Isis demands is the transference of libido to the mother. This request is fulfilled to the letter, for the aging god returns to the heavenly cow, the symbol of the mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 455
But the real cause of the wound is the incest-taboo, which cuts a man off from the security of childhood and early youth, from all those unconscious, instinctive happenings that allow the child to live without responsibility as an appendage of his parents ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 351
The more a person shrinks from adapting himself to reality, the greater becomes the fear which increasingly besets his path at every point. Thus a vicious circle is formed: fear of life and people causes more shrinking back, and this in turn leads to infantilism and finally “into the mother” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 456
The reasons for this are generally projected outside oneself: the fault lies with external circumstances, or else the parents are made responsible ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 456
And indeed, it remains to be found out how much the mother is to blame for not letting the son go. The son will naturally try to explain everything by the wrong attitude of the mother, but he would do better to refrain from all such futile attempts to excuse his own ineptitude by laying the blame on his parents ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 456
This fear of life is not just an imaginary bogy, but a very real panic, which seems disproportionate only because its real source is unconscious and therefore projected: the young, growing part of the personality, if prevented from living or kept in check, generates fear and changes into fear ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 457
The fear seems to come from the mother, but actually it is the deadly fear of the instinctive, unconscious, inner man who is cut off from life by the continual shrinking back from reality ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 457
If the mother is felt as the obstacle, she then becomes the vengeful pursuer. Naturally it is not the real mother, although she too may seriously injure her child by the morbid tenderness with which she pursues it into adult life, thus prolonging the infantile attitude beyond the proper time ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 457
It is rather the mother-imago that has turned into a lamia. The mother-imago, however, represents the unconscious, and it is as much a vital necessity for the unconscious to be joined to the conscious as it is for the conscious not to lose contact with the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 457
Nothing endangers this connection more in a man than a successful life; it makes him forget his dependence on the unconscious. The case of Gilgamesh is instructive in this respect: he was so successful that the gods, the representatives of the unconscious, saw themselves compelled to deliberate how they could best bring about his downfall. Their efforts were unavailing at first, but when the hero had won the herb of immortality and was almost at his goal, a serpent stole the elixir of life from him while he slept ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 457
Apparently it is a hostile demon who robs him of energy, but in actual fact it is his own unconscious whose alien tendencies are beginning to check the forward striving of the conscious mind ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 458
The cause of this process is often extremely obscure, the more so as it is complicated by all kinds of external factors and subsidiary causes, such as difficulties in work, disappointments, failures, reduced efficiency due to age, depressing family problems, and so on and so forth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 458
According to the myths it is the woman who secretly enslaves a man, so that he can no longer free himself from her and becomes a child again. It is also significant that Isis, the sister-wife of the sun-god, creates the poisonous serpent from his spittle, which, like all bodily secretions, has a magical significance, being a libido equivalent. She creates the serpent from the libido of the god, and by this means weakens him and makes him dependent on her ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 458
Delilah acts in the same way with Samson: by cutting off his hair, the sun’s rays, she robs him of his strength ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 458
This demon-woman of mythology is in truth the “sister-wife-mother,” the woman in the man, who unexpectedly turns up during the second half of life and tries to effect a forcible change of personality ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 458
I have dealt with certain aspects of this change in my essay on “The Stages of Life.” It consists in a partial feminization of the man and a corresponding masculinization of the woman. Often it takes place under very dramatic circumstances: the man’s strongest quality, his Logos principle, turns against him and as it were betrays him. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 458
The same thing happens with the Eros of the woman. The man becomes rigidly set in his previous attitude, while the woman remains caught in her emotional ties and fails to develop her reason and understanding, whose place is then taken by equally obstinate and inept “animus” opinions. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 458
The fossilization of the man shrouds itself in a smoke-screen of moods, ridiculous irritability, feelings of distrust and resentment, which are meant to justify his rigid attitude. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 458
It seems like an unwelcome accident or a disagreeable positive catastrophe, which one would naturally rather avoid. In most cases the conscious personality rises up against the assault of the unconscious and resists its demands, which, it is clearly felt, are directed not only against all the weak spots in the man’s character, but also against his chief virtue (the differentiated function and the ideal) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 459
It is evident from the myths of Heracles and Gilgamesh that this assault can become the source of energy for a heroic conflict; indeed, so obvious is this impression that one has to ask oneself whether the apparent enmity of the maternal archetype is not a ruse on the part of Mater Natura for spurring on her favored child to his highest achievement ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 459
The vengeful Hera would then appear as the stern “Mistress Soul,” who imposes the most difficult labors on her hero and threatens him with destruction unless he plucks up courage for the supreme deed and actually becomes what he always potentially was. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 459
The hero’s victory over the “mother,” or over her daemonic representative (dragon, etc.), is never anything but temporary. What must be regarded as a regression in a young person feminization of the man (partial identity with the father) acquired different meaning in the second half of life ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 459
The assimilation of contrasexual tendencies then becomes a task that must be fulfilled in order to keep the libido in a state of progression. The task consists in integrating the unconscious, in bringing together “conscious” and “unconscious.” I have called this the individuation process. At this stage the mother-symbol no longer connects back to the beginnings, but points towards the unconscious as the creative matrix of the future. “Entry into the mother” then means establishing a relationship between the ego and the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 459
The way of this passion leads to the cave in which the bull is sacrificed. So, too, Christ had to bear the Cross to the place of sacrifice, where, according to the Christian version, the Lamb was slain in the form of the god, and was then laid to earth in the sepulchre ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 460
The cross, or whatever other heavy burden the hero carries, is himself, or rather the Self, his wholeness, which is both God and animal not merely the empirical man, but the totality of his being, which is rooted in his animal nature and reaches out beyond the merely human towards the divine ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 460
His [Christ] wholeness implies a tremendous tension of opposites paradoxically at one with themselves, as in the cross, their most perfect symbol ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 460
Ixion first murdered his father-in-law but was afterwards absolved from guilt by Zeus and blessed with his favour ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 460
Ixion, with gross ingratitude, then tried to seduce Hera, but Zeus tricked him by getting the cloud-goddess Nephele to assume Hera’s shape. From this union the centaurs are said to have sprung ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 460
Ixion boasted of his deed, but as a punishment for his crimes Zeus cast him into the underworld, where he was bound on a wheel that turned forever in the wind ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 460
Samson carried the gate-posts of the city of Gaza, and died between the pillars of the temple of the Philistines ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 460
Heracles carried his pillars to Gades (Cadiz), where, according to the Syrian version of the legend, he died. The Pillars of Hercules mark the point in the west where the sun sinks into the sea ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 460
The cross of Heracles may well be the sun-wheel, for which the Greeks used the symbol of the cross ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 460
The fantasy of the arrow-shot is part of this struggle for personal independence. As yet, however, the need for such a decision has not penetrated to the conscious mind of the dreamer: the fatal arrow of Cupid has not yet found its mark ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 462
Chiwantopel, playing the role of the author, is not yet wounded or killed. He is the bold adventurer who dares to do what Miss Miller obviously shrinks from doing: he offers himself, of his own free will, as a target for the fatal arrow-shot ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 462
The fact that this gesture of self-exposure is projected upon a masculine figure is direct proof that the dreamer is quite unconscious of its necessity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 462
Chiwantopel is a typical animus-figure, that is to say, a personification of the masculine side of the woman’s psyche. He is an archetypal figure who becomes particularly active when the conscious mind refuses to follow the feelings and instincts prompted by the unconscious: instead of love and surrender there is mannishness, argumentativeness, obstinate self-assertion, and the demon of opinion in every possible shape and form (power instead of love) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 462
The animus is not a real man at all; he is a slightly hysterical, infantile hero whose longing to be loved shows through the gaps in his armour. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 462
Chiwantopel is a significant relation for Miss Miller where the hero is her brother-beloved, her “ghostly lover,” she being his life-snake ultimately bringing death to him ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 679
The hero as an animus-figure acts vicariously for the conscious individual; that is to say, he does what the subject ought, could, would like to do, but does not do. All the things that could happen in conscious life, but do not happen, are acted out in the unconscious and consequently appear in projection ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 469
Chiwantopel is characterized as the hero who leaves his family and his ancestral home in order to seek his psychic counterpart. He thus represents what in the normal course of events ought to happen ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 469
The fact that this appears as a fantasy-figure shows how little the author is doing it herself. What happens in fantasy is therefore compensatory to the situation or attitude of the conscious mind. This is also the rule in dreams ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 469
The animus, a typical “son”-hero, true to his ancient prototype, is seeking the mother. This youthful hero is always the son-lover of the mother-goddess and is doomed to an early death (fig. 020) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 466
The libido that will not flow into life at the right time regresses to the mythical world of the archetypes, where it activates images which, since the remotest times, have expressed the non-human life of the gods, whether of the upper world or the lower ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 466
He [Animus [ is therefore sure of his success and cuts out all possible rivals. He wins the soul of the dreamer, not in order to lead her back to normal life, but to her spiritual destiny ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 468
For he is a bridegroom of death, one of the son-lovers who die young because they have no life of their own but are only fast-fading flowers on the maternal tree. Their meaning and their vitality begin and end in the mother-goddess ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 468
The original concrete meaning of words like comprehend, comprendre, begreifen, erfassen (grasp, seize), etc., is literally to seize hold of something with the hands and hold it tight in the arms ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 465
That is just what the mother does with her child when it asks for help or protection, and what binds the child to its mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 465
The older the child grows, the greater becomes the danger of this kind of “comprehension” hindering its natural development. Instead of adapting itself, as is necessary, to its new surroundings, the libido of the child regresses to the sheltering ease of the mother’s arms and fails to keep pace with the passing of time ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 465
I observed that the dance-step of the Pueblo Indians consisted in a “calcare terram” a persistent, vigorous pounding of the earth with the heels. (: “with unfettered foot now we are to beat on the ground”) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 480
Kaineus, as we saw, descended into the depths, “splitting the earth with a straight foot.” Faust reached the Mothers by stamping on the ground: “Stamping descend and stamping rise up again!” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 480
The heroes in the sun-devouring myths often stamp or kick in the gullet of the monster. Thor stamped clean through the bottom of the boat in his struggle with the monster and touched the bottom of the sea ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 481
The regression of libido makes the ritual act of treading out the dance-step seem like a repetition of the infantile “kicking.” Kicking is associated with the mother and with pleasurable sensations and recapitulates a movement that was already practised inside the mother’s womb. The foot and the treading movement are invested with a phallic significance, or with that of re-entry into the womb, so that the rhythm of the dance transports the dancer into an unconscious state. The Dancing Dervishes and other primitive dancers offer confirmation of this ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 481
The comparison of the water flowing from Gitche Manito’s footprints with a comet means that it is a light- or libido-symbol for the fertilizing moisture (sperma) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 481
According to a note in Humboldt’s Cosmos, certain South American Indian tribes call meteors the “piss of the stars” (Humboldt, Cosmos, I, p. 99. n.) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 481
We should also mention that Gitche Manito is a fire-maker: he blows upon a forest so that the trees rub against one another and burst into flame. Hence this god too is a libido-symbol, since he produces not only water but fire ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 481
The answer to this question is that the hero is not born like an ordinary mortal because his birth is a rebirth from the mother-wife. That is why the hero so often has two mothers ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 494
One would think it possible for a hero to be born in the normal manner, and then gradually to grow out of his humble and homely surroundings, perhaps with a great effort and in face of many dangers. (This motif is by no means uncommon in the hero-myths) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 493
As a general rule, however, the story of his origins is miraculous. The singular circumstances of his procreation and birth are part and parcel of the hero-myth. What is the reason for these beliefs? ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 493
The immaculate conception tells us that a content of the unconscious (“child”) has come into existence without the help of a human father, (i.e., consciousness) (fig. 258.08) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 497
It tells us, on the contrary, that some god has begotten the son, and further that the son is identical with the father, which in psychological language means that a central archetype, the God image, has renewed itself (“been reborn”) and become “incarnate” in a way perceptible to consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 497
The “mother” corresponds to the “virgin anima,” who is not turned towards the outer world and therefore not corrupted by it. She is turned rather to the “inner sun,” the archetype of transcendent wholeness the Self ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 497
This is typical of Hiawatha’s deeds. Whatever he kills generally lies by or in the water, or better still, half in water and half on land. His subsequent adventures will explain why this is so. Further, the roebuck was no ordinary animal, but a magic one with an unconscious (i.e., symbolical) significance ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 503
Hiawatha made himself gloves and moccasins from its hide: the gloves gave such power to his arms that he could crumble rocks to dust, and the moccasins had the virtue of seven-leagued boots. By clothing himself in the hide he became a sort of giant ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 503
Therefore the roebuck killed at the ford was a “doctor animal,” a magician who had changed his shape, or a daemonic being a symbol, that is to say, which points to the “animal” and other such powers of the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 503
That is why it was killed at the ford, i.e., at the crossing, on the border-line between conscious and unconscious. The animal is a representative of the unconscious, and the unconscious, as the matrix of consciousness, has a maternal significance, which explains why the mother was also represented by the bear ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 503
All animals belong to the Great Mother (fig. 258.51), and the killing of any wild animal is a transgression against the mother. Just as the mother seems a giantess to the small child, so the attribute of size passes to the archetypal Great Mother, Mother Nature ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 503
Whoever succeeds in killing the “magic” animal, the symbolic representative of the animal mother, acquires something of her gigantic strength. This is expressed by saying that the hero clothes himself in the animal’s skin and in this way obtains for the magic animal a sort of resurrection ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 503
At the Aztec human sacrifices criminals played the part of gods: they were slaughtered and flayed, and the priests then wrapped themselves in the dripping pelts in order to represent the gods’ resurrection and renewal ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 503
In killing his first roebuck, therefore, Hiawatha was killing the symbolic representative of the unconscious, i.e., his own participation mystique with animal nature, and from that comes his giant strength ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 504
He now sallies forth to do battle with Mudjekeewis, the father, in order to avenge his mother Wenonah. (Cf. Gilgamesh’s fight with the giant Humbaba.) In this fight the father may also be represented by some sort of magic animal which has to be overcome, but he can equally well be represented by a giant or a magician or a wicked tyrant ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 504
Mutatis mutandis the animals can be interpreted as the “mother,” as the “mater saeva cupidinum,” or again as that amiable Isis who laid a horned viper in her husband’s path in short, they can be interpreted as the Terrible Mother who devours and destroys, and thus symbolizes death itself ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 504
I remember the case of a mother who kept her children tied to her with unnatural love and devotion. At the time of the climacteric she fell into a depressive psychosis and had delirious states in which she saw herself as an animal, especially as a wolf or pig, and acted accordingly, running about on all fours, howling like a wolf or grunting like a pig. In her psychosis she had herself become the symbol of the all-devouring mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 504
The imagos are representations which have arisen from the conjunction of parental peculiarities with the individual disposition of the child ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 505
The imagos are activated and varied in every possible manner by an energy which likewise pertains to the individual; it derives from the sphere of instinct and expresses itself as instinctuality. This dynamism is represented in dreams by theriomorphic symbols ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 505
All the lions, bulls, dogs, and snakes that populate our dreams represent an undifferentiated and as yet unnamed libido, which at the same time forms part of the human personality and can therefore fittingly be described as the anthropoid psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 505
The archetype of the wise old man first appears in the father, being a personification of meaning and spirit in its procreative sense ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 515
The question of nourishment has to be considered here because regression to the mother is bound to revive the memory of the “alma mater,” the mother as the nourishing source. Incest is not the only aspect characteristic of regression: there is also the hunger that drives the child to its mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 519
Whoever gives up the struggle to adapt and regresses into the bosom of the family, which in the last resort is the mother’s bosom, expects not only to be warmed and loved, but also to be fed. If the regression has an infantile character, it aims without of course admitting it at incest and nourishment ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 519
When the regression is only apparent, and is in reality a purposive introversion of libido directed towards a goal, then the endogamous relationship, which is in any case prohibited by the incest-taboo, will be avoided, and the demand for nourishment replaced by intentional fasting ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 519
Solitude and fasting have from time immemorial been the best-known means of strengthening any meditation whose purpose is to open the doors to the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 519
Mondamin is the maize, the Indian corn. Hiawatha’s introversion gives birth to a god who is eaten. His hunger in the twofold sense his longing for the nourishing mother, calls forth from the unconscious another hero, an edible god, the maize, son of the Earth Mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 522
The Christian parallel is obvious. It is hardly necessary to suppose any Christian influence here, since Fray Bernardino de Sahagún had already described the eucharist of Huitzilopochtli among the Aztecs early in the sixteenth century. This god, too, was ceremonially eaten ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 522
Mondamin, the “friend of man,” challenges Hiawatha to single combat in the glow of evening. In the “purple twilight” of the setting sun (i.e., in the western land) there now ensues the mythological struggle with the god who has sprung out of the unconscious like a transformed reflection of Hiawatha’s introverted consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 522
As a god or god-man he is the prototype of Hiawatha’s heroic destiny; that is to say, Hiawatha has in himself the possibility, indeed the necessity, of confronting his daemon ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 522
On the way to this goal he conquers the parents and breaks his infantile ties. But the deepest tie is to the mother. Once he has conquered this by gaining access to her symbolic equivalent, he can be born again ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 522
In this tie to the maternal source lies the strength that gives the hero his extraordinary powers, his true genius, which he frees from the embrace of the unconscious by his daring and sovereign independence. Thus the god is born in him ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 522
The mystery of the “mother” is divine creative power, which appears here in the form of the corn-god Mondamin ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 522
How the remarkable thing here is that it is not Hiawatha who passes through death and emerges reborn, as might be expected, but the god. It is not man who is transformed into a god, but the god who undergoes transformation in and through man. It is as though he had been asleep in the “mother,” i.e., in Hiawatha’s unconscious, and had then been roused and fought with so that he should not overpower his host, but should, on the contrary, himself experience death and rebirth and reappear in the corn in a new form beneficial to mankind 524.
Consequently he [the god] appears at first in hostile form, as an assailant with whom the hero has to wrestle. This is in keeping with the violence of all unconscious dynamism. In this manner the god manifests himself and in this form he must be overcome. The struggle has its parallel in Jacob’s wrestling with the angel at the ford Jabbok ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 524
The onslaught of instinct then becomes an experience of divinity, provided that man does not succumb to it and follow it blindly, but defends his humanity against the animal nature of the divine power ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 524
This ravenous hunger aptly describes man’s repressive instinctuality at the stage where the parents have a predominantly nutritive significance ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 526
The image of Iacchus was carried at the head of the great Eleusinian procession. It is not easy to say exactly what god Iacchus is, but he was probably a boy or a new-born son, similar perhaps to the Etruscan Tages, who bore the epithet “the fresh-ploughed boy,” because, according to legend, he sprang out of a furrow behind a peasant ploughing his fields ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 527
The lexicographers called him “Demeter’s daimon.” He was identified with Dionysus, especially with the Thracian Dionysus-Zagreus, who is supposed to have undergone the typical fate of being reborn ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 527
Hera, we are told, had stirred up the Titans against Zagreus, who tried to escape them by changing into various shapes. In the end they caught him when he had taken on the form of a bull. They then killed him, cut him in pieces, and threw the pieces into a cauldron; but Zeus slew the Titans with a thunderbolt and swallowed the still-throbbing heart of Zagreus. In this manner he was regenerated, and Zagreus stepped forth again as Iacchus ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 527
Another thing carried in the Eleusinian procession was the winnowing-basket, the cradle of Iacchus (, mystica vannus Iacchi). The Orphic legend relates that Iacchus was reared by Persephone in the underworld, where after slumbering for three years, he awoke in the winnowing-basket. The 20th of Boedromion (the month of Boedromion lasted from about September 5 to October 5) was called Iacchus, in honour of the hero ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 528
In the Eleusinian procession the 20th of Boedromion (the month of Boedromion lasted from about September 5 to October 5) was called Iacchus, in honour of the hero. On the evening of this day a great torchlight procession was held on the sea-shore, where the search and lament of Demeter were re-enacted ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 527
The part of Demeter, who, abstaining from food and drink, wanders over the face of the earth seeking her lost daughter, has, in the American Indian epic, been taken over by Hiawatha. He turns to all creatures, but receives no answers ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 528
Just as Demeter first gets news of her daughter from the moon-goddess Hecate, so Hiawatha only finds the one he is looking for Mondamin through profound introversion, by a descent into the darkness of night, to the Mothers ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 528
The priestess of Demeter seems to have represented the earth-goddess, or possibly the ploughed furrow ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 528
The parallel to the motif of dying and rising again is that of being lost and found again. It appears ritually at exactly same place, in connection with the hierosgamos-like spring festivities, where the image of the god was hidden and then found again ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 531
There is an uncanonical tradition that Moses left his father’s house at the age of twelve in order to instruct mankind ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 531
Similarly, Christ was lost by his parents, and they found him teaching wisdom in the temple, just as in the Mohammedan legend Moses and Joshua, lose the fish and find in its stead Khidr, the teacher of wisdom ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 531
So, too, does the corn-god, lost and believed dead, suddenly spring from the earth in the splendor of youth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 531
The believer descends into the grave in order to rise again from the dead with the hero. It can scarcely be doubted that the underlying meaning of the Church is the mother’s womb. The Tantric texts interpret the interior of the temple as the interior of the body, and the adyton is called “garbha griha,” the seeding-place or uterus ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 536
We can see this quite plainly in the worship of the Holy Sepulchre, a good example being the Holy Sepulchre of San Stefano in Bologna ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 536
The church itself, an extremely ancient polygonal building, was built from the remains of a temple to Isis. Inside, there is an artificial spelaeum, known as the Holy Sepulchre, into which one creeps through a tiny door. Worshippers in such a spelaeum could hardly help identifying themselves with him who died and rose again, i.e., with the reborn ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 536
trees are anointed with sweet-smelling waters, sprinkled with powder, adorned with garlands and draperies ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 545
Just as the people pierce their ears as an apotropaic charm against death, so they pierce the sacred tree ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 545
Of all the trees in India there is none more sacred to the Hindus than the peepul or aswatha (Ficus religiosa). It is known to them as Vriksha Raja (king of trees). Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheswar live in it, and the worship of it is the worship of the Triad. Almost every Indian village has an aswatha (Negelein, ed., Der Traumschlüssel des Jaggadeva, p. 256) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 545
The woodpecker owes his special significance to the fact that he hammers holes in trees. Hence we can understand why he was honoured in Roman legend as an ancient king of the country, who was the possessor or ruler of the sacred tree, and the prototype of the pater familias ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 547
An old fable relates that Circe, the wife of king Picus, changed him into Picus martius, the woodpecker. She killed and magically transformed him into a soul-bird ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 547
Picus was also regarded as a wood demon and incubus, and a soothsayer. He was sometimes equated with Picumnus, the inseparable companion of Pilumnus, both of whom were called infantium dii, `gods of small children.’ Pilumnus especially was said to protect new-born infants from the wicked attacks of the wood-imp Sylvanus ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 547
This helpful little bird now counsels our hero [Hiawatha] to aim under the magician’s topknot, the only vulnerable spot. It is situated on the crown of the head, at the point where the mythical “head birth” takes place, which even today figures among the birth-theories of children ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 547
There Hiawatha shoots in three arrows and so makes an end of Megissogwon. He then steals the magic belt of wampum which makes him invisible; the dead magician he leaves lying in the water ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 547
He is the spirit of regression, who threatens us with bondage to the mother and with dissolution and extinction in the unconscious (cf. fig. 035) and (fig. 258.62) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 551
For the hero, fear is a challenge and a task, because only boldness can deliver from fear ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 551
If the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is somehow violated, and the whole future is condemned to hopeless staleness, to a drab grey lit only by will-o’-the wisps. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 551
This image is undoubtedly a primordial one, and there was profound justification for its becoming a symbolical expression of human fate ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
In the morning of life the son tears himself loose from the mother, from the domestic hearth, to rise through battle to his destined heights ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
Always he imagines his worst enemy in front of him, yet he carries the enemy within himself a deadly longing for the abyss, a longing to drown in his own source, to be sucked down to the realm of the Mothers ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
His life is a constant struggle against extinction, a violent yet fleeting deliverance from ever-lurking night. This death is no external enemy, it is his own inner longing for the stillness and profound peace of all-knowing non-existence, for all-seeing sleep in the ocean of coming-to-be and passing away ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
Even in his highest strivings for harmony and balance, for the profundities of philosophy and the raptures of the artist, he seeks death, immobility, satiety, rest ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
If, like Peirithous, he tarries too long in this abode of rest and peace, he is overcome by apathy, and the poison of the serpent paralyses him for all time ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
If he is to live, he must fight and sacrifice his longing for the past in order to rise to his own heights. And having reached the noonday heights, he must sacrifice his love for his own achievement, for he may not loiter ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
The sun, too, sacrifices its greatest strength in order to hasten onward to the fruits of autumn, which are the seeds of rebirth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
The natural course of life demands that the young person should sacrifice his childhood and his childish dependence on the physical parents, lest he remain caught body and soul in the bonds of unconscious incest ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
This regressive tendency has been consistently opposed from the most primitive times by the great psychotherapeutic systems which we know as the religions. They seek to create an autonomous consciousness by weaning mankind away from the sleep of childhood ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553
This archaic fact is expressed here in a rather veiled way. In the legend of the “Entkrist” it is expressed openly by the devil, the father of the Anti-Christ ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 565
Wotan is justly indignant with Brünhilde, for she has taken over the role of Isis and through the birth of a son has deprived the old man of his power ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 565
In psychological terms this means that the “treasure hard to attain” lies hidden in the mother-imago, i.e., in the unconscious. This symbol points to one of life’s secrets which is expressed in countless symbolical ways in mythology. When such symbols occur in individual dreams, they will be found on examination to be pointing to something like a centre of the total personality, of the psychic totality which consists of both conscious and unconscious. Here I must refer the reader to my later works, where I deal at some length with the symbol of the Self ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 569
Last but not least, Siegfried wins the hoard ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 569
Life is put together again from the broken pieces (miracle of Medea). Just as a blacksmith welds the broken pieces together, so the dismembered corpse is reconstituted ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 556
This comparison also occurs in Plato’s Timaeus: the world’s parts are joined together with pegs. In the Rig-Veda the world creator Brahmanaspati is a blacksmith ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 556
We have already seen that pastries in the form of snakes and phalli were flung into a pit at the Arrhetophoria. We mentioned this in connection with the earth fertilization ceremonies ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 571
It is significant that the deadly flood flowed off into the fissure, back into the mother again, for it was from the mother that death came into the world in the first place. The Deluge is simply the counterpart of the all-vivifying and all-producing water, of “the ocean, which is the origin of all things” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 571
Honeycakes are offered to the mother that she may spare one from death. In Rome money-offerings were thrown every year into the lacus Curtius, formerly a chasm that had been closed through the sacrificial death of Curtius. He was the hero who went down to the underworld in order to conquer the danger that threatened the Roman state after the opening of the chasm ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 571
In the Anphiaraion at Oropos those healed through incubation in the temple threw their money-offerings into the sacred well. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 571
Near Eleusis, there was a gorge through which Aidoneus came up and into which he descended after kidnapping the Kore ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 572
There were crevasses in the rocks where the souls could ascend to the upper world ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 572
Behind the temple of Chthonia in Hermione lay a spot sacred to Pluto, with a chasm through which Heracles came up with Cerberus ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 572
There was also an “Acherusian” lake. This chasm, therefore, was the entrance to the place where death had been conquered ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 572
The chasm on the Areopagus in Athens was believed to be the seat of the dwellers in the underworld ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 572
Similar ideas are suggested by an old Greek custom: girls used to be sent for a virginity test to a cave where there lived a poisonous serpent. If they were bitten, it was a sign that they were no longer chaste ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 572
The Self, as a symbol of wholeness, is a coincidentia oppositorum, and therefore contains light and darkness simultaneously (cf. fig. 039), (fig. 258.09), and (fig. 258.60) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 576
In the Christ-figure the opposites which are united in the archetype are polarized into the “light” son of God on the one hand and the devil on the other. The original unity of opposites is still discernible in the original unity of Satan and Yahweh. Christ and the dragon of the Anti-Christ lie very close together so far as their historical development and cosmic significance are concerned ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 576
The dragon legend concealed under the myth of the Anti-Christ is an essential part of the hero’s life and is therefore immortal ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 576
Nowhere in the latter-day myths are the paired opposites so palpably close together as in the figures of Christ and Anti-Christ. (Here I would refer the reader to Merezhkovsky’s admirable account of this problem in his novel Leonardo da Vinci) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 576
It is a convenient rationalistic conceit to say that the dragon is only “artificial,” thus banishing the mysterious gods with a word ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 576
Schizophrenic patients often make use of this mechanism for apotropaic purposes. “It’s all a fake,” they say, “all artificially made up.” The following dream of a schizophrenic is typical: ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 576
Sun and moon, as divine equivalents of the parent archetype, possess a tremendous psychic power that has to be weakened apotropaically, because the patient is already far too much under the power of the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 576
Nothing was left but the hole in which the snake was said to dwell. There the honey cakes were placed and the obolus thrown in. The sacred cave in the temple at Cos consisted of a rectangular pit covered by a stone slab with a square hole in it ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
This arrangement served the purpose of a treasure-house: the snake-pit had become a slot for money, a “poor-box,” and the cave a “hoard.” That this development is fully in accord with the archaeological evidence is proved by a discovery in the temple of Aesculapius and Hygeia at Ptolemaïs ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 577
Here the serpent lies on the treasury as protector of the hoard. Fear of the deadly maternal womb has become the guardian of the treasure of life. That the snake really is a death-symbol is evident from the fact that the souls of the dead, like the chthonic gods, appear as serpents, as dwellers in the kingdom of the deadly mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 578
The hero himself appears as a being of more than human stature. He is distinguished from the very beginning by his godlike characteristics ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
Since he is psychologically an archetype of the Self, his divinity only confirms that the Self is numinous, a sort of god, or having some share in the divine nature ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
The hero is the protagonist of God’s transformation in man; he corresponds to what I call the “mana personality.” The mana personality has such an immense fascination for the conscious mind that the ego all too easily succumbs to the temptation to identify with the hero, thus bringing on a psychic inflation with all its consequences. For this reason the repugnance felt by certain ecclesiastical circles for the “inner Christ” is understandable enough, at least as a preventive measure against the danger of psychic inflation which threatens the Christian European ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 612
Heroes are usually wanderers, and wandering is a symbol of longing, of the restless urge which never finds its object, of nostalgia for the lost mother. The sun comparison can easily be taken in this sense: the heroes are like the wandering sun, from which it is concluded that the myth of the hero is a solar myth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 299
It seems to us, rather, that he is first and foremost a self-representation of the longing of the unconscious, of its unquenched and unquenchable desire for the light of consciousness. But consciousness, continually in danger of being led astray by its own light and of becoming a rootless will o’ the wisp, longs for the healing power of nature, for the deep wells of being and for unconscious communion with life in all its countless forms ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 299
It is not man as such who has to be regenerated or born again as a renewed whole, but, according to the statements of mythology, it is the hero or god who rejuvenates himself. These figures are generally expressed or characterized by libido-symbols (light, fire, sun, etc.), so that it looks as if they represented psychic energy. They are, in fact, personifications of the libido ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 388
The hero is a hero just because he sees resistance to the forbidden goal in all life’s difficulties and yet fights that resistance with the whole-hearted yearning that strives towards the treasure hard to attain, and perhaps unattainable a yearning that paralyses and kills the ordinary man ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 510
The hero is an extraordinary being who is inhabited by a daemon, and it is this that makes him a hero. That is why the mythological statements about heroes are so typical and so impersonal ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 536
The treasure which the hero fetches from the dark cavern is life: it is himself, new-born from the dark maternal cave of the unconscious where he was stranded by the introversion or regression of libido. Hence the Hindu fire-bringer is called Matarisvan, he who swells in the mother. The hero who clings to the mother is the dragon, and when the hero is reborn from the mother he becomes the conqueror of the dragon (fig. 258.59a) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 580
The hero who sets himself the task of renewing the world and conquering death personifies the world-creating power which, brooding on itself in introversion, coiled round its own egg like a snake, threatens life with its poisonous bite, so that the living may die and be born again from the darkness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 592
The hero is himself the snake, himself the sacrificer and the sacrificed, which is why Christ rightly compares himself with the healing Moses-serpent (fig. 258.09b) and why the saviour of the Christian Ophites was a serpent, too. It is both Agathodaimon (fig. 037) and Cacodaimon. In German legend we are told that the heroes have snake’s eyes ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 593
One of my patients dreamt that a snake shot out of a cave and bit him in the genital region. The dream occurred at the moment when the patient was convinced of the truth of the analysis and was beginning to free himself from the bonds of his mother-complex ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 585
He felt that he was making progress and that he had more control over himself. But the moment he felt the impulse to go forward he also felt the pull of the bond of the mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 585
Being bitten in the genital region by a snake (fig. 258.61b) reminds us of Attis whose self-castration was occasioned by his mother’s jealousy ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 585
The term tapas is to be translated, according to Deussen, as “he heated himself with his own heat,” in the sense that “he brooded his own brooding,” brooder and brooded being conceived not as separate, but as one and the same thing ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 589
As Hiranyagarbha (the Golden Germ), Prajapati is the self-begotten egg, the cosmic egg from which he hatches himself (fig. 036). He creeps into himself, becomes his own womb, makes himself pregnant with himself in order to hatch forth the world of multiplicity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 589
Self-incubation, self-castigation, and introversion are closely related ideas. Immersion in oneself (introversion) is a penetration into the unconscious and at the same time asceticism. The result, for the philosophy of the Brahmanas, is the creation of the world, and for the mystic the regeneration and spiritual rebirth of the individual, who is born into a new world of the spirit. Indian philosophy also assumes that creativity as such springs from introversion ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 590
Above his subterranean dwelling rose the Parthenon, the temple of the virgin goddess ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 594
The flaying of the god, which we have already touched on in connection with the flaying-ceremonies of the Aztecs, is intimately bound up with the snake-like nature of the hero ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 594
It is reported of Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, that he was killed, flayed, stuffed, and hung up. The hanging up of the god has an unmistakable symbolic value, since suspension is the symbol of unfulfilled longing or tense expectation (“suspense”). Christ, Odin, Attis, and others all hung upon trees ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 594
We can in fact discover the same multiplicity of meanings and the same apparently limitless inter changeability of figures in dreams. On the other hand we are now in a position to establish certain laws, or at any rate rules, which make dream interpretation rather more certain. Thus we know that dreams generally compensate the conscious situation or supply what is lacking to it. This very important principle of dream interpretation also applies to myths ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 611
Furthermore, investigation of the products of the unconscious yields notable traces of archetypal structures which coincide with the myth-motifs among them certain types which deserve the name of dominants ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 611
The reason for this lies in the fact that no part of the hero-myth is single in meaning, and that, at a pinch, all the figures are interchangeable ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 611
The only certain and reliable thing is that the myth exists and shows unmistakable analogies with other myths ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 611
Myth-interpretation is a tricky business and there is some justification for looking at it askance. Hitherto the myth-interpreter has found himself in a somewhat unenviable position, because he only had exceedingly doubtful points for orientation at his disposal, such as astronomical and meteorological data ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 611
Snake dreams always indicate a discrepancy between the attitude of the conscious mind and instinct, the snake being a personification of the threatening aspect of that conflict ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 615
The appearance of the green viper therefore means: “Look out! Danger ahead!” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 615
It devoured all human beings (devouring-mother = death) until only one pregnant woman remained. She dug a ditch, covered it with a stone, and there gave birth to twins who afterwards became dragon-killers ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 620
The mating in the mother also occurs in the following West African legend: “In the beginning, Obatala the Sky and Odudua the Earth, his wife, lay pressed close together in a calabash” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 620
Being “guarded in modest bud” is an image that is found in Plutarch, where it is said that the sun is born at dawn from a flower bud ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 620
Brahma, too, comes out of a bud, and in Assam a bud gave birth to the first human pair ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 620
Separation and differentiation from the mother, “individuation,” produces that confrontation of subject and object which is the foundation of consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 624
Before this, man was one with the mother; that is to say, he was merged with the world as a whole. He did not yet know the sun was his brother; only after the separation did he begin to realize his affinity with the stars ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 624
This is a not uncommon occurrence in psychosis. For instance, in the case of a young labouring-man who developed schizophrenia, the first symptoms of his illness consisted in the feeling that he had a special relation to the sun and the stars ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 624
The stars became full of meaning for him, he thought they had something to do with him personally, and the sun gave him all sorts of strange ideas. One finds this apparently quite novel feeling for Nature very often in this disease ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 624
Another patient began to understand the language of the birds, who brought him messages from his sweetheart ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 624
The separation from youth has even taken away the golden glamour of Nature, and the future appears hopeless and empty. But what robs Nature of its glamour, and life of its joy, is the habit of looking back for something that used to be outside, instead of looking inside, into the depths of the depressive state ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 625
This looking back leads to regression and is the first step along that path. Regression is also an involuntary introversion in so far as the past is an object of memory and therefore a psychic content, an endopsychic factor. It is a relapse into the past caused by a depression in the present ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 625
Depression should therefore be regarded as an unconscious compensation whose content must be made conscious if it is to be fully effective ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 625
This can only be done by consciously regressing along with the depressive tendency and integrating the memories so activated into the conscious mind which was what the depression was aiming at in the first place ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 625
Depression is a condition resulting from a blocking of libido where life ceases to flow ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 250
A person sinks into his childhood memories and vanishes from the existing world. He finds himself apparently in deepest darkness [inside the whale], but then has unexpected visions of a world beyond ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 631
The “mystery” he beholds represents the stock of primordial images which everybody brings with him as his human birthright, the sum total of inborn forms peculiar to the instincts. I have called this “potential” psyche the collective unconscious. If this layer is activated by the regressive libido, there is a possibility of life being renewed, and also of its being destroyed ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 631
Regression carried to its logical conclusion means a linking back with the world of natural instincts, which in its formal or ideal aspect is a kind of prima materia. If the prima materia can be assimilated by the conscious mind it will bring about a reactivation and reorganization of its contents ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 631
If the conscious mind proves incapable of assimilating the new contents pouring in from the unconscious, then a dangerous situation arises in which they keep their original, chaotic, and archaic form and consequently disrupt the unity of consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 631
All the libido that was tied up in family bonds must be withdrawn from the narrower circle into the larger one, because the psychic health of the adult individual, who in childhood was a mere particle revolving in a rotary system, demands that he should himself become the center of a new system ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 644
That such a step includes the solution, or at least some consideration, of the sexual problem is obvious enough, for unless this is done the unemployed libido will inevitably remain fixed in the unconscious endogamous relationship to the parents and will seriously hamper the individual’s freedom ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 644
We must remember that Christ’s teaching means ruthlessly separating a man from his family, and we saw in the Nicodemus dialogue how he took especial pains to give regression a symbolic meaning. Both tendencies serve the same goal, namely that of freeing man from his family fixations, from his weakness and uncontrolled infantile feelings ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 644
For if he allows his libido to get stuck in a childish milieu, and does not free it for higher purposes, he falls under the spell of unconscious compulsion. Wherever he may be, the unconscious will then recreate the infantile milieu by projecting his complexes, thus reproducing all over again, and in defiance of his vital interests, the same dependence and lack of freedom which formerly characterized his relations with his parents ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 644
His destiny no longer lies in his own hands: his (fortunes and fates) fall from the stars. The Stoics called this condition Heimarmene, compulsion by the stars, to which every “unredeemed” soul is subject ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 644
When the libido thus remains fixed in its most primitive form it keeps men on a correspondingly low level where they have no control over themselves and are at the mercy of their affects ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 644
That was the psychological situation of late antiquity, and the saviour and physician of that time was he who sought to free humanity from bondage to Heimarmene ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 644
For him who looks backwards the whole world, even the starry sky, becomes the mother who bends over him and enfolds him on all sides, and from the renunciation of this image, and of the longing for it, arises the picture of the world as we know it today ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 646
This simple thought is what constitutes the meaning of the cosmic sacrifice, a good example being the slaying of Tiamat (fig. 041), the Babylonian mother-dragon, from whose body heaven and earth were made ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 646
But he only discovers it when he sacrifices his containment in the primal mother, the original state of unconsciousness. What drives him towards this discovery is conceived by Freud as the “incest barrier.” The incest prohibition blocks the infantile longing for the mother and forces the libido along the path of life’s biological aim ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 652
The libido, driven back from the mother by the incest prohibition, seeks a sexual object in place of the forbidden mother. The fact that the infant finds pleasure in sucking does not prove that it is a sexual pleasure, for pleasure can have many different sources ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 652
Presumably, the caterpillar finds quite as much pleasure in eating, even though caterpillars possess no sexual function whatever and the food instinct is something quite different from the sex instinct, quite unconcerned about what a later sexual stage may make of these activities ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 652
Kissing, for instance, derives far more from the act of nutrition than from sexuality. Moreover the so-called “incest barrier” is an exceedingly doubtful hypothesis (admirable as it is for describing certain neurotic conditions), because it is a product of culture which nobody invented and which grew up naturally on the basis of complex biological necessities connected with the development of “marriage classes” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 652
The main purpose of marriage classes is not to prevent incest but to meet the social danger of endogamy by instituting the “cross-cousin marriage.” The typical marriage with the daughter of the maternal uncle is actually implemented by the same libido which could equally well possess the mother or the sister ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 652
So it is not a question of avoiding incest, for which incidentally there are plenty of opportunities in the frequent fits of promiscuity to which primitives are prone, but of the social necessity of spreading the family organization throughout the whole tribe ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 652
Therefore it cannot have been the incest-taboo that forced mankind out of the original psychic state of non-differentiation. On the contrary, it was the evolutionary instinct peculiar to man, which distinguishes him so radically from all other animals and forced upon him countless taboos, among them the incest-taboo ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 653
Against this “other urge” the animal in us fights with all his instinctive conservatism and misoneism hatred of novelty which are the two outstanding features of the primitive and feebly conscious individual. Our mania for progress represents the inevitable morbid compensation ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 653
Even as the world is created by sacrifice, by renouncing the personal tie to childhood, so, according to the teaching of the Upanishads, will be created the new state of man, which can be described as immortal ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 657
This new state beyond the human one is again attained through a sacrifice, the horse-sacrifice, which has cosmic significance ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 657
The horse-sacrifice signifies a renunciation of the world. When the horse is sacrificed the world is sacrificed and destroyed ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 658
Pentheus climbed up into a pine-tree, curious to see the orgies of the Maenads, but was spotted by his mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 662
The Maenads cut down the tree, and Pentheus, taken for a wild animal, was torn to pieces by them in their frenzy, his own mother being the first to hurl herself upon him ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 662
The felling of the tree has the phallic meaning of castration, along with its maternal significance of “bearing” Pentheusthemes all present in the Attis-Cybele myth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 662
The myth of Gayomart repeats in modified form the primitive “closed circle” of a self-reproducing masculine and feminine divinity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 662
Gayomart was created together with his ox, and the two lived in a state of bliss for six thousand years. But when the world entered the Aeon of Libra (the seventh zodiacal sign), the evil principle broke loose ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 662
In astrology, Libra is known as the “Positive House” of Venus, so the evil principle came under the dominion of the goddess of love, who personifies the erotic aspect of the mother. Since this aspect, as we have seen, is psychologically extremely dangerous, the classical catastrophe threatened to overtake the son ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 662
As a result of this constellation, Gayomart and his ox died only thirty years later. (The trials of Zarathustra also lasted for thirty years) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 662
Fifty-five species of grain and twelve kinds of healing plants came from the dead ox. His seed entered into the moon for purification, but the seed of Gayomart entered into the sun ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 662
The hearth spirit is called Chi. He is dressed in bright red, resembling fire, and in appearance is like a lovely, attractive maiden” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 663
The Book of Rites says: “Wood is burnt in the flames for the Au spirit. This sacrifice to Au is a sacrifice to the old women who are dead” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 663
These hearth and fire spirits are the souls of departed cooks and are therefore referred to as “old women” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 663
The god of kitchens grew out of this pre-Buddhistic tradition and later, as a man, became the ruler of the family and the link between it and heaven. In this way the original female fire-spirit became a sort of Logos and mediator ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 66
The annual sacrifice of a maiden to the dragon is perhaps the ideal sacrifice on a mythological level. In order to mollify the wrath of the Terrible Mother the most beautiful girl was sacrificed as a symbol of man’s concupiscence ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
Milder forms were the sacrifice of the first-born and of various domestic animals ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
The alternative ideal is self-castration, of which a milder form is circumcision. Here at least only a modicum is sacrificed, which amounts to replacing the sacrifice by a symbolical act ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
By sacrificing these valued objects of desire and possession, the instinctive desire, or libido is given up in order that it may be regained in new form. Through sacrifice, man ransoms himself from the fear of death and is reconciled to the demands of Hades ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
In the late cults in olden times the hero conquered evil and death through his labors, thus becoming the divine protagonist, the priestly self-sacrificer and renewer of life. Since he is now a divine figure and his sacrifice is a transcendental mystery whose meaning far exceeds the value of an ordinary sacrificial gift, this deepening of the sacrificial symbolism is a reversion to the old idea of human sacrifice, because a stronger and more total expression is needed to portray the idea of self-sacrifice ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
The relation of Mithras to his bull comes very close to this idea of self-sacrifice. In Christianity it is the hero himself who dies of his own free will ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
On the Mithraic monuments we often come across a strange symbol: a krater (mixing-bowl) with a snake coiled round it, and a lion facing the snake like an antagonist (fig. 258.63b). It looks as if they were fighting for the krater. The krater symbolizes the maternal vessel of rebirth, the snake fear and resistance, and the lion raging desire ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
The snake almost always assists at the bull-sacrifice by gliding towards the blood flowing from the wound. It seems to follow from this that the bull’s lifeits blood is offered to the snake, that it is a sacrificial offering to the powers of the underworld, like the blood drunk by the shades in the nekyia of Odysseus ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
We have already seen pointed out the reciprocal relationship between bull and snake, and we saw that the bull symbolizes the living hero, whereas the snake symbolizes the dead, buried, chthonic hero. But as the dead hero is back in the mother, the snake also stands for the devouring mother. The combination of the bull’s blood and the snake therefore looks like a union of opposites, and the lion and snake fighting for the krater may mean the same thing. This is probably the cause of the miraculous fertility that results from the sacrifice of the bull ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
Even on the primitive level, among the Australian blackfellows, we meet with the idea that the life-force wears out, turns “bad” or gets lost, and must therefore be renewed at regular intervals. Whenever such an abaissement occurs the rites of renewal must be performed ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
There is an infinite number of these rites, but even on a much higher level they retain their original meaning. Thus the Mithraic killing of the bull is a sacrifice to the Terrible Mother, to the unconscious, which spontaneously attracts energy from the conscious mind because it has strayed too far from its roots, forgetting the power of the gods, without whom all life withers or ends catastrophically in a welter of perversity ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
In the act of sacrifice the consciousness gives up its power and possessions in the interests of the unconscious. This makes possible a union of opposites resulting in a release of energy ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
At the same time the act of sacrifice is a fertilization of the mother: the chthonic serpent-demon drinks the blood, i.e., the soul, of the hero. In this way life becomes immortal, for, like the sun, the hero regenerates himself by his self-sacrifice and re-entry into the mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
After all this we should have no difficulty in recognizing the son’s sacrifice to the mother in the Christian mystery. Just as Attis unmans himself for the sake of his mother and his effigy was hung on the pine-tree in memory of this deed, so Christ hangs on the tree of life, on the wood of martyrdom, the and mother (fig. 258.36), and ransoms creation from death ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
By entering again into the womb of the mother, he pays in death for the sin which the Protanthropos Adam committed in life, and by that deed he regenerates on a spiritual level the life which was corrupted by original sin ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
St. Augustine as we have already remarked, actually interprets Christ’s death as a hierosgamos with the mother, similar to the feast of Adonis, where Venus and Adonis were laid upon the bridal couch ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
In another version his chains were drawn through a pillar. He suffered as a punishment the fate that Christ took upon himself willingly ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
The fate of Prometheus is therefore reminiscent of the misfortune that befell Theseus and Peirithous, who grew fast to the rocks, the chthonic mother ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
According to Athenaeus, Jupiter, on setting Prometheus free again, commanded him to wear a willow crown and an iron ring, thus symbolizing his captivity and bondage ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
Robertson (Christ and Krishna p. 397) compares the crown of Prometheus to Christ’s crown of thorns. The devout wear crowns in honor of Prometheus, in order to represent his bondage. In this connection, therefore, the crown has the same meaning as the betrothal ring: the worshippers are captives of the god’ ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 671
The snake symbolizes the numen of the transformative act as well as the transformative substance itself, as is particularly clear in alchemy ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 676
As the chthonic dweller in the cave she [the snake] lives in the womb of mother earth, like the Kundalini serpent who lies coiled in the abdominal cavity, at the base of the spine ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 676
Alchemy has the legend of Gabricus and Beya, the royal brother-sister pair. During the hierosgamos, Gabricus gets right inside the body of his sister and disappears completely; he is buried in her womb, where, dissolved into atoms, he changes into the soul-snake, the serpens mercurialis (fig. 006) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 676
Such fantasies are not uncommon among patients. Thus one patient of mine had the fantasy that she was a snake which wound itself round her mother and finally crawled right into her ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 676
The snake that killed the hero [Hiawatha] is green. So was the snake of another patient, who said: “Then a little green snake came up to my mouth, it had the finest, loveliest feeling as if it had human reason and wanted to tell me something just as if it wanted to kiss me.” The significance of the snake as an instrument of regeneration is unmistakable (fig. 037) ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 677
He does not live in a house like other men, does not eat and drink like other men, but lives a life of his own, sunk in a subjective mania of his own devising, which he believes to be the newly discovered truth ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 0
This plaything of his reason never grips his vitals. It may occasionally lie heavy on his stomach, for that organ is apt to reject the products of reason as indigestible ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 0
The psyche is not of today; its ancestry goes back many millions of years. Individual consciousness is only the flower and the fruit of a season, sprung from the perennial rhizome beneath the earth; and it would find itself in better accord with the truth if it took the existence of the rhizome into its calculations. For the root matter is the mother of all things ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 0
So I suspected that myth had a meaning which I was sure to miss if I lived outside it in the haze of my own speculations. I was driven to ask myself in all seriousness: “What is the myth you are living?” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 0
I found no answer to this question and had to admit that I was not living with a myth, or even in a myth, but rather in an uncertain cloud of theoretical possibilities which I was beginning to regard with increasing distrust. I did not know that I was living a myth, and even if I had known it, I would not have known what sort of myth was ordering my life without my knowledge ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 0
So, in the most natural way, I took it upon myself to get to know “my” myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks, for so I told myself how could I, when treating my patients, make do allowance for the personal factor, for my personal equation, which is yet so necessary for a knowledge of the other person, if I was unconscious of it? I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me, from what rhizome I sprang ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 0
Whether we believe in God or not, whether we marvel or curse, the word “God” is always on our lips ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 98
Anything psychically powerful is invariably called “God.” At the same time “God” is set over against man and expressly set apart from him ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 98
This means, psychologically, that the libido, regarded as the force of desire and aspiration, as psychic energy in the widest sense, stands in part at the disposal of the ego, and in part confronts the ego autonomously, sometimes influencing it so powerfully that it is either put in a position of unwilling constraint, or else discovers in the libido itself a new and unexpected source of strength ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 98
Dreams seem to remain spontaneously in the memory for just so long as they correctly sum up the psychological situation of the individual ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 78
We know that Tom Thumbs, dactyls, and Cabiri… are personifications of creative forces… Thus the creative dwarfs toil away in secret; the phallus also working in darkness, begets a living being” ~Carl Jung, CW 5, para. 180
Nietzsche says [paraphrase]: Dreams carry us back to remote conditions of human culture and give us a ready means of understanding them better. They come to us now so easily because of having been drilled into man for immense periods of time and now serve as a recreation for the brain which by day has to satisfy the stern demands of thought imposed by a higher culture ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 27
Green, the life-colour, suits her [the anima] very well … ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 678
… the feminine belongs to man as his own unconscious femininity, which I have called the anima. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 678
Carl Jung: *CW 6 “Psychological Types”
The more “eternal” a truth, the more lifeless it is and worthless; it says nothing more to us because it is self-evident. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 87
So long as a symbol is a living thing, it is an expression for something that cannot be characterized in any other or better way. The symbol is alive only so long as it is pregnant with meaning. But once its meaning has been born out of it, once that expression is found which formulates the thing sought, expected, or divined even better than the hitherto accepted symbol, then the symbol is dead, i.e., it possesses only an historical significance. We may still go on speaking of it as a symbol, on the tacit assumption that we are speaking of it as it was before the better expression was born out of it. […] For every esoteric interpretation the symbol is dead, because esotericism has already given it (at least ostensibly) a better expression, whereupon it becomes merely a conventional sign for associations that are more completely and better known elsewhere. Only from the exoteric standpoint is the symbol a living thing. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 806
That indeed is reality if it is not a reality in ourselves, an esse in anima? Living reality is the product neither of the actual, objective behaviour of things nor of the formulated idea exclusively, but rather of the combination of both …through esse in anima. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 77
His [Prometheus’s] soul is Minerva … The Prometheus of mythology has his soul-relation with Pandora or Athene. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 289
… Pandora has the value of a soul-image … ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 305
This latter analogy [between god and natural phenomenon] explains the well-attested connection between the renewal of the god and seasonal and vegetational phenomena. One is naturally inclined to assume that seasonal, vegetational, lunar, and solar myths underlie these analogies. But that is to forget that a myth, like everything psychic, cannot be solely conditioned by external events. Anything psychic brings its own internal conditions with it, so that one might assert with equal right that the myth is purely psychological and uses meteorological or astronomical events merely as a means of expression. The whimsicality and absurdity of many primitive myths often makes the latter explanation seem far more appropriate than any other. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Page 325
Against this extreme concretization of a symbol Ratramnus, a monk of the same monastery where Radbertus was abbot, ventured to raise some opposition. ~Carl Jung, CW 6 Para 36
This being so, it seems safer to proceed from outside inwards, from the known to the unknown, from the body to the psyche. Thus all attempts at characterology have started from the outside world; astrology, in ancient times, even started from interstellar space in order to arrive at those lines of fate whose beginnings lie in the human heart. To the same class of interpretations from outward signs belong palmistry, Gall’s phrenology, Lavater’s physiognomy, and – more recently – graphology, Kretschmer’s physiological types, and Rorschach’s klexographic method. As we can see, there are any number of paths leading from outside inwards, from the physical to the psychic, and it is necessary that research should follow this direction until the elementary psychic facts are established with sufficient certainty. But once having established these facts, we can reverse the procedure. We can then put the question: What are the bodily correlatives of a given psychic condition? Unfortunately we are not yet far enough advanced to give even an approximate answer. The first requirement is to establish the primary facts of psychic life, and this is far from having been accomplished. Indeed, we have only just begun the work of compiling an inventory of the psyche, not always with great success. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 917
This historical retrospect may serve to assure us that our modern attempts to formulate a theory of types are by no means new and unprecedented, even though our scientific conscience does not permit us to revert to these old, intuitive ways of thinking. We must find our own answer to this problem, an answer which satisfies the need of science. And here we meet the chief difficulty of the problem of types – that is, the question of standards or criteria. The astrological criterion was simple and objective: it was given by the constellations at birth. As to the way characterological qualities could be correlated with the zodiacal signs and the planets, this is a question which reaches back into the grey mists of prehistory and remains unanswerable. The Greek classification according to the four physiological temperaments took as its criteria the appearance and behaviour of the individual, exactly as we do today in the case of physiological typology. But where shall we seek our criterion for a psychological theory of types? ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 934
However, Radbertus found a more resolute opponent in Scotus Erigena, one of the great philosophers and daring thinkers of the early Middle Ages for whom true philosophy was also true religion, was no blind follower of authority and the “once accepted” because, unlike the majority of his age, he himself could think. He set reason above authority, very unseasonably perhaps but in a way that assured him the acclaim of later centuries. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 36
Thus he also held that the Communion was nothing more than a commemoration of that last supper which Jesus celebrated with his disciples, a view in which all reasonable men in every age will concur. ~Carl Jung, CW 6 Para 36
In this controversy we can easily recognize the basic elements: the abstract standpoint that abhors any contamination with the concrete object, and the concretistic that is turned towards the object. ~Carl Jung, CW 6 Para 37
It must not be overlooked, for instance, that it is precisely the belief in the reality of this miracle [of transubstantiation] that demands a detachment of the psychic process from the purely sensual, and this cannot remain without influence on the psychic process itself. ~Carl Jung, CW 6 Para 38
Directed thinking becomes absolutely impossible when the sensual has too high a threshold value. Because the sensual value is too high it constantly intrudes into the psyche, where it disrupts and destroys the function of directed thinking which is based on the exclusion of everything incompatible with thought. ~Carl Jung, CW 6 Para 38
What we may learn from this example is that the thinking of the introvert is incommensurable with the thinking of the extravert, since the two forms of thinking, as regards their determinant, are wholly and fundamentally different. We might perhaps say that the thinking of the introvert is rational, while that of the extravert is programmatic ~Carl Jung, CW 6 Para 38
This childlike attitude necessarily brings with it another guiding principle in place of self-will and rational intentions, as overwhelmingly powerful in effect as it is divine. Since it is of an irrational nature, the new guiding principle appears in miraculous form:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be on his shoulder; and his shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) These honorific titles reproduce the essential qualities of the redeeming symbol. Its “divine” effect comes from the irresistible dynamis of the unconscious. The saviour is always a figure endowed with magical power who makes the impossible possible. The symbol is the middle way along which the opposites flow together in a new movement, like a watercourse bringing fertility after a long drought. The tension that precedes solution is likened in Isaiah to pregnancy ~Carl Jung, CW 6 Para 442-443
Dissimilation is a condition where the empathetic type is assimilated to the object, although it feels as if the object were assimilated to him. But whenever the value of the object is emphasized, it at once assumes an importance which in its turn influences the subject, forcing him to a “dissimilation” from himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 6 Para 531
Identification with the love-object plays no small role in analytical psychology, and the psychology of primitives swarms with examples of dissimilation in favour of the totem animal or ancestral spirit. The stigmatization of saints in medieval and even in recent times is a similar phenomenon. In the imitatio Christi [imitation of Christ] dissimilation is exalted into a principle. ~Carl Jung, CW 6 Para 531
A fantasm is an idee-force. Fantasy as imaginative activity is identical with the flow of psychic energy. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 722
But the complicated outer conditions under which we live, and the even more complicated conditions of our individual psychic make-up seldom permit a completely undisturbed flow of psychic energy. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Paras 6-7
People may then discover thoughts in their mind they don’t even agree with. Passive fantasy is always in need of self-reflective, critical evaluation from the conscious everyday standpoint. Active fantasy does not require criticism: rather, the symbolic material needs to be understood ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 714
Before [individuation] can be taken as a goal, the educational aim of adaptation to the necessary minimum of collective norms must first be attained. If a plant is to unfold its specific nature to the full, it must first be able to grow in the soil in which it is planted. ~Carl Jung; CW 6, par. 761.
As a rule, whenever such a falsification of type takes place the individual becomes neurotic later and can be cured only by developing the attitude consonant with his nature. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 560.
Poets create from the very depths of the collective unconscious, voicing aloud what others only dream. ~Carl Jung; CW 6, Page 323.
The will is a psychological phenomenon that owes its existence to culture and moral education but is largely lacking in the primitive mentality. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, para 844.
We find in Gnosticism what was lacking in the centuries that followed: a belief in the efficacy of individual revelation and individual knowledge. This belief was rooted in the proud feeling of man’s affinity with the gods. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Page 242.
Like any archetype, the essential nature of the self is unknowable, but its manifestations are the content of myth and legend. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 790.
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, creative mind plays with the object it loves. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 197.
Everyone whose attitude is introverted thinks, feels, and acts in a way that clearly demonstrates that the subject is the prime motivating factor and that the object is of secondary importance. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Par 769.
By psyche I understand the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious. By soul, on the other hand, I understand a clearly demarcated functional complex that can best be described as a “personality.” ~Carl Jung; CW 6, par. 797
Intuition is not mere perception, or vision, but an active, creative process that puts into the object just as much as it takes out. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, para 610.
Passive fantasy […] is always in need of conscious criticism […] whereas active fantasy [,,,] does not require criticism so much as understanding. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Par. 714.
If he is intent only on the outer reality, he must live his myth; if he is turned only towards the inner reality, he must dream his outer, so-called real life. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 280
The psychology of an individual can never be exhaustively explained from himself alone: a clear recognition is needed of the way it is also conditioned by historical and environmental circumstances. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 717
This function of mediation between the opposites I have termed the transcendent function, by which I mean nothing mysterious, but merely a combined function of conscious and unconscious elements, or, as in mathematics, a common function of real and imaginary qualities. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 184
Symbol-formation, therefore, must obviously be an extremely important biological function. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 402
Childlikeness or lack of prior assumptions is of the very essence of the symbol and its function. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 442
If the old were not ripe for death, nothing new would appear; and if the old were not injuriously blocking the way for the new; it could not and need not be rooted out. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 446.
The creation of a symbol is not a rational process, for a rational process could never produce an image that represents a content which is at bottom incomprehensible. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 425
The Symbol always says; in some such form as this a new manifestation of life will become possible, a release from bondage and world-weariness. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 425.
The redeeming symbol is a highway, a way upon which life can move forward without torment and compulsion. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 445.
For as the son of his father, he must, as if often the case with children, re-enact under unconscious compulsion the unlived lives of his parents. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 307
It is not the purpose of a psychological typology to classify human beings into categories—this in itself would be pretty pointless. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 986
As the individual is not just a single, separate being, but by his very existence presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 758
Christianity, like every closed system of religion, has an undoubted tendency to suppress the unconscious in the individual as much as possible, thus paralyzing his fantasy activity. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 80
Wherever we can observe a religion being born, we see how the doctrinal figures flow into the founder himself as revelations, in other words, as concretizations of his unconscious fantasy. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 80
The renewed God signifies a regenerated attitude, a renewed possibility of life, a recovery of vitality, because, psychologically speaking, God always denotes the highest value, the maximum sum of libido, the fullest intensity of life, the optimum of psychological vitality. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 301
We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only a half-truth, and must, if it be honest, also admit its inadequacy. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 856
Doubtless there are exceptional people who are able to sacrifice their entire life to a particular formula; but for most of us such exclusiveness is impossible in the long run. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 587
Everything old in our unconscious hints at something coming. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 630
A man’s hatred is always concentrated on the thing that makes him conscious of his bad qualities. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 453
A fact never exists only as it is in itself, but also as we see it. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 510
Not the artist alone, but every creative individual whatsoever owes all that is greatest in his life to fantasy. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 93
Purposively interpreted, it seems like a symbol, seeking to characterize a definite goal with the help of the material at hand, or trace out a line of future psychological development. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 758
The idea wants changelessness and eternity. Whoever lives under the supremacy of the idea strives for permanence; hence everything that pushes towards change must be opposed to the idea. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 153
The demand that he should see only objectively is quite out of the question, for it is impossible. We must be satisfied if he does not see too subjectively. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 9
It should not be forgotten that science is not the summa of life, that it is actually only one of the psychological attitudes, only one of the forms of human thought. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 60
In any age the vast majority of men are called upon to preserve and praise the status quo, thus helping to bring about the disastrous consequences which the prescience of the creative spirit had sought to avert. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 434
To be adapted is certainly an ideal, but adaptation is not always possible. There are situations in which the only adaptation is patient endurance. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 427
It is, pre-eminently, the creative activity from which the answers to all answerable questions come; it is the mother of all possibilities, where, like all psychological opposites, the inner and outer worlds are joined together in living union. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 78
It should be someone already has a much-clouded vision or view of a very hazy distance, the human society, if he thinks that by uniform regulation of life an equal distribution of happiness could be achieved. ~Carl Jung; CW 6.
The concept of the unconscious is for me an exclusively psychological concept, and not a philosophical concept of a metaphysical nature. In my view the unconscious is a psychological borderline concept, which covers all psychic contents or processes that are not conscious, i.e., not related to the ego in any perceptible way. My justification for speaking of the existence of unconscious processes at all is derived simply and solely from experience. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, para 837.
It is just the beam in one’s own eye that enables one to detect the mote in one’s brother’s eye. The beam in one’s own eye does not prove that one’s brother has no mote in his. But the impairment of one’s own vision might easily give rise to a general theory that all motes are beams. The recognition and taking to heart of the subjective determination of knowledge in general, and of psychological knowledge in particular, are basic conditions for the scientific and impartial evaluation of a psyche different from that of the observing subject. These conditions are fulfilled only when the observer is sufficiently informed about the nature and scope of his own personality. He can, however, be sufficiently informed only when he has in large measure freed himself from the levelling influence of collective opinions and thereby arrived at a clear conception of his own individuality. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 10
Reason can give a man equilibrium only if his reason is already an equilibrating organ. But for how many individuals and at what periods in history has it been that? As a rule, a man needs the opposite of his actual situation to force him to find his place in the middle. For the sake of mere reason he can never forgo life’s riches and the sensuous appeal of the immediate situation. Against the power and delight of the temporal he must set the joy of the eternal, and against the passion of the sensual the ecstasy of the spiritual. The undeniable reality of the one must be matched by the compelling power of the other. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 386
SOUL. [psyche, personality, persona, anima,] I have been compelled, in my investigations into the structure of the unconscious, to make a conceptual distinction between soul and psyche. By psyche I understand the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious. By soul, on the other hand, I understand a clearly demarcated functional complex that can best be described as a “personality.” In order to make clear what I mean by this, I must introduce some further points of view. It is, in particular, the phenomena of somnambulism, double consciousness, split personality, etc., whose investigation we owe primarily to the French school, that have enabled us to accept the possibility of a plurality of personalities in one and the same individual. ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 797
The symbol is always a product of an extremely complex nature, since data from every psychic function have gone into its making. It is, therefore, neither rational nor irrational (qq.v.). It certainly has a side that accords with reason, but it has another side that does not; for it is composed not ‘only of rational but also of irrational data supplied by pure inner and outer perception. The profundity and pregnant significance of the symbol appeal just as strongly to thinking as to feeling (qq.v.), while its peculiar plastic imagery, when shaped into sensuous form, stimulates sensation as much as intuition (qq.v.). The living symbol cannot come to birth in a dull or poorly developed mind, for such a mind will be content with the already existing symbols offered by established tradition. Only the passionate yearning of a highly developed mind, for which the traditional symbol is no longer the unified expression of the rational and the irrational, of the highest and the lowest, can create a new symbol. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 825
The birth of a saviour is equivalent to a great catastrophe, because a new and powerful life springs up just where there had seemed to be no life and no power and no possibility of further development. It comes streaming out of the unconscious, from that unknown part of the psyche which is treated as nothing by all rationalists. From this discredited and rejected region comes the new afflux of energy, the renewal of life. But what is this discredited and rejected source of vitality? It consists of all those psychic contents that were repressed because of their incompatibility with conscious values—everything hateful, immoral, wrong, unsuitable, useless, etc., which means everything that at one time or another appeared so to the individual concerned. The danger is that when these things reappear in a new and wonderful guise, they may make such an impact on him that he will forget or repudiate all his former values. What he once despised now becomes the supreme principle, and what was once truth now becomes error. This reversal of values amounts to the destruction of the old ones and is similar to the devastation of a country by floods. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 449
The ways and customs of childhood, once so sublimely good, can hardly be laid aside even when their harmful-ness has long since been proved. The same, only on a gigantic scale, is true of historical changes of attitude. A collective attitude is equivalent to a religion, and changes of religion constitute one of the most painful chapters in the world’s history. In this respect our age is afflicted with a blindness that has no parallel. We think we have only to declare an accepted article of faith incorrect and invalid, and we shall be psychologically rid of all the traditional effects of Christianity or Judaism. We believe in enlightenment, as if an intellectual change somehow had a profounder influence on the emotional processes or even on the unconscious. We entirely forget that the religion of the last two thousand years is a psychological attitude, a definite form and manner of adaptation to the world without and within, that lays down a definite cultural pattern and creates an atmosphere which remains wholly uninfluenced by any intellectual denials. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 313
Between the religion of a people and its actual mode of life there is always a compensatory relation, otherwise religion would have no practical significance at all. Beginning with the highly moral religion of the Persians and the notorious dubiousness—even in antiquity—of Persian habits of life, right down to our “Christian” epoch, when the religion of love assisted at the greatest blood-bath in the world’s history—wherever we turn this rule holds true. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 229
In the same measure as the conscious attitude may pride itself on a certain godlikeness by reason of its lofty and absolute standpoint, an unconscious attitude develops with a godlikeness oriented downwards to an archaic god whose nature is sensual and brutal. The enantiodromia of Heraclitus ensures that the time will come when this deus ahsconditus shall rise to the surface and press the God of our ideals to the wall. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 150
Reason must always seek the solution in some rational, consistent, logical way, which is certainly justifiable enough in all normal situations but is entirely inadequate when it comes to the really great and decisive questions. It is incapable of creating the symbol because the symbol is irrational. When the rational way proves to be a cul de sac—as it always does after a time—the solution comes from the side it was least expected. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 438
Faced with the bewildering profusion of animated objects, we create an abstraction, an abstract universal image which conjures the welter of impressions into a fixed form. This image has the magical significance of a defence against the chaotic flux of experience. The abstracting type becomes so lost and submerged in this image that finally its abstract truth is set above the reality of life; and because life might disturb the enjoyment of abstract beauty, it gets completely suppressed. He turns himself into an abstraction, he identifies with the eternal validity of the image and petrifies in it, because for him it has become a redeeming formula. He divests himself of his real self and puts his whole life into his abstraction, in which he is, so to speak, crystallized. The empathetic type suffers a similar fate. Since his activity, his life is empathized into the object, he himself gets into the object because the empathized content is an essential part of himself. He becomes the object; he identifies with it and in this way gets outside himself. By turning himself into an object he desubjectifies himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 499
The tasks of every age differ, and it is only in retrospect that we can discern with certainty what had to be and what should not have been. In the momentary present the conflict of opinions will always rage, for “war is the father of all.” History alone decides the issue. Truth is not eternal —it is a programme to be fulfilled. The more “eternal” a truth, the more lifeless it is and worthless; it says nothing more to us because it is self-evident. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 87
The world exists not merely in itself but also as it appears to me. Indeed, at bottom, we have absolutely no criterion that could help us to form a judgment of a world which was unassimilable by the subject. If we were to ignore the subjective factor, it would be a complete denial of the great doubt as to the possibility of absolute cognition. And this would mean a relapse into the stale and hollow positivism that marred the turn of the century—an attitude of intellectual arrogance accompanied by crudeness of feeling; a violation of life as stupid as it is presumptuous. By overvaluing our capacity for objective cognition we repress the importance of the subjective factor, which simply means a denial of the subject. But what is the subject. The subject is man himself—we are the subject. Only a sick mind could forget that cognition must have a subject, and that there is no knowledge whatever and no world at all unless “I know” has been said, though with this statement one has already expressed the subjective limitation of all knowledge. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 621
Man is not a machine that can be remodeled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind. The historical element in man represents a vital need to which a wise psychic economy must respond. Somehow the past must come alive and participate in the present. Total assimilation to the object will always arouse the protest of the suppressed minority of those elements that belong to the past and have existed from the very beginning. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 570
Certainly strife and misunderstanding will always be among the props of the tragi-comedy of human existence, but it is none the less undeniable that the advance of civilization has led from the law of the jungle to the establishment of courts of justice and standards of right and wrong which are above the contending parties. It is my conviction that a basis for the settlement of conflicting views would be found in the recognition of different types of attitude — a recognition not only of the existence of such types, but also of the fact that every man is so imprisoned in his type that he is simply incapable of fully understanding another standpoint. Failing a recognition of this exacting demand, a violation of the other standpoint is practically inevitable. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 847
Because we are still such barbarians, any trust in the laws of human nature seems to us a dangerous and unethical naturalism. Why is this? Because under the barbarian’s thin veneer of culture the wild beast lurks in readiness, amply justifying his fear. But the beast is not tamed by locking it up in a cage. There is no morality without freedom. When the barbarian lets loose the beast within him, that is not freedom but bondage. Barbarism must first be vanquished before freedom can be won. This happens, in principle, when the basic root and driving force of morality are felt by the individual as constituents of his own nature and not as external restrictions. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 357
Science as an end in itself is assuredly a high ideal, yet its consistent fulfilment brings about as many “ends in themselves” as there are sciences and arts. Naturally this leads to a high differentiation and specialization of the particular functions concerned, but also to their detachment from the world and from life, as well as to a multiplication of specialized fields which gradually lose all connection with one another. The result is an impoverishment and desiccation not merely in the specialized fields but also in the psyche of every man who has differentiated himself up or sunk down to the specialist level. Science must prove her value for life; it is not enough that she be the mistress, she must also be the maid. By so serving she in no way dishonors herself. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 84
If psychology remains for us only a science, we do not penetrate into life—we merely serve the absolute aim of science. It leads us, certainly, to a knowledge of the objective situation, but it always opposes every other aim but its own. The intellect remains imprisoned in itself just so long as it does not willingly sacrifice its supremacy by acknowledging the value of other aims. It shrinks from the step which takes it out of itself and which denies its universal validity, since from the standpoint of the intellect everything else is nothing but fantasy. But what great thing ever came into existence that was not first fantasy? ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 86
A child certainly allows himself to be impressed by the grand talk of his parents, but do they really imagine he is educated by it? Actually it is the parents’ lives that educate the child—what they add by word and gesture at best serves only to confuse him. The same holds good for the teacher. But we have such a belief in method that, if only the method be good, the practice of it seems to sanctify the teacher. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 665
An inferior man is never a good teacher. But he can conceal his pernicious inferiority, which secretly poisons the pupil, behind an excellent method or an equally brilliant gift of gab. Naturally the pupil of riper years desires nothing better than the knowledge of useful methods, because he is already defeated by the general attitude, which believes in the all-conquering method. He has learnt that the emptiest head, correctly echoing a method, is the best pupil. His whole environment is an optical demonstration that all success and all happiness are outside, and that only the right method is needed to attain the haven of one’s desires. Or does, perchance, the life of his religious instructor demonstrate the happiness which radiates from the treasure of the inner vision? ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 665
Aestheticism is not fitted to solve the exceedingly serious and difficult task of educating man, for it always presupposes the very thing it should create—the capacity to love beauty. It actually hinders a deeper investigation of the problem, because it always averts its face from anything evil, ugly, and difficult, and aims at pleasure, even though it be of an edifying kind. Aestheticism therefore lacks all moral force, because au fond it is still only a refined hedonism. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 194
Both these necessities exist in ourselves nature and culture. We cannot only be ourselves; we must also be related to others. Hence a way must be found that is not a mere rational compromise; it must be a state or process that is wholly consonant with the living being, “a highway and a holy way,” as the prophet says, “a straight way, so that fools shall not err therein” (Isaiah 35:8). ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 135
Conscious capacity for one-sidedness is a sign of the highest culture, but involuntary one-sidedness, i.e., inability to be anything but one-sided, is a sign of barbarism. Hence the most one-sided differentiations are found among semi-barbarians—for instance, certain aspects of Christian asceticism that are an affront to good taste, and parallel phenomena among the yogis and Tibetan Buddhists. For the barbarian, this tendency to fall a victim to one-sidedness in one way or another, thus losing sight of his total personality, is a great and constant danger. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 346
No culture is ever really complete, for it always swings more towards one side or the other. Sometimes the cultural idea is extraverted, and then the chief value lies with the object and man’s relation to it; sometimes it is introverted, and then the chief value lies with the subject and his relation to the idea. In the former case, culture takes on a collective character, in the latter an individual one. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 110
We obviously need both civilization and culture. We cannot create one without the other, and we must admit, unfortunately, that modern humanity lacks both. Where there is too much of the one there is too little of the other, if we want to put it more cautiously. The continual harping on progress has by now become rather suspect. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 477
The ideal and aim of science do not consist in giving the most exact possible description of the facts—science cannot compete as a recording instrument with the camera and the gramophone—but in establishing certain laws, which are merely abbreviated expressions for many diverse processes that are yet conceived to be somehow correlated. This aim goes beyond the purely empirical realm by means of the concept, which, though it may have general and proved validity, will always be a product of the subjective psychological constellation of the investigator. In the making of scientific theories and concepts many personal and accidental factors are involved. There is also a personal equation that is psychological and not merely psychophysical. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 9
Since [in the Middle Ages] the psychic relation to woman was expressed in the collective worship of Mary, the image of woman lost a value to which human beings had a natural right. This value could find its natural expression only through individual choice, and it sank into the unconscious when the individual form of expression was replaced by a collective one. In the unconscious the image of woman received an energy charge that activated the archaic and infantile dominants. And since all unconscious contents, when activated by dissociated libido, are projected upon the external object, the devaluation of the real woman was compensated by daemonic features. She no longer appeared as an object of love, but as a persecutor or witch. The consequence of increasing Mariolatry was the witch hunt, that indelible blot on the later Middle Ages. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 399
Whereas logic and objectivity are usually the predominant features of a man’s outer attitude, or are at least regarded as ideals, in the case of a woman it is feeling. But in the soul it is the other way round inwardly it is the man who feels, and the woman who reflects. Hence a man’s greater liability to total despair, while a woman can always find comfort and hope; accordingly a man is more likely to put an end to himself than a woman. However much a victim of social circumstances a woman may be, as a prostitute for instance, a man is no less a victim of impulses from the unconscious, taking the form of alcoholism and other vices. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 805
Again, no psychological fact can ever be exhaustively explained in terms of causality alone; as a living phenomenon, it is always indissolubly bound up with the continuity of the vital process, so that it is not only something evolved but also continually evolving and creative. Anything psychic is Janus-faced it looks both backwards and forwards. Because it is evolving, it is also preparing the future. Were this not so, intentions, aims, plans, calculations, predictions, and premonitions would be psychological impossibilities. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 718
The psychological investigator is always finding himself obliged to make extensive use of an indirect method of description in order to present the reality he has observed. Only in so far as elementary facts are communicated which are amenable to quantitative measurement can there be any question of a direct presentation. But how much of the actual psychology of man can be experienced and observed as quantitatively measurable facts? ~Carl Jung, CW 6; Para 672
Reverence for the great mysteries of nature, which the language of religion seeks to express in symbols hallowed by their antiquity, profound significance, and beauty, will not suffer from the extension of psychology to this domain, to which science has hitherto found no access. We only shift the symbols back a little, shedding a little light on their darker reaches, but without succumbing to the erroneous notion that we have created more than merely a new symbol for the same enigma that perplexed all ages before us. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 428
A symbol loses its magical or, if you prefer, its redeeming power as soon as its liability to dissolve is recognized. To be effective, a symbol must be by its very nature unassailable. It must be the best possible expression of the prevailing worldview, an unsurpassed container of meaning; it must also be sufficiently remote from comprehension to resist all attempts of the critical intellect to break it down; and finally, its aesthetic form must appeal so convincingly to our feelings that no arguments can be raised against it on that score. ~Carl Jung CW 6, Para 401
Do we ever understand what we think? We only understand that kind of thinking, which is a mere equation, from which nothing comes out but what we have put in. That is the working of the intellect. But besides that there is a thinking in primordial images, in symbols which are older than the historical man, which are inborn in him from the earliest times, and, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. As we can see from the example of Faust, the vision of the symbol is a pointer to the onward course of life, beckoning the libido towards a still distant goal—but a goal that henceforth will burn unquenchably within him, so that his life, kindled as by a flame, moves steadily towards the far-off beacon. This is the specific life-promoting significance of the symbol, and such, too, is the meaning and value of religious symbols. I am speaking, of course, not of symbols that are dead and stiffened by dogma, but of living symbols that rise up from the creative unconscious of the living man. The immense significance of such symbols can be denied only by those for whom the history of the world begins with the present day. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 202
There is a deep gulf between what a man is and what he represents, between what he is as an individual and what he is as a collective being. His function is developed at the expense of the individuality. Should he excel, he is merely identical with his collective function; but should he not, then, though he may be highly esteemed as a function in society, his individuality is wholly on the level of his inferior, undeveloped functions, and he is simply a barbarian, while in the former case he has happily deceived himself as to his actual barbarism. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 111
No social legislation will ever be able to overcome the psychological differences between men, this most necessary factor for generating the vital energy of a human society. It may serve a useful purpose, therefore, to speak of the heterogeneity of men. These differences involve such different requirements for happiness that no legislation, however perfect, could afford them even approximate satisfaction. No outward form of life could be devised, however equitable and just it might appear, that would not involve injustice for one or the other human type. That, in spite of this, every kind of enthusiast—political, social, philosophical, and religious—is busily endeavouring to find those uniform external conditions which would bring with them greater opportunities for the happiness of all seems to me connected with a general attitude to life too exclusively. Although it is certainly a fine thing that every man should stand equal before the law, that every man should have his political vote, and that no man, through hereditary social position and privilege, should have unjust advantage over his brother, it is distinctly less fine when the idea of equality is extended to other walks of life. A man must have a very clouded vision, or view human society from a very misty distance, to cherish the notion that the uniform regulation of life would automatically ensure a uniform distribution of happiness. He must be pretty far gone in delusion if he imagines that equality of income, or equal opportunities for all, would have approximately the same value for everyone. But, if he were a legislator, what would he do about all those people whose greatest opportunities lie not without, but within? If he were just, he would have to give at least twice as much money to the one as to the other, since to the one it means much to the other little. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 845
When a problem that is at bottom personal, and therefore apparently subjective, coincides with external events that contain the same psychological elements as the personal conflict, it is suddenly transformed into a general question embracing the whole of society. In this way the personal problem acquires a dignity it lacked hitherto, since a state of inner discord always has something humiliating and degrading about it, so that one sinks into an ignominious condition both without and within, like a state dishonoured by civil war. It is this that makes one shrink from displaying before the public a purely personal conflict, provided of course that one does not suffer from an overdose of self-esteem. But if the connection between the personal problem and the larger contemporary events is discerned and understood, it brings release from the loneliness of the purely personal, and the subjective problem is magnified into a general question of our society. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 119
To establish a really mature attitude, he has to see the subjective value of all these images which seem to create trouble for him. He has to assimilate them into his own psychology; he has to find out in what way they are part of himself; how he attributes for instance a positive value to an object, when as a matter of fact it is he who could and should develop this value. And in the same way, when he projects negative qualities and therefore hates and loathes the object, he has to discover that he is projecting his own inferior side, his shadow, as it were, because he prefers to have an optimistic and one-sided image of himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 813.
Abstraction is an activity pertaining to the psychological functions in general. There is an abstract thinking, just as there is abstract feeling, sensation, and intuition. Abstract thinking singles out the rational, logical qualities of a given content from its intellectually irrelevant components. Abstract feeling does the same with a content characterized by its feeling-values. Abstract sensation would be aesthetic as opposed to sensuous sensation, and abstract intuition would be symbolic as opposed to fantastic intuition. ~Carl Jung; CW 6, par. 678.
Opposites can be united only in the form of compromise, or irrationally, some new thing arising between them which, though different from both yet has the power to take up their energies in equal measure as an expression of both and of neither. Such an expression cannot be contrived by reason, it can only be created through living. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 169
Out of a playful movement of elements whose interrelations are not immediately apparent, patterns arise which an observant and critical intellect can only evaluate afterwards. The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 197
The accumulated libido activates images lying dormant in the collective unconscious, among them the God-image, that engram or imprint which from the beginning of time has been the collective expression of the most overwhelmingly powerful influences exerted on the conscious mind by unconscious concentrations of libido. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 412
The dammed-up instinctual forces in civilized man are immensely destructive and far more dangerous than the instincts of the primitive, who in a modest degree is constantly living out his negative instincts. Consequently no war of the historical past can rival in grandiose horror the wars of civilized nations. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 230
Man is constantly inclined to forget that what was once good does not remain good eternally. He follows the old ways that once were good long after they have become bad and only with the greatest sacrifices and untold suffering can he rid himself of this delusion and see that what was once good is now perhaps grown old and is good no longer. This is so in great things as in small. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 313
Just as the unconscious world of mythological images speaks indirectly, through the experience of external things, to the man who surrenders himself wholly to the outer world, so the real world and its demands find their way indirectly to the man who has surrendered himself wholly to the soul; for no man can escape both realities. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 280
Apotropaic: Descriptive of “magical thinking,” based on the desire to depotentiate the influence of an object or person. Apotropaic actions are characteristic of introversion as a mode of psychological orientation. I have seen an introverted child who made his first attempts to walk only after he had learned the names of all the objects in the room he might touch. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, par. 897.
Sensation must be strictly differentiated from feeling, since the latter is an entirely different process, although it may associate itself with sensation as “feeling-tone.” Sensation is related not only to external stimuli but to inner ones, i.e., to changes in the internal organic processes. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 792.
Nothing is so apt to challenge our self-awareness and alertness as being at war with oneself. One can hardly think of any other or more effective means of waking humanity out of the irresponsible and innocent half-sleep of the primitive mentality and bringing it to a state of conscious responsibility. ~Carl Jung; CW 6; Page 964.
He seizes on new objects or situations with great intensity, sometimes with extraordinary enthusiasm, only to abandon them cold -bloodedly, without any compunction and apparently without remembering them, as soon as their range is known, and no further developments can be divined. So long as a new possibility is in the offing, the intuitive is bound to it with the shackles of fate. (CW 6, par. 613)
The intuitive is never to be found in the world of accepted reality values, but he has a keen nose for anything new and in the making. Because he is always seeking out new possibilities, stable conditions suffocate him. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, para 613
If only he could stay put, he would reap the fruits of his labours; but always he must be running after a new possibility, quitting his newly planted fields while others gather in the harvest. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, para 615.
No matter how reasonable and suitable it may be, and although every conceivable argument speaks for its stability, a day will come when nothing will deter him from regarding as a prison the very situation that seemed to promise him freedom and deliverance, and from acting accordingly. Neither reason nor feeling can restrain him or frighten him away from a new possibility, even though it goes against all his previous convictions. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, para 613
Since his intuition is concerned with externals and with ferreting out their possibilities, he readily turns to professions in which he can exploit these capacities to the full. Many business tycoons, entrepreneurs, speculators, stockbrokers, politicians, etc., belong to this type. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, para 613.
The extraverted intuitive is continually scenting out new possibilities, which he pursues with equal unconcern for his own welfare and for that of others, pressing on quite heedless of human considerations and tearing down what has just been built in his everlasting search for change. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, para 658.
The intuitive’s morality is governed neither by thinking nor by feeling; he has his own characteristic morality, which consists in a loyalty to his vision and in voluntary submission to its authority. `Carl Jung, CW 6, para 613
His capacity to inspire courage or to kindle enthusiasm for anything new is unrivaled. He brings his vision to life, he presents it convincingly and with dramatic fire, he embodies it, so to speak. But this is not playacting; it is a kind of fate. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, para 614
He is the natural champion of all minorities with a future. Because he is able, when oriented more to people than things, to make an intuitive diagnosis of their abilities and potentialities, he can also “make” men. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, para 614
Naturally this attitude holds great dangers, for all too easily the intuitive may fritter away his life on things and people, spreading about him an abundance of life which others live and not he himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, para 615
Conformity is one side of a man, uniqueness is another. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Par 895.
God is a datum formulated as the “highest good” signifying the supreme psychic value, i.e., a concept endowed with the highest and most general significance in determining our thoughts and actions ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 67.
The God-concept coincides with the particular ideational complex which concentrates in itself the maximum amount of libido, or psychic energy ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 67
An idea psychologically different in different people e.g., God is the belly, or money, science, power, sex, etc. a concept varying according to the localization of the highest good ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 67
The organism confronts light with a new structure, the eye, and the psyche confronts the natural process with a symbolic image, which apprehends it in the same way as the eye catches the light. And just as the eye bears witness to the peculiar and spontaneous creative activity of living matter, the primordial image expresses the intrinsic and unconditioned creative power of the psyche. The primordial image is thus a condensation of the living process. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 748
Or as Wang Yang-ming, the Chinese father of Japanese philosophy, says: “In every heart there dwells a sejin (sage). Only, we do not believe it firmly enough, and therefore the whole has remained buried.” ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 214-218
Just as conscious as well as unconscious phenomena are to be met with in practice, the self as psychic totality also has a conscious as well as an unconscious aspect. Empirically, the self appears in dreams, myths, and fairytales in the figure of the “supraordinate personality” (v. ego), such as a king, hero, prophet, saviour, etc., or in the form of a totality symbol, such as the circle, square, quadratura circuli, cross, etc. When it represents a complexio oppositorum, a union of opposites, it can also appear as a united duality, in the form, for instance, of Tao as the interplay of yang and yin, or of the hostile brothers, or of the hero and his adversary (arch-enemy, dragon), Faust and Mephistopheles, etc. Empirically, therefore, the self appears as a play of light and shadow, although conceived as a totality and unity in which the opposites are united. Since such a concept is irrepresentable — tertium non datur—it is transcendental on this account also. It would, logically considered, be a vain speculation were it not for the fact that it designates symbols of unity that are found to occur empirically. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 790
The brahman concept also contains the concept of rta, right order, the orderly course of …., be a vain speculation were it not for the fact that it designates symbols of unity that are found to occur empirically in the world. In brahman, the creative universal essence and universal Ground, all things come upon the right way, for in it they are eternally dissolved and recreated; all development in an orderly way proceeds from brahman. The concept of rta is a stepping-stone to the concept of Tao in Lao-tzu. Tao is the right way, the reign of law, the middle road between the opposites, freed from them and yet uniting them in itself. The purpose of life is to travel this middle road and never to deviate towards the opposites. The ecstatic element is entirely absent in Lao-tzu; its place is taken by sublime philosophic lucidity, an intellectual and intuitive wisdom obscured by no mystical haze—a wisdom that represents what is probably the highest attainable degree of spiritual superiority, as far removed from chaos as the stars from the disorder of the actual world. It takes all that is wild, without denaturing it and turning it into something higher. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 192
Tao contains no ecstatic element, its place being taken by a sublime philosophic lucidity, an intellectual and intuitive wisdom obscured by no mystical haze. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 192
According to the central concepts of Taoism, Tao is divided into a fundamental pair of opposites, yang and yin. Yang signifies warmth, light, maleness; yin is cold, darkness, femaleness. Yang is also heaven, yin earth. From the yang force arises shen, the celestial portion of the human soul, and from the yin force comes kwei, the earthly part. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 366
Intuition, like sensation, is an irrational function of perception. As with sensation, its contents have the character of being “given,” in contrast to the “derived” or “produced” character of thinking and feeling contents ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 770
Intuition is the function that mediates perceptions in an unconscious way. Everything, whether outer or inner objects or their relationships, can be the focus of this perception ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 770
The primary function of intuition is simply to transmit images, or perceptions of relations between things, which could not be transmitted by the other functions or only in a very roundabout way ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 611
Intuition may be seen as the perception of one’s own unconscious processes, withdrawing one from the object. It mounts above it, ever seeking to rule its material, to shape it, even violently, in accordance with one’s own subjective viewpoint, though without being aware of doing so ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 219
The peculiarity of intuition is that it is neither sense perception, nor feeling, nor intellectual inference, although it may also appear in these forms ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 770
In intuition a content presents itself whole and complete, without our being able to explain or discover how this content came into existence. Intuition is a kind of instinctive apprehension, no matter of what contents ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 770
Intuition tries to apprehend the widest range of possibilities, since only through envisioning possibilities is intuition fully satisfied ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 612
In Schiller we have to reckon with a predominance of intellect, not at the expense of his poetic intuition but at the cost of feeling. To Schiller himself it seemed as though there were a perpetual conflict in him between imagination and abstraction, that is, between intuition and thinking. “Even now it happens often enough that the power of imagination disturbs my abstraction, and cold reasoning my poetry” (Goethe, ed. Beutler, XX, p. 20) ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 117
Intuition is constantly seeking fresh outlets and new possibilities in external life. In a very short time every existing situation becomes a prison for the intuitive, a chain that has to be broken ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 612
The intuitive does have sensations, of course, but is not guided by them as such; he uses them merely as starting-points for his perceptions. He selects them by unconscious predilections ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 611
Brahman requires that external opposites, such as heat and cold, first be denied participation in the psyche, and then extreme fluctuations of emotion, such as Fluctuations of emotion are, of course, the constant concomitants of all psychic opposites, and hence of all conflicts of ideas, whether moral or otherwise. We know from experience that the emotions thus aroused increase in proportion as the exciting factor affects the individual as a whole ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 329
The Indian purpose is therefore clear: it wants to free the individual altogether from the opposites inherent in human nature, so that he can attain a new life in Brahman, which is the state of redemption and at the same time God. It is an irrational union of opposites, their final overcoming. Although Brahman, the world-ground and world-creator, created the opposites, they must nevertheless be cancelled out in it again, for otherwise it would not amount to a state of redemption ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 329
Brahman is the union and dissolution of all opposites, and at the same time stands outside them as an irrational factor. It is therefore wholly beyond cognition and comprehension. It is a divine entity, at once the Self (though to a lesser degree than the analogous Atman concept) and a definite psychological state characterized by isolation from the flux of affects ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 330
Since suffering is an affect, release from affects means deliverance. Deliverance from the flux of affects, from the tension of opposites, is synonymous with the way of redemption that gradually leads to Brahman ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 330
Brahman is not only the producer but the produced, the ever-becoming. The epithet “Gracious One” (vena), here bestowed on the sun, is elsewhere applied to the seer who is endowed with the divine light, for, like the Brahman sun, the mind of the seer traverses “earth and heaven contemplating Brahman.” The intimate connection, indeed, identity, between the divine being and the Self (Atman) of the man is generally known ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 332
Brahman is also prana, the breath of life and the cosmic principle; it is vayu, wind, which is described in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (3.7) as “the thread by which this world and the other world and all things are tied together, the Self, the inner controller, the immortal” ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 334
Brahman is conceived in the Atharva Veda as the vitalistic-principle, the life force, which fashions all the organs and their respective instincts ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 335
Even man’s strength comes from Brahman. The Brahman concept, by virtue of all its attributes and symbols, coincides with that of a dynamic or creative principle which I have termed libido ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 336
The word Brahman means prayer, incantation, sacred speech, sacred knowledge (Veda), holy life, the sacred caste (the Brahmans), the Absolute ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 336
If, therefore, we speak of the anima of a man, we must logically speak of the animus of a woman, if we are to give the soul of a woman its right name. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 805
A bushman had a little son whom he loved with the tender monkey-love characteristic of primitives. Psychologically, this love is completely autoerotic — that is to say, the subject loves himself in the object. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 403
I have called this process in its totality the transcendent function, “function” being here understood not as a basic function but as a complex function made up of other functions, and “transcendent” not as denoting a metaphysical quality but merely the fact that this function facilitates a transition from one attitude to another. The raw material shaped by thesis and antithesis, and in the shaping of which the opposites are united, is the living symbol. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 828
But precisely because the new symbol is born of man’s highest spiritual aspirations and must at the same time spring from the deepest roots of his being, it cannot be a one-sided product of the most highly differentiated mental functions but must derive equally from the lowest and most primitive levels of the psyche. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 823
Since every scientific theory contains a hypothesis and is therefore an anticipatory description of something still essentially unknown, it is a symbol” ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 817
Considered biologically, the sacrifice serves the interests of domestication, but psychologically it opens a door for new possibilities of spiritual development through the dissolution of old ties ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 24
These images are archaic forms of expression which become symbols, and these appear in their turn as equivalents of the devalued objects. This process is as old as mankind, for symbols may be found among the most primitive human types living today ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 402
The fact that the introvert, because of his abstracting attitude, naturally has a reflective and contemplative air is misleading. One is inclined to assume that in him the primacy falls to thinking ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 248
The extravert, on the contrary, naturally displays many immediate reactions, which easily lead one to conjecture a predominance of feeling. These suppositions are deceptive, since the extravert may well be a thinking, and the introvert a feeling type. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 248
There is a constant influx of unconscious contents into the conscious psychological process, to such a degree that at times it is hard for the observer to decide which character traits belong to the conscious and which to the unconscious personality ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 576
Introversion and extraversion are not traits of character at all but mechanisms, which can, as it were, be switched on or off at will. Only from their habitual predominance do the corresponding characters develop. The predilection one way or the other no doubt depends on the inborn disposition, but this is not always the decisive factor ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 479
If we go right back to primitive psychology, we find absolutely no trace of the concept of an individual. Instead of individuality we find only collective relationship or what Lévy-Bruhl calls participation mystique ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 12
The collective attitude hinders the recognition and evaluation of a psychology different from the subject’s, because the mind that is collectively oriented is quite incapable of thinking and feeling in any other way than by projection ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 12
What we understand by the concept “individual” is a relatively recent acquisition in the history of the human mind and human culture ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 12
The development of individuality, with the consequent psychological differentiation of man, goes hand in hand with the de-psychologizing work of objective science ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 12
Gnostic philosophy established three types, corresponding perhaps to three [out of four] of the basic psychological functions: thinking, feeling, and sensation [intuition missing]: The pneumatikoi could be correlated with thinking, The psychikoi with feeling, The hylikoi with sensation. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 14
The inferior rating of the psychikoi was in accord with the spirit of Gnosticism, which, unlike Christianity, insisted on the value of knowledge ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 14
The Christian principles of love and faith kept knowledge at a distance. In the Christian sphere the pneumatikoi would accordingly get the lower rating, since they were distinguished merely by the possession of Gnosis, i.e., knowledge ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 14
Tertullian was a fanatic, brilliantly one-sided in his defense of a recognized truth, possessed of a matchless fighting spirit, a merciless opponent who saw victory only in the total annihilation of his adversary, his language a flashing blade wielded with ferocious mastery ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 17
Tertullian was the creator of the Church Latin that lasted for more than a thousand years. It was also he who coined the terminology of the early Church ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 17
Tertullian’s impassioned thinking was so inexorable that again and again he alienated himself from the very thing for which he had given his heart’s blood. Accordingly his ethical code was bitterly severe ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 17
Tertullian commanded that martyrdom be sought and not shunned; he permitted no second marriage, and required the permanent veiling of persons of the female sex ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 17
Gnosis, which in reality is a passion for thinking and knowing, he [Tertullian] attacked with unrelenting fanaticism, together with philosophy and science which differed from it so little ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 17
Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, Tertullian saw through the poverty of philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it. He invoked against it the testimony of his own inner world, his own inner realities, which were one with his faith. In shaping and developing these realities he became the creator of those abstract conceptions which still underlie the Catholic system of today ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 18
Type differences should also be borne in mind when we consider the long and perilous struggle which the Church from its earliest beginnings waged against Gnosticism. Owing to the predominantly practical trend of early Christianity the intellectual hardly came into his own, except when he followed his fighting instincts by indulging in polemical apologetics. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 15
The irrational inner reality had for Tertullian an essentially dynamic nature; it was his principle, his foundation in the face of the world and of all collectively valid and rational science and philosophy ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 18
With the sacrificium intellectus [by Tertullian] philosophy and science, and hence also Gnosis, fell to the ground ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 19
Introverted thinking is of value for his contemporaries only so long as it is manifestly and intelligibly related to the known facts of the time. Once it has become mythological, it ceases to be relevant on in itself ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 637
In his own special field of work the introverted thinker provokes the most violent opposition, which he has no notion how to deal with, unless he happens to be seduced by his primitive affects into acrimonious and fruitless polemics ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 635
The introverted thinker may develop into a misanthropic bachelor with a childlike heart. Often he is gauche in his behavior, painfully anxious to escape notice, or remarkably unconcerned and childishly naïve ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 635
In Origen we may recognize the absolute opposite of Tertullian. He was born in Alexandria about A.D. 185. His father was a Christian martyr ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 21
Origen, by mutilating himself [self-castration], sacrificed his sensual tie to the world. For him, evidently, the specific danger was not the intellect but feeling and sensation, which bound him to the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 26
Through castration Origen freed himself from the sensuality that was coupled with Gnosticism; he could then surrender without fear to the treasures of Gnostic thought, whereas Tertullian through his sacrifice of the intellect turned away from Gnosis but also reached a depth of religious feeling that we miss in Origen ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 26
Extraversion is the opposite attitude of introversion, where a predilection one way or the other depends on the inborn disposition of the subject, but the inborn disposition is not always the decisive factor since environmental influences can be just as important ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 479
Both extraversion and introversion may appear in the personality so we cannot decide at first to which attitude the superior function belongs, i.e., to introversion or extraversion. This can only be determined by a thorough analysis of the qualities of each function ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 576
The extravert generally has a relaxed attitude. Exceptions, however, are frequent, even in one and the same individual e.g., put an extravert in a dark and silent room, where all his repressed complexes can gnaw at him, and he will get into such a state of tension that he will jump at the slightest stimulus ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 482
An extraverted consciousness is unable to believe in invisible forces.to the blind eyes of the extravert, the intensive sympathy of the introverted feeling type looks like coldness, because usually it does nothing visible ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 641
The extravert suffers most frequently from the neurosis of hysteria, evident in his exaggerated rapport with persons and adjustment to conditions amounting to imitation ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 566
The demands of the extravert’s unconscious have an essentially primitive, infantile, egocentric character which compensates for his conscious emphasis on things outside himself ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 571
An example of the extraverted type can be seen in Origen, an early Church scholar, whose basic orientation was towards the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 24
Since every man, as a relatively stable being, possesses all the basic psychological functions, it would be a psychological necessity with a view to perfect adaptation that he should also employ them in equal measure ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 28
However, there must be a reason why there are different modes of psychological adaptation: evidently one alone is not enough, since the object seems to be only partially comprehended when, for example, it is something that is merely thought or merely felt ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 28
A one-sided (“typical”) attitude leaves a deficiency in the adaptive performance which accumulates during the course of life, and sooner or later this will produce a disturbance of adaptation that drives the subject toward some kind of compensation ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 28
The sacrifice that Tertullian and Origen carried out was drastic too drastic for our taste but it was in keeping with the spirit of the age, which was thoroughly concretistic ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 29
Because of this spirit the Gnostics took their visions as absolutely real, or at least as relating directly to reality, and for Tertullian the reality of his feeling was objectively valid ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 29
The Gnostics projected their subjective inner perception of the change of attitude into a cosmogonic system and believed in the reality of its psychological figures ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 29
The doctrine of the transubstantiation asserts that the wine and holy wafer become transformed into the actual blood and body of Christ. As is well known, this view became dogma, according to which the transformation is accomplished vere, realiter, substantialiter (in truth, in reality, in substance) ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 36
In my experience this type [extraverted thinker] is found chiefly among men, since, in general, thinking tends more often to be a dominant function in men than in women. When thinking dominates in a woman it is usually associated with a predominantly intuitive cast of mind ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 591
Extraverted thinking may be characterized as programmatic in contrast to introverted thinking which is rational ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 38
We might take Darwin as an example of the normal extraverted thinking type; this type speaks with facts. Darwin ranges over the wide field of objective reality ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 632
Anatole France says: “What is thinking? And how does one think? We think with words; that in itself is sensual and brings us back to nature. “This is extreme nominalism, as it is when Nietzsche says that reason is “speech metaphysics” ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 40
The concept of reality necessarily coincides with the sensuous reality of things; their individuality represents the real as opposed to the abstract idea. Strict realism, on the contrary, transfers the accent on reality to the abstract, the idea, the universal, which posits ante rem (before the thing) ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 41
God is a datum formulated as the “highest good” signifying the supreme psychic value, i.e., a concept endowed with the highest and most general significance in determining our thoughts and actions ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 67
Fantasy is just as much feeling as thinking, as much intuition as sensation. There is no psychic function that, through fantasy, is not inextricably bound up with other psychic functions. Sometimes it appears in primordial form, sometimes it is the ultimate and boldest product of all our faculties combined ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 78
Fantasy always fashions the bridge between the irreconcilable claims of subject and object, introversion and extraversion. In fantasy alone both mechanisms are united ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 78
How fantasy is assessed by psychology, so long as this remains merely science, is illustrated by the well-known views of Freud and Adler ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 88
The Freudian interpretation reduces fantasy to causal, elementary, instinctive processes. Adler’s conception reduces it to the elementary, final aims of the ego ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 88
Freud’s is a psychology of instinct, Adler’s an ego-psychology ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 88
Instinct is an impersonal biological phenomenon. A psychology founded on instinct must by its very nature neglect the ego, since the ego owes its existence to the principium individuationis, i.e., to individual differentiation, whose isolated character removes it from the realm of general biological phenomena ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 88
Every ego-psychology must necessarily exclude and ignore just the collective element that is bound to a psychology of instinct, since it describes that very process by which the ego becomes differentiated from collective drives ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 88
Freud’s and Adler’s theories reject the principle of imagination (fantasy) since they reduce fantasies to something else and treat them merely as a semiotic expression ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 93
For everyone whose guiding principle is adaptation to external reality, imagination is for these reasons something reprehensible and useless ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 93
The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable. It is therefore short sighted to treat fantasy, on account of its risky or unacceptable nature, as a thing of little worth. It must not be forgotten that in the imagination a man’s highest value may lie ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 93
Freudian psychology is characterized by one central idea, the repression of incompatible wish-tendencies. Man appears as a bundle of wishes which are only partially adaptable to the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 90
The basic formula with Freud is therefore sexuality, which expresses the strongest relation between subject and object; with Adler it is the power of the subject, which secures him most effectively against the object and guarantees him an impregnable isolation that abolishes all relationships ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 91
Freud wuld like to ensure the undisturbed flow of instinct towards its object; Adler would like to break the baleful spell of the object in order to save the ego from suffocating in its own defensive armor ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 91
Abstraction is a universal image conjuring the welter of impressions of animate objects into a fixed form, having the magical significance of a defense against the chaotic flux of experience ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 499
Abstraction may be equated to thinking, thus putting it in conflict with the poetic spirit ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 117
Intuition, like sensation, is an irrational function of perception. As with sensation, its contents have the character of being “given,” in contrast to the “derived” or “produced” character of thinking and feeling contents ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 770
Intuition is the function that mediates perceptions in an unconscious way. Everything, whether outer or inner objects or their relationships, can be the focus of this perception ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 770
The primary function of intuition is simply to transmit images, or perceptions of relations between things, which could not be transmitted by the other functions or only in a very roundabout way ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 611
Intuition may be seen as the perception of one’s own unconscious processes, withdrawing one from the object. It mounts above it, ever seeking to rule its material, to shape it, even violently, in accordance with one’s own subjective viewpoint, though without being aware of doing so ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 219
The peculiarity of intuition is that it is neither sense perception, nor feeling, nor intellectual inference, although it may also appear in these forms ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 770
In intuition a content presents itself whole and complete, without our being able to explain or discover how this content came into existence. Intuition is a kind of instinctive apprehension, no matter of what contents ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 770
Intuition tries to apprehend the widest range of possibilities, since only through envisioning possibilities is intuition fully satisfied ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 612
Intuition is constantly seeking fresh outlets and new possibilities in external life. In a very short time every existing situation becomes a prison for the intuitive, a chain that has to be broken ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 612
The intuitive does have sensations, of course, but is not guided by them as such; he uses them merely as starting-points for his perceptions. He selects them by unconscious predilections ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 611
The intuitive typically stops at perception; perception being his main problem ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 661
The intuitive function is represented in consciousness by an attitude of expectancy, by vision and penetration; but only from the subsequent result can it be established how much of what was “seen” was actually in the object, and how much was “read into” it ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 610
Affectivity is a state felt as painful by the introvert, but something not to be missed by the extravert ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 138
Affectivity means relatedness to the extravert, being felt by him as more important than his ego since affectivity is where his “person” lies ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 138
Introversion is the opposite attitude of extraversion, where a predilection one way or the other depends on the inborn disposition of the subject, but the inborn disposition is not always the decisive factor since environmental influences can be just as important ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 479
Both introversion and extraversion may appear in the personality so we cannot decide at first to which attitude the superior function belongs, i.e., introversion or extraversion a state which can only be determined by a thorough analysis of the qualities of each function ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 576
The introvert generally has a tense attitude; however, exceptions are frequent even in one and the same individual, e.g., an introvert in a congenial, harmonious milieu relaxes into complete extraversion ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 482
The introvert reveals his “person” exclusively as the ego and shrinks from every change that is at all liable to affect his ego affectivity being something absolutely painful. The introvert discovers himself in the constant ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 138
The introvert holds the same repugnance, fear, or silent contempt for extraversion as the extravert holds for introversion ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 164
Both extraversion and introversion may appear in the personality so we cannot decide at first to which attitude the superior function belongs, i.e., to introversion or extraversion. This can only be determined by a thorough analysis of the qualities of each function ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 576
The extraverted feeling type finds himself through his feeling-relation to the object, whereas the introvert loses himself in the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 164
The concept of rta is a stepping-stone to the concept of Tao in Lao-tzu ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 192
Tao is the right way, the reign of law, the middle road between opposites, freed from them and yet uniting them in itself. The purpose of life is to travel this middle road and never to deviate towards the opposites ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 192
Tao contains no ecstatic element, its place being taken by a sublime philosophic lucidity, an intellectual and intuitive wisdom obscured by no mystical haze ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 192
The symbol lives through the restraint imposed upon certain forms of libido, and in turn serves to restrain these forms ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
For a certain time the [Holy] Grail symbol clearly fulfilled these requirements, and to this fact it owed its vitality, which, as the example of Wagner shows, is still not exhausted today, even though our age and our psychology strive unceasingly for its dissolution ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
Symbol-formation, therefore, must obviously be an extremely important biological function. As te symbol can come alive only through the devaluation of the object, it is evident that the purpose it serves is to deprive the object of its value ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 402
The profundity and pregnant significance of the symbol appeal just as strongly to thinking as to feeling, while its peculiar plastic imagery, when shaped into sensuous form, stimulates sensation as much as intuition ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 823
The symbol has a practical importance in its relation to consciousness and the conscious conduct of life, and great significance as an exponent of the unconscious thus it is of considerable value in the treatment of neurotics ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 204
I say “may” advisedly, because on the other hand fantasies are also valueless, since in the form of raw material they possess no realizable worth. In order to unearth the treasures they contain they must be developed a stage further ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 93
Adler’s psychology, on the other hand, is characterized by the central concept of ego-superiority. Man appears primarily as an ego-point which must not under any circumstances be subordinated to the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 90
Freud’s repression of instinct in respect of the object corresponds to the security of the subject in Adler. For Adler the remedy is the removal of the security that isolates the subject; for Freud it is the removal of the repression that makes the object inaccessible ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 90
The basic formula with Freud is therefore sexuality, which expresses the strongest relation between subject and object; with Adler it is the power of the subject, which secures him most effectively against the object and guarantees him an impregnable isolation that abolishes all relationships ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 91
Abstraction may be equated to thinking, thus putting it in conflict with the poetic spirit ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 117
The primary function of intuition is simply to transmit images, or perceptions of relations between things, which could not be transmitted by the other functions or only in a very roundabout way ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 611
Intuition may be seen as the perception of one’s own unconscious processes, withdrawing one from the object. It mounts above it, ever seeking to rule its material, to shape it, even violently, in accordance with one’s own subjective viewpoint, though without being aware of doing so ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 219
The peculiarity of intuition is that it is neither sense perception, nor feeling, nor intellectual inference, although it may also appear in these forms ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 770
In intuition a content presents itself whole and complete, without our being able to explain or discover how this content came into existence. Intuition is a kind of instinctive apprehension, no matter of what contents ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 770
Intuition tries to apprehend the widest range of possibilities, since only through envisioning possibilities is intuition fully satisfied ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 612
Intuition is constantly seeking fresh outlets and new possibilities in external life. In a very short time every existing situation becomes a prison for the intuitive, a chain that has to be broken ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 612
A symbol must be the best possible expression of the prevailing world-view, an unsurpassed container of meaning ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
A symbol must also be sufficiently remote from comprehension to resist all attempts of the critical intellect to break it down ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
Finally, the aesthetic form of the symbol must appeal so convincingly to our feelings that no argument can be raised against it on that score ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
The dynamic principle of fantasy is play, a characteristic also of the child, and as such it appears inconsistent with the principle of serious work. But without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 93
The standpoints of Freud and Adler are equally one-sided and characteristic only of one type ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 92
Consequently, any possibility of an individual differentiation of the soul was lost when it became repressed in the collective worship. Such losses generally have unfortunate consequences, and in this case they soon made themselves felt ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 399
In the end, Hermas’ libido, i.e., his erotic desire is directed to his task of the Church. In this way, the transition of the worship of woman into the worship of the soul takes place ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 383
Hermas’ mistress appears to him not as an erotic fantasy but in “divine” form, seeming to him like a goddess in heaven ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 383
The Christian principle which unites the opposites in the worship of God. In Buddhism, it is the worship of the Self (self-development), while in Spitteler and Goethe it is the worship of the soul symbolized by the worship of woman ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 375
Implicit in this categorization is the modern individualistic principle on the one hand, and on the other a primitive poly-daemonism which assigns to every race, every tribe, every family, every individual its specific religious principle ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 375
The dissolution of the symbol means a streaming off of libido along the direct path, or at any rate an almost irresistible urge for its direct application ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
The symbol acquires a conscious motive force once we grant it a value, i.e., if it is perceived, its unconscious libido-charge is thereby given an opportunity to make itself felt in the conscious conduct of life ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 204
In order to characterize more closely these two “impulses” [Apollonian and Dionysian], Nietzsche compares the peculiar psychological states they give rise to with those of dreaming and intoxication ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 226
The Apollonian impulse produces the state comparable to dreaming, the Dionysian the state comparable to intoxication ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 226
The Dionysian impulse, on the other hand, means the liberation of unbounded instinct, the breaking loose of the unbridled dynamism of animal and divine nature; hence in the Dionysian rout man appears as a satyr, god above and goat below ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 227
“All the artistry of Nature is revealed in the ecstasies of intoxication.” Which means that the creative dynamism, libido in instinctive form, takes possession of the individual as though he were an object and uses him as a tool or as an expression of itself ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 227
Because of this, Nietzsche quite forgets that in the struggle between Apollo and Dionysus and in their ultimate reconciliation the problem for the Greeks was never an aesthetic one, but was essentially religious ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 231
Aestheticism is a modern bias that shows the psychological mysteries of the Dionysus cult in a light in which they were assuredly never seen or experienced by the ancients ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 231
Brahman requires that external opposites, such as heat and cold, first be denied participation in the psyche, and then that it is expressed in the Upanishads by means of symbols I have termed libido symbols ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 330
The concept of rta is a libido symbol like sun, wind, etc. Only rta is less concretistic and contains the abstract element of fixed direction and regularity, the idea of a predetermined, ordered path or process ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 355
Rta is, therefore, a kind of philosophical libido symbol that can be directly compared to the Stoic concept of Heimarmene. For the Stoics heimarmene had the significance of creative, primal heat, and at the same time it was a predetermined, regular process (hence its other meaning: “compulsion of the stars”) ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 355
The natural flow of libido, the middle path, means complete obedience to the fundamental laws of human nature, and there can positively be no higher moral principle than harmony with natural laws that guide the libido in the direction of life’s optimum ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 356
Tao contains no ecstatic element, its place being taken by a sublime philosophic lucidity, an intellectual and intuitive wisdom obscured by no mystical haze ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 192
Man as a microcosm uniting the world opposites is the equivalent of an irrational symbol that unites the psychological opposites ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 367
As a microcosm, man is a reconciler of the opposites. Heaven, man, and earth form the three chief elements of the world, the san-tsai ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 366
Amfortas’ suffering is caused by the tension of opposites represented by the Grail and the power of Klingsor, who has taken possession of the holy spear ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 371
Klingsor holds a spell over Kundry who symbolizes the instinctive life-force or libido that Amfortas lacks ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 371
Parsifal rescues the libido from the state of restless, compulsive instinctuality, in the first place because he does not succumb to Kundry, and in the second place because he does not possess the Grail ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 371
The death of Kundry may be taken as the liberation of libido from its naturalistic, undomesticated form which falls away as a lifeless husk, while the energy bursts forth as a new stream of life in the glowing of the Grail ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 371
By Parsifal’s renunciation of the opposites (unwilling though this was, at least in part), Parsifal caused a blockage of libido that created a new potential and thus made a new manifestation of energy possible ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 372
Mystical interpretation, however has always loved to conceive the bride as Israel and the bridegroom as Jehovah, impelled by a sound instinct to turn even erotic feelings into a relationship between God and the chosen people ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 392
Christianity appropriated the Song of Songs for the same reason, interpreting the bridegroom as Christ and the bride as the Church ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 392
To the psychology of the Middle Ages this analogy had an extraordinary appeal, and it inspired the quite unabashed Christ-eroticism of the Christian mystics, some of the best examples of which are supplied by Mechthild of Magdeburg ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 392
The Litany of Loreto was conceived in this spirit. It derived certain attributes of the Virgin directly from the Song of Songs, as in the case of the tower symbol ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 392
The rose, too, was used as one of her attributes even at the time of the Greek Fathers, together with the lily, which likewise appear in the Song of Songs (2: 1): “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys” ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 392
Images much used in the medieval hymns are the “enclosed garden” and the “sealed fountain,” (Song of Songs 4: 12 “a garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed”) ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 392
The survival or unconscious revivification of the vessel symbol is indicative of a strengthening of the feminine principle in the masculine psychology of that time. Its symbolization in an enigmatic image must be interpreted as a spiritualization of the eroticism aroused by the worship of woman ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
One of the greatest schisms of the Church, having risen from the over-compensated doubt of the Inquisition which came surging up from the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 400
The logical consequence of this subjectify process is a splitting up into sects, and its most extreme outcome is individualism, representing a new form of detachment from the world, the immediate danger of which is re-submersion in the unconscious dynamis ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 433
Gnosticism shows man’s unconscious psychology in full flower, almost perverse in its luxuriance; it contained the very thing that most strongly resisted the regula fidei [rule of faith] ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 409
Meister Eckhart was the greatest thinker of early medieval times, confronting us with new ideas having the same psychic orientation that impelled Dante to follow Beatrice into the underworld of the unconscious and that inspired the singers who sang the lore of the Grail ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 410
Eckhart rose to a purely psychological and relativistic conception of God and his relation to man and the souled., a psychological understanding of religious phenomena ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 411
Eckhart had a sense of inner affinity with God which must have enhanced the value of his soul, i.e., of his own inner being sharp contrast to the Christian sense of sin ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 411
The soul must be a content in which spontaneity is inherent, and hence also partial unconsciousness, as with every autonomous complex ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 419
This absorption of the soul into consciousness is just as much a characteristic of Eastern as it is of Western culture. In Buddhism everything is dissolved into consciousness; even the samskaras, the unconscious formative forces, must be transformed through religious self-development ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 419
One of the greatest schisms of the Church, having risen from the over-compensated doubt of the Inquisition which came surging up from the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 400
The logical consequence of this subjectifying process is a splitting up into sects, and its most extreme outcome is individualism, representing a new form of detachment from the world, the immediate danger of which is re-submersion in the unconscious dynamis ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 433
Prometheus, the artist, the servant of the soul disappears from the world of men; while society itself, in obedience to a soulless moral routine, is delivered over to Behemoth, symbolizing the inimical, the destructive effect of an obsolete ideal ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 434
Pandora, the soul, creates the saving jewel in the unconscious, but it does not benefit mankind because men fail to appreciate it ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 434
Prometheus intervenes and through his insight and understanding brings first a few, and then many, individuals to their senses ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 434
The jewel represents the inferior function, those psychic contents not acknowledged, hence unacceptable ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 453
The soul is a personification of the unconscious, where lies the treasure, the libido which is immersed in introversion and is allegorized as God’s kingdom. This amounts to a permanent union with God, a living in his kingdom, in that state where a preponderance of libido lies in the unconscious and determines conscious life ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 424
Human psychology is chameleon-like, as the practising psychologist knows from daily experience. So whenever the object predominates, an assimilation to the object takes place ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 531
On the other hand, we also have to bear in mind the great disadvantage which identification with the directed function entails, namely, the degeneration of the individual ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 502
No doubt man can be mechanized to a very considerable extent, but not to the point of giving himself up completely, or only at the cost of the gravest injury ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 502
Abstraction thus seems to be a function that is at war with the original state of participation mystique. Its purpose is to break the object’s hold on the subject. It leads on the one hand to the creation of art-forms, and on the other to knowledge of the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 496
All abstraction has the effect of killing the independent activity of the object in so far as this is magically related to the psyche of the subject. The abstracting type does it quite consciously, as a defense against the magical influence of the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 497
Abstraction and empathy, introversion and extraversion, are mechanisms of adaptation and defense ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 502
As our daily psychological experience shows, there are very many people who are completely identified with their directed (or “valuable”) function, among them the very types we are discussing ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 502
It seems to me that Lévy-Bruhl’s participation mystique is more descriptive of this condition [Chinese art], since it aptly formulates the primordial relation of the primitive to the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 495
As Worringer says, it is precisely the Oriental art-forms and religions that display this abstracting attitude to the world. To the Oriental, therefore, the world must appear very different from what it does to the Occidental, who animates it with his empathy ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 494
It is easy to see that empathy corresponds to the mechanism of extraversion, and abstraction to that of introversion ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 493
“The great inner uneasiness inspired in man by the phenomena of the external world” is nothing other than the introvert’s fear of all stimuli and change, occasioned by his deeper sensitivity and powers of realization ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 493
The introvert’s abstractions serve the avowed purpose of confining the irregular and changeable within fixed limits. It goes without saying that this essentially magical procedure is found in full flower in the art of primitives, whose geometrical patterns have a magical rather than an aesthetic value ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 493
The unconscious depotentiation that precedes the act of empathy gives the object a permanently lower value, as in the case of abstraction ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 497
Since the unconscious contents of the empathetic type are identical with the object and make it appear inanimate, empathy is needed in order to cognize the nature of the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 497
Abstraction presupposes that the object is alive and active, and seeks to withdraw from the influence of the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 490
An extraverted consciousness is unable to believe in invisible forces.to the blind eyes of the extravert, the intensive sympathy of the introverted feeling type looks like coldness, because usually it does nothing visible ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 641
Extraversion must be understood as a mechanism, not a trait of character, capable of being switched on or off at will, its corresponding character developing only from its habitual predominance ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 479
The extravert reveals himself simply and solely in his relatedness, i.e., in his affectivity. He discovers himself in what is fluctuating and changeable. His ego is of less importance than his relatedness ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 138
Extraversion becomes less subject to misunderstanding than the introvert because the style of the times works for him.an extraverted overvaluation of the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 645
The extravert holds a differing attitude from the introvert. This causes an intrinsically irritating conflict between the two and the most heated and futile scientific discussions ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 521
The extraverted type can barely conceive of the necessity that forces the introverted type to adapt to the world by means of a system ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 420
The idea of ritual murder is a projection, in acute form, of the rejection of the Redeemer, for one always sees the mote in one’s own eye as the beam in one’s brother’s ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 454
As against this historical evolution of the idea of the soul, analytical psychology opposes the view that the soul does not coincide with the totality of the psychic functions. We define the soul on the one hand as the relation to the unconscious, and on the other as a personification of unconscious contents ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 420
These honorific titles reproduce the essential qualities of the redeeming symbol. Its “divine” effect comes from the irresistible dynamis of the unconscious. The saviour is always a figure endowed with magical power who makes the impossible possible ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 443
The hallmark of classic hysteria is an exaggerated rapport with persons in the immediate environment and an adjustment to surrounding conditions that amounts to imitation ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 566
There is a constant tendency for the hysteric to make himself interesting and to produce an impression ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 566
Another unmistakable sign of the extraverted hysteric is his effusiveness, which occasionally carries him into the realm of fantasy, so that he is accused of the “hysterical lie” ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 566
The hysterical character begins as an exaggeration of the normal attitude; it is then complicated by compensatory reactions from the unconscious, which counteract the exaggerated expression by means of physical symptoms that force the libido to introvert ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 566
The reaction of the unconscious produces another class of symptoms having a more introverted character, one of the most typical being a morbid intensification of fantasy activity ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 566
A purely objective orientation does violence to a multitude of subjective impulses, intentions, needs, and desires and deprives them of the libido that is their natural right ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 570
Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 570
Man carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind. This historical element in man represents a vital need to which a wise psychic economy must respond ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 570
Somehow the past must come alive and participate in the present. Total assimilation to the object will always arouse the protest of the suppressed minority of those elements that belong to the past and have existed from the very beginning ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 570
Feeling restricts the products of sensation and intuition since the choice is made by a rational judgment. It is not the intensity of a sensation that decides action but judgment (feeling) ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 602
One can feel “correctly” only when feeling is not disturbed by anything else. Nothing disturbs feeling so much as thinking. It is therefore understandable that thinking will be kept in abeyance as much as possible ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 598
If feeling is falsified by an egocentric attitude, it at once becomes unsympathetic, because it is then concerned mainly with the ego. It inevitably creates the impression of sentimental self-love, of trying to make itself interesting, and even of morbid self-admiration ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 639
The extraverted feeling type finds himself through his feeling-relation to the object, whereas the introvert loses himself in the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 164
Sensation is chiefly conditioned by the object, those objects that excite the strongest sensations will be decisive for the individual’s psychology. The result is a strong sensuous tie to the object. Sensation is therefore a vital function equipped with the strongest vital instinct ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 605
The extraverted sensation type need not be a common voluptuary; he is merely desirous of the strongest sensations, and these, by his very nature, he can receive only from the outside ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 607
The extraverted sensation type sees love as unquestionably rooted in the physical attractions of its object. If normal, he is conspicuously well adjusted to reality. That is his ideal, and it even makes him considerate of others ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 607
Over-extraverted feeling satisfies aesthetic expectations but does not speak to the heart. It appeals merely to the senses or worse still only to reason. It can provide the aesthetic padding for a situation, but there it stops, and beyond that its effect is nil. It has become sterile ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 596
The contrary attitudes [extraversion and introversion], are in themselves no more than correlative mechanisms: a diastolic going out and seizing of the object, and a systolic concentration and detachment of energy from the object seized. Every human being possesses both mechanisms as an expression of his natural life-rhythm, a rhythm which Goethe, surely not by chance, described physiologically in terms of the heart’s activity. A rhythmical alternative of both forms of psychic activity would perhaps correspond to the normal course of life ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 6
One mechanism will naturally predominate, and if this condition becomes in any way chronic a type will be produced: that is, an habitual attitude in which one mechanism predominates permanently, although the other can never be completely suppressed since it is an integral part of the psychic economy. Hence there can never be a pure type in the sense that it possesses only one mechanism with the complete atrophy of the other. A typical attitude always means merely the relative predominance of one mechanism ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 6
Extraversion and introversion are to be distinguished as general basic attitudes from the function-types. These two attitudes may be recognized with the greatest ease, while it requires considerable experience to distinguish the function-type. At times it is uncommonly difficult to find out which function holds prior place ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 248
Generally speaking, a judging observer will tend to seize on the conscious character, while a perceptive observer will be more influenced by the unconscious character, since judgment is chiefly concerned with the conscious motivation of the psychic process, while perception registers the process itself ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 576
But in so far as we apply judgment and perception in equal measure, it may easily happen that a personality appears to us as both introverted and extraverted, so that we cannot decide at first to which attitude the superior function belongs. In such cases only a thorough analysis of the qualities of each function can help us to form a valid judgment ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 576
We must observe which function is completely under conscious control, and which functions have a haphazard and spontaneous character. The former is always more highly differentiated than the latter, which also possess infantile and primitive traits. Occasionally the superior function gives the impression of normality, while the others have something abnormal or pathological about them ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 576
The sort of demons that introversion and extraversion may become is a daily experience for us psychotherapists. We see in our patients and can feel in ourselves with what irresistible force the libido streams inwards or outwards, with what unshakable tenacity an introverted or extraverted attitude can take root ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 347
The two fundamental mechanisms of the psyche, extraversion and introversion, are also to a large extent the normal and appropriate ways of reacting to complexes extraversion as a means of escaping from the complex into reality, introversion as a means of detaching oneself from external reality through the complex ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 259
It is no wonder, therefore, that the earlier all-powerful collective attitude prevented almost completely an objective psychological evaluation of individual differences, or any scientific objectification of individual psychological processes. It was owing to this very lack of psychological thinking that knowledge became “psychologized,” i.e., filled with projected psychology. We find striking examples of this in man’s first attempts at a philosophical explanation of the cosmos ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 12
Tertullian was a pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city until about his thirty-fifth year, when Tertullian became a Christian. He was the author of numerous writings wherein his character, which is our especial interest, is unmistakably displayed. Most clearly of all we see his unparalleled noble-hearted zeal, his fire, his passionate temperament, and the profundity of his religious understanding ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 17
The self-mutilation performed by Tertullian in the sacrificium intellectus [the sacrifice of the intellect] led him to an unqualified recognition of the irrational inner reality, the true rock of his faith. The necessity of the religious process which he sensed in himself he crystalized in the incomparable formula anima naturaliter christiana (the soul is by nature Christian) ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 19
Tertullian is a classic example of introverted thinking. His very considerable and keenly developed intellect was flanked by an unmistakable sensuality. The psychological process of development which we call specifically Christian led him to the sacrifice, the amputation, of the most valuable function, [i.e., thinking] a mythical idea that is also found in the great and exemplary symbol of the sacrifice of the Son of God ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 20
Tertullian’s most valuable organ was the intellect and the clarity of knowledge it made possible. Through the sacrificium intellectus the way of purely intellectual development was closed to him; it forced him to recognize the irrational dynamism of his soul as the foundation of his being. The intellectuality of Gnosis, the specifically rational stamp it gave to the dynamic phenomena of the soul, must have been odious to him, for that was just the way he had to forsake in order to acknowledge the principle of feeling ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 20
The introverted thinker never shrinks from thinking a thought because it might prove to be dangerous, subversive, heretical or wounding to other people’s feelings, he is none the less beset by the greatest anxiety if ever he has to make it an objective reality. That goes against the grain. And when he does put his ideas into the world, he never introduces them like a mother solicitous for her children, but simply dumps them there and gets extremely annoyed if they fail to thrive on their own account. His amazing unpracticalness and horror of publicity in any form have a hand in this ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 634
The introverted thinking type is strongly influenced by ideas, though his ideas have their origin not in objective data but in his subjective foundation. He will follow his ideas like the extravert, but in the reverse direction; inwards and not outwards. Intensity is his aim, not extensity. In these fundamental respects he differs quite unmistakable from his extraverted counterpart ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 633
Introverted thinking easily gets lost in the immense truth of the subjective factor. It creates theories for their own sake, apparently with an eye to real or at least possible facts, but always with a tendency to slip over from the world of ideas into mere imagery. Accordingly, visions of numerous possibilities appear on the scene, but none of them ever becomes a reality, until finally images are produced which no longer express anything externally real, being mere symbols of the ineffable and unknowable. It is now merely a mystical thinking and quite as unfruitful as thinking that remains bound to objective data. Whereas the latter sinks to the level of a mere representation of facts, the former evaporates into a representation of the irrepresentable, far beyond anything that could be expressed in an image ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 630
With regard to the establishment of new facts it [introverted thinking] is only indirectly of value, since new views rather than knowledge of new facts are its main concern. It formulates questions and creates theories, it opens up new prospects and insights, but with regard to facts its attitude is one of reserve. They are all very well as illustrative examples, but they must not be allowed to predominate ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 628
However clear the inner structure of this his [introverted thinker] thoughts may be, he is not in the least clear where or how they link up with the world of reality. Only with the greatest difficultly will he bring himself to admit that what is clear to him may not be equally clear to everyone ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 634
Introverted thinking differs from extraverted thinking most visibly when it attempts to bring objective data into connections not warranted by the objection other words, to subordinate them to a subjective idea. Each type of thinking senses the other as an encroachment on its own province, and hence a sort of shadow effect is produced, each revealing to the other its least favourable aspect. Introverted thinking then appears as something quite arbitrary, while extraverted thinking seems dull and banal. Thus the two orientations are incessantly at war ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 581
Extraverted thinking shows a dangerous tendency to force the facts into the shape of its image, or to ignore them altogether in order to give fantasy free play. In that event it will be impossible for the finished product the idea to repudiate its derivation from the dim archaic image. It will have a mythological streak which one is apt to interpret as “originality” or, in more pronounced cases, as mere whimsicality, since its archaic character is not immediately apparent to specialists unfamiliar with mythological motifs ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 629
In the introverted thinker’s pursuit of his ideas he is generally stubborn, headstrong, and quite unamenable to influence. His suggestibility to personal influences is in strange contrast to this. This type tends to vanish behind a cloud of misunderstanding, which gets all the thicker the more he attempts to assume, by way of compensation and with the help of his inferior functions, an air of urbanity which contrasts glaringly with his real nature ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 634
The introverted thinker is well exemplified in the figures of Kant who relied on the subjective factor, restricting himself to a critique of knowledge ~Carl Jung, Tertullian, an early church father and creator of the Church Latinis a classic example of introverted thinking. His very considerable and keenly developed intellect was flanked by an unmistakable sensuality Gauss, a mathematician who had a strong distaste for teaching because he was obliged to communicate his findings to others without first having checked and polished every word of the text. To be obliged to communicate his findings to others without such verification must have felt to him as though he were exhibiting himself before strangers in his nightshirt ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 553
The detachment of libido from the object transfers it [the libido], into the subject, where it activates the images lying dormant in the unconscious. These images are archaic forms of expression which become symbols, and these appear in their turn as equivalents of the devalued objects ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 402
But this was not the only consequence. The splitting off and repression of a valuable progressive tendency resulted in a quite general activation of the unconscious. This activation could find no satisfying expression in collective Christian symbols, for an adequate expression always takes an individual form ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 400
Thus the way was paved for heresies and schisms, against which the only defense available to the Christian consciousness was fanaticism. The frenzied horror of the Inquisition was the product of over-compensated doubt, which came surging up from the unconscious and finally gave rise to one of the greatest schisms of the Church the Reformation Considered biologically, the sacrifice serves the interests of domestication, but psychologically it opens a door for new possibilities of spiritual development through the dissolution of old ties ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 24
The brahman concept contains the idea of rta, right order, the orderly course of the world. In brahman, the creative universal essence and universal Ground, all things come upon the right way, for in it they are eternally dissolved and recreated; all development in an orderly way proceeds from brahman ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 192
In his personal relations the introverted thinker appears taciturn or else throws himself on people who cannot understand him, and for him this is one more proof of the abysmal stupidity of man. If for once he is understood, he easily succumbs to a credulous overestimation of his prowess ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 635
Casual acquaintances think him [introverted thinker] inconsiderate and domineering. But the better one knows him, the more favorable one’s judgment becomes, and his closest friends value his intimacy very highly. To outsiders he seems prickly, unapproachable, and arrogant, and sometimes soured as a result of his antisocial prejudices. As a personal teacher he has little influence, since the mentality of his students is strange to him. Besides, teaching has at bottom, no interest for him unless it happens to provide him with a theoretical problem. He is a poor teacher, because all the time he is teaching his thought is occupied with the material itself and not with its presentation ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 635
The introverted thinker usually has bad experiences with rivals in his own field because he never understands how to curry their favor; as a rule he only succeeds in showing them how entirely superfluous they are to him. He has only to be convinced of a person’s seeming innocuousness to lay himself open to the most undesirable elements. They seize hold of him from the unconscious. He lets himself be brutalized and exploited in the most ignominious way if only he can be left in peace to pursue his ideas ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 634
In the introverted thinker’s pursuit of his ideas he is generally stubborn, headstrong, and quite unamenable to influence. His suggestibility to personal influences is in strange contrast to this. This type tends to vanish behind a cloud of misunderstanding, which gets all the thicker the more he attempts to assume, by way of compensation and with the help of his inferior functions, an air of urbanity which contrasts glaringly with his real nature ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 634
With the intensification of his type [introverted thinker], his convictions become all the more rigid and unbending. Outside influences are shut off; as a person, too, he becomes more unsympathetic to his wider circle of acquaintances, and therefore more dependent on his intimates. His tone becomes personal and surly, and though his ideas may gain in profundity they can no longer be adequately expressed in the material at hand. To compensate for this, he falls back on emotionality and touchiness. The outside influences he has brusquely fended off attack him from within, from the unconscious, and in his efforts to defend himself he attacks things that to outsiders seem utterly unimportant. Because of the subjectivization of consciousness resulting from his lack of relationship to the object, what secretly concerns his own person now seems to him of extreme importance ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 636
The introverted thinker begins to confuse his subjective truth with his own personality. Although he will not try to press his convictions on anyone personally, he will burst out with vicious personal retorts against every criticism, however just. Thus his isolation gradually increases. His originally fertilizing ideas become destructive, poisoned by the sediment of bitterness. His struggle against the influences emanating from the unconscious increases with his external isolation, until finally they begin to cripple him. He thinks his withdrawal into ever-increasing solitude will protect him from the unconscious influences, but as a rule it only plunges him deeper into the conflict that is destroying him from within ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 636
Origen grew up in that quite unique mental atmosphere where the ideas of East and West mingled. With an intense yearning for knowledge he eagerly absorbed all that was worth knowing, and accepted everything whether Christian, Jewish, Hellenistic, or Egyptian, that the teeming intellectual world of Alexandria offered him ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 21
Origen’s self-castration had taken place sometime before A.D. 211; his inner motives for this may be guessed, but historically they are not known to us. Personally he was of great influence and had a winning speech. He was constantly surrounded by pupils and a whole host of amanuenses who gathered up the precious words that fell from the revered master’s lips ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 22
In complete contrast to Tertullian, Origen did not cut himself off from the influence of Gnosticism; on the contrary, he even channelled it, in attenuated form, into the bosom of the Church, or such at least was his aim. Indeed, judging by his thought and fundamental views, he was himself almost a Christian Gnostic ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 22
Origen is a classic example of the extraverted type. His basic orientation was towards the object; this showed itself in his scrupulous regard for objective facts and their conditions, as well as in the formation of that supreme principle: amor et visio Dei. The Christian process of development encountered in Origen a type whose ultimate foundation was the relation to the object a relation that has always symbolically expressed itself in sexuality and accounts for the fact that there are certain theories today which reduce all the essential psychic functions to sexuality too ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 24
Castration was therefore an adequate expression of the sacrifice of the most valuable function. It is entirely characteristic that Tertullian should perform the sacrificium intellectus (sacrifice of the intellect), whereas Origen was led to the sacrificium phalli (castration), because the Christian process demands a complete abolition of the sensual tie to the object; in other words, it demands the sacrifice of the hitherto most valued function, the dearest possession, the strongest instinct ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 24
The natural course of instinct, like everything in nature, follows the line of least resistance. One man is rather more gifted here, another there; or again, adaptation to the early environment of childhood may demand relatively more reserve and reflection or relatively more empathy and participation, according to the nature of the parents and the circumstances ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 28
The adaptive deficiency, which is the causa efficiens of the process of conversion, is subjectively felt as a vague sense of dissatisfaction. Such an atmosphere prevailed at the turning-point of our era. A quite astonishing need of redemption came over mankind, and brought about that unparalleled efflorescence of every sort of possible and impossible cult in ancient Rome ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 28
This type of man elevates objective reality, or an objectively oriented intellectual formula, into the ruling principle not only for himself but for his whole environment. By this formula good and evil are measured, and beauty and ugliness determined. Everything that agrees with this formula is right, everything that contradicts it is wrong, and anything that passes by it indifferently is merely incidental. Because this formula seems to embody the entire meaning of life, it is made into a universal law which must be put into effect everywhere all the time, both individually and collectively ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 585
Just as the extraverted thinking type subordinates himself to his formula, so, for their own good, everybody round him must obey it too, for whoever refuses to obey it is wrong he is resisting the universal law, and is therefore unreasonable, immoral, and without a conscience. His moral code forbids him to tolerate exceptions ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 585
All those activities that are dependent on feeling will become repressed in such a type for instance, aesthetic activities, taste, artistic sense, cultivation of friends, etc. Irrational phenomena such as religious experiences, passions, and suchlike are often repressed to the point of complete unconsciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 587
The thinking of the extraverted type is positive, i.e., productive. It leads to the discovery of new facts or to general conceptions based on disparate empirical material. It is usually synthetic too. Even when it analyses it constructs, because it is always advancing beyond the analysis to a new combination, to a further conception which reunites the analysed material in a different way or adds something to it. One could call this kind of judgment predicative. A characteristic feature, at any rate, is that it is never absolutely depreciative or destructive, since it always substitutes a fresh value for the one destroyed. This is because the thinking of this type is the main channel into which his vital energy flows. The steady flow of life manifests itself in his thinking, so that his thought has a progressive, creative quality ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 592
The conscious altruism of the extraverted thinking type, which is often quite extraordinary, may be thwarted by a secret self-seeking which gives a selfish twist to actions that in themselves are disinterested. Purely ethical intentions may lead him into critical situations which sometimes have more than a semblance of being the outcome of motives far from ethical. There are guardians of public morals who suddenly find themselves in compromising situations, or rescue workers who are themselves in dire need of rescue. Their desire to save others leads them to employ means which are calculated to bring about the very thing they wished to avoid ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 588
There are extraverted idealists so consumed by their desire for the salvation of mankind that they will not shrink from any lie or trickery in pursuit of their ideal. In science there are not a few painful examples of highly respected investigators who are so convinced of the truth and general validity of their formula that they have not scrupled to falsify evidence in its favour. Their sanction is: the end justifies the means. Only an inferior feeling function, operating unconsciously and in secret, could seduce otherwise reputable men into such aberrations ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 588
The extraverted thinker may play a very useful role in social life as a reformer or public prosecutor or purifier of conscience, or as the propagator of important innovations. But the more rigid the formula, the more he develops into a martinet, a quibbler, and a prig, who would like to force himself and others into one mould ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 585
The influence and activities of these personalities [extraverted thinking type] are the more favorable and beneficial the further from the center their radius extends. Their best aspect is to be found at the periphery of their sphere of influence. The deeper we penetrate into their own power province, the more we feel the unfavourable effects of their tyranny. A quite different life pulses at the periphery, where the truth of the formula can be felt as a valuable adjunct to the rest ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 586
But the closer we come to the center of power where the formula operates, the more life withers away from everything that does not conform to its dictates. Usually it is the nearest relatives who have to taste the unpleasant consequences of the extraverted formula, since they are the first to receive its relentless benefits. But in the end it is the subject himself who suffers most ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 586
Extraverted thinking differs from introverted thinking most visibly when it appropriates material that is the special province of introverted thinking. When, for instance, a subjective conviction is explained analytically in terms of objective data or as being derived from objective ideas. Each type of thinking senses the other as an encroachment on its own province, and hence a sort of shadow effect is produced, each revealing to the other its least favourable aspect. Introverted thinking then appears as something quite arbitrary, while extraverted thinking seems dull and banal. Thus the two orientations are incessantly at war ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 581
In keeping with the objective formula, the conscious attitude [of the extraverted thinker] becomes more or less impersonal, often to such a degree that personal interests suffer. If the attitude is extreme, all personal considerations are lost sight of, even those affecting the subject’s own person. His health is neglected, his social position deteriorates, the most vital interests of his family health, finances, morals are violated for the sake of the ideal. Personal sympathy with others must in any case suffer unless they too happen to espouse the same ideal ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 589
Often the closest members of his family, his own children know such a father only as a cruel tyrant, while the outside world resounds with the fame of his humanity. Because of the highly impersonal character of the conscious attitude, the unconscious feelings are extremely personal and oversensitive, giving rise to secret prejudices a readiness, for instance, to misconstrue any opposition to his formula as personal ill-will, or a constant tendency to make negative assumptions about other people in order to invalidate their arguments in advance in defence, naturally, of his own touchiness ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 589
The extraverted thinker’s unconscious sensitivity makes him sharp in tone, acrimonious, aggressive. Insinuations multiply. His feelings have a sultry and resentful character always a mark of the inferior function. Magnanimous as he may be in sacrificing himself to his intellectual goal, his feelings are petty, mistrustful, crotchety, and conservative. Anything new that is not already contained in his formula is seen through a veil of unconscious hatred and condemned accordingly ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 589
In spite of its ecclesiastical associations, nominalism is a sceptical tendency that denies the separate existence characteristic of abstractions. It is kind of scientific scepticism coupled with the most rigid dogmatism ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 41
Although biological instinctive processes also contribute to the formation of the personality, individuality is nevertheless essentially different from collective instincts; indeed, it stands in the most direct opposition to them, just as the individual as a personality is always distinct from the collective. His essence consists precisely in this distinction ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 88
Freud’s view is essentially extraverted, Adler’s introverted. The extraverted theory holds good for the extraverted type, the introverted theory for the introverted type. Since a pure type is a product of a wholly one-sided development it is also necessarily unbalanced. Over accentuation of the one function is synonymous with repression of the other ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 91
Psychoanalysis fails to remove this repression just in so far as the method it employs is oriented according to the theory of the patient’s own type. Thus the extravert, in accordance with his [Freud’s] theory, will reduce the fantasies rising out of his unconscious to their instinctual content, while the introvert [according to Adler], will reduce them to his power aims ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 92
For a time objects appear to have an exaggerated value, if they should serve to bring about a solution, a deliverance, or lead to the discovery of a new possibility. Yet not sooner have they served their purpose as stepping-stones or bridges than they lose their value altogether and are discarded as burdensome appendages. Facts are acknowledged only if they open new possibilities of advancing beyond them and delivering the individual from their power. Nascent possibilities are compelling motives from which intuition cannot escape and to which all else must be sacrificed ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 612
Affectivity designates and comprises “not only the affects proper, but also the slight feelings or feeling-tones of pain and pleasure.” Bleuler distinguishes affectivity from the sense-perceptions and physical sensations as well as from “feelings” that may be regarded as inner perception processes (e.g., the “feeling” of certainty, of probability, etc.) or vague thoughts or discernments ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 682
The introvert is far more subject to misunderstanding than the extravert, not so much because the extravert is a more merciless or critical adversary than he himself might be, but because of the style of the times which he himself imitates works against him. He finds himself in the minority, not in numerical relation to the extravert, but in relation to the general Western view of the world as judged by his feeling ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 645
In so far as he [the introvert] is a convinced participator in the general style, he undermines his own foundations; for the general style, acknowledging as it does only the visible and tangible values, is opposed to his specific principle. Because of its invisibility, he is obliged to depreciate the subjective factor, and must force himself to join in the extraverted overvaluation of the object. He himself sets the subjective factor at too low a value, and his feelings of inferiority are his chastisement for this sin ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 645
If the object had an absolute value, it would be an absolute determining factor for the subject and would abolish his freedom of action absolutely, since even a relative freedom could not coexist with absolute determination by the object. Absolute relation to the object is equivalent to a complete exteriorization of the conscious processes; it amounts to an identity of subject and object which would render all cognition impossible ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 402
By “dreaming” Nietzsche means, as he himself says, essentially an “inward vision,” the “lovely semblance of dream-worlds.” Apollo “rules over the beautiful illusion of the inner world of fantasy,” he is “the god of all shape-shifting powers.” He signifies measure, number, limitation, and subjugation of everything wild and untamed. “One might even describe Apollo himself as the glorious divine image of the principium individuationis” [principle of individuality] ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 226
The Dionysian is the horror of the annihilation of the principium individuationis [principle of individuality] and at the same time “rapturous delight” in its destruction. It is therefore comparable to intoxication, which dissolves the individual into his collective instincts and components an explosion of the isolated ego through the world ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 227
Hence, in the Dionysian orgy, man finds man: “alienated Nature, hostile or enslaved, celebrates once more her feast of reconciliation with her prodigal son Man.” Each feels himself “not only united, reconciled, merged with his neighbour, but one with him.” His individuality is entirely obliterated. “Man is no longer the artist, he has become the work of art” ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 227
It will have been the same with the Greeks. It was just their living sense of horror that gradually brought about a reconciliation of the Apollinian with the Dionysian “through a metaphysical miracle,” as Nietzsche says. This statement, as well as the other where he says that the antagonism between them is “only seemingly bridged by the common term `Art,’” must constantly be borne in mind, because Nietzsche, like Schiller, had a pronounced tendency to credit art with a mediating and redeeming role ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 230
The problem then remains stuck in aesthetics the ugly is also “beautiful,” even beastliness and evil shine forth enticingly in the false glamour of aesthetic beauty. The artistic nature in both Schiller and Nietzsche claims a redemptive significance for itself and its specific capacity for creation and expression ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 230
The Dionysian satyr festival, to judge by all the analogies, was a kind of totem feast involving a regressive identification with the mythical ancestors or directly with the totem animal. The cult of Dionysus had in many places a mystical and speculative streak, and in any case exercised a very strong religious influence ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 231
The fact that Greek tragedy arose out of an originally religious ceremony is at least as significant as the connection of our modern theatre with the medieval Passion play, which was exclusively religious in origin; we are not permitted, therefore, to judge the problem under its purely aesthetic aspect ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 231
With Nietzsche as with Schiller the religious viewpoint is entirely overlooked and is replaced by the aesthetic. These things obviously have their aesthetic side and it should not be neglected. Nevertheless, if medieval Christianity is understood only aesthetically its true character is falsified and trivialized, just as much as if it were viewed exclusively from the historical standpoint ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 231
This shifting of the problem must doubtless have its psychological cause and purpose. The advantages of such a procedure are not far to seek: the aesthetic approach immediately converts the problem into a picture which the spectator can contemplate at his ease, admiring both its beauty and its ugliness, merely re-experiencing its passions at a safe distance, with no danger of becoming involved in them. The aesthetic attitude guards against any real participation, prevents one from being personally implicated, which is what a religious understanding of the problem would mean ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 232
Fluctuations of emotion are, of course, the constant concomitants of all psychic opposites, and hence of all conflicts of ideas, whether moral or otherwise. We know from experience that the emotions thus aroused increase in proportion as the exciting factor affects the individual as a whole ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 329
Brahman is not only the producer but the produced, the ever-becoming. The epithet “Gracious One” (vena), here bestowed on the sun, is elsewhere applied to the seer who is endowed with the divine light, for, like the Brahman sun, the mind of the seer traverses “earth and heaven contemplating Brahman.” The intimate connection, indeed identity, between the divine being and the Self (Atman) of the man is generally known ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 332
Hence the most one-sided differentiations are found among semi-barbarous people for instance, certain aspects of Christian asceticism that are an affront to good taste, and parallel phenomena among the yogis and Tibetan Buddhists. For the barbarian, this tendency to fall a victim to one-sidedness in one way or another, thus losing sight of his total personality, is a great and constant danger ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 346
The Gilgamesh epic, for example, begins with this conflict. The one-sidedness of the barbarian takes the form of daemonic compulsion; it has something of the character of going berserk or running amok. In all cases it presupposes an atrophy of instinct that is not found in the true primitive, for which reason he is in general still free from the one-sidedness of the cultural barbarian ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 346
The sort of demons that introversion and extraversion may become is a daily experience for us psychotherapists. We see in our patients and can feel in ourselves with what irresistible force the libido streams inwards or outwards, with what unshakable tenacity an introverted or extraverted attitude can take root. The description of manas and vac as “mighty monsters of Brahman” is in complete accord with the psychological fact that at the instant of its appearance the libido divides into two streams, which as a rule alternate periodically but at times may appear simultaneously in the form of a conflict, as an outward stream opposing an inward stream ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 347
The daemonic quality of the two movements lies in their ungovernable nature and overwhelming power. This quality, however, makes itself felt only when the instinct of the primitive is already so stunted as to prevent a natural and purposive counter-movement to one-sidedness, and culture not sufficiently advanced for man to tame his libido to the point where he can follow its introverting or extraverting movement of his own free will and intention ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 347
The vital optimum is not to be found in crude egoism, for fundamentally man is so constituted that the pleasure he gives to his neighbour is something essential to him. Nor can the optimum be reached by an unbridled craving for individualistic supremacy, because the collective element in man is so powerful that his longing for fellowship would destroy all pleasure in naked egoism ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 356
The optimum can be reached only through obedience to the tidal laws of the libido, by which systole alternates with diastole laws which bring pleasure and the necessary limitations of pleasure, and also set us those individual life tasks without whose accomplishment the vital optimum can never be attained ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 356
Amfortas has the Grail and suffers for it, because he lacks libido. Parsifal has nothing of either, he is nirdvandva, free from opposites, and is therefore the redeemer, the bestowed of healing and renewed vitality, who unites the bright, heavenly, feminine symbol of the Grail with the dark, earthy, masculine symbol of the spear ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 371
The undeniable sexual symbolism might easily lead to the one-sided interpretation that the union of spear and Grail merely signifies a release of sexuality. The fate of Amfortas shows, however, that sexuality is not the point. On the contrary, it was his relapse into a nature-bound, brutish attitude that was the cause of his suffering and brought about the loss of his power. His seduction by Kundry was a symbolic act, showing that it was not sexuality that dealt him his wound so much as an attitude of nature-bound compulsion, a supine submission to the biological urge ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 372
This attitude expresses the supremacy of the animal part of our psyche. The sacrificial wound that is destined for the beast strikes the man who is overcome by the beast all for the sake of man’s further development. The fundamental problem, as I have pointed out in Symbols of Transformation, is not sexuality per se, but the domestication of libido, which concerns sexuality only so far as it is one of the most important and most dangerous forms of libidinal expression ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 372
The central religious idea in this legend, of which there are numerous variants, is the holy vessel, which, it must be obvious to everyone, is a thoroughly non-Christian image, whose origin is to be sought in extra-canonical sources. From the material I have cited, it seems to me a genuine relic of Gnosticism, which either survived the extermination of heresies because of a secret tradition, or owed its revival to an unconscious reaction against the domination of official Christianity ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
But spiritualization always means the retention of a certain amount of libido, which would otherwise be immediately squandered in sexuality. Experience shows that when the libido is retained, one part of it flows into the spiritualized expression, while the remainder sinks into the unconscious and activates images that correspond to it, in this case the vessel symbol ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 401
As the symbol can come alive only through the devaluation of the object, it is evident that the purpose it serves is to deprive the object of its value. If the object had an absolute value, it would be an absolute determining factor for the subject and would abolish his freedom of action absolutely, since even a relative freedom could not coexist with absolute determination by the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 402
An example of the devalued object can be seen in the vision of Hermas, in which he saw a tower being built. The old woman, who at first had declared herself to be the Church, now explains that the tower is a symbol of the Church. Her significance is thus transferred to the tower, and it is with this that the whole remaining part of the text is concerned. For Hermas it is only the tower that matters, and no longer the old woman, let alone Rhoda. The detachment of libido from the real object, its concentration on the symbol and canalization into a symbolic function, is complete. The idea of a universal and undivided Church, expressed in the symbol of a seamless and impregnable tower, has become an unshakable reality in the mind of Hermas ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 402
The medieval background of Faust has quite special significance because there actually was a medieval element that presided over the birth of modern individualism. It began, it seems to me, with the worship of woman, which strengthened the man’s soul very considerably as a psychological factor, since the worship of woman meant worship of the soul. This is nowhere more beautifully and perfectly expresses than in Dante’s Divine Comedy ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 376
Dante is the spiritual knight of his lady; for her sake he embarks on the adventure of the lower and upper worlds. In this heroic endeavor her image is exalted into the heavenly, mystical figure of the Mother of Goad figure that has detached itself from the object and become the personification of a purely psychological factor, or rather, of those unconscious contents whose personification I have termed the anima. Canto XXXIII of the Paradiso expresses this culminating point of Dante’s psychic development in the prayer of St. Bernard ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 377
The very fact that Dante speaks through the mouth of St. Bernard is an indication of the transformation and exaltation of his own being. The same transformation also happens to Faust, who ascends from Gretchen to Helen and from Helen to the Mother of God; his nature is altered by repeated figurative deaths (Boy Charioteer, homunculus, Euphorion), until finally he attains the highest goal as Doctor Marianus. In that form Faust utters his prayer to the Virgin Mother ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 378
We find this characteristic transition from the worship of woman to the worship of the soul in an early Christian document, The Shepherd of Hermas, which flourished about A.D. 140. This book, written in Greek, consists of a number of visions and revelations describing the consolidation of the new faith. The book, long regarded as canonical, was nevertheless rejected by the Muratori Canon ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 381
The repressed erotic impression has activated the latent primordial image of goddess, i.e., the archetypal soul-image. The erotic impression has evidently become united in the collective unconscious with archaic residues which have preserved from time immemorial the imprint of vivid impressions of the nature of woman as mother and woman as desirable maid ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 383
Official Christianity, therefore, absorbed certain Gnostic elements that manifested themselves in the worship of woman and found a place for them in an intensified worship of Mary. I have selected the Litany of Loreto as an example of this process of assimilation from a wealth of equally interesting material. The assimilation of these elements to the Christian symbol nipped in the bud the psychic culture of the man; for his soul, previously reflected in the image of the chosen mistress, lost its individual form of expression through this absorption ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 399
Since the psychic relation to woman was expressed in the collective worship of Mary, the image of woman lost a value to which human beings had a natural right. This value could find its natural expression only through individual choice, and it sank into the unconscious when the individual form of expression was replaced by a collective one. In the unconscious the image of woman received an energy charge that activated the archaic and infantile dominants ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 399
Vessel symbolism probably contains a pagan relic which proved adaptable to Christianity, and this is all the more likely as the worship of Mary was itself a vestige of paganism which secured for the Christian Church the heritage of the Magna Mater, Isis, and other mother goddesses. The image of the vas Sapientiae, vessel of wisdom, likewise recalls its Gnostic prototype, Sophia ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 398
It elucidates the psychological relations between the worship of woman and the legend of the Grail, which was so essentially characteristic of the early Middle Ages. The central religious idea in this legend, of which there are numerous variants, is the holy vessel, a thoroughly non-Christian image, a genuine relic of Gnosticism ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
The symbolism of the vessel has pagan roots in the “magic cauldron” of Celtic mythology. Dagda, one of the benevolent gods of ancient Ireland, possesses such a cauldron, which supplies everybody with food according to his needs or merits. The Celtic god Bran likewise possesses a cauldron of renewal ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
Looked at historically, the soul, that many-faceted and much-interpreted concept, refers to a psychological content that must possess a certain measure of autonomy within the limits of consciousness. If this were not so, man would never have hit on the idea of attributing an independent existence to the soul, as though it were some objectively perceptible thing ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 419
The primitive, as we know, usually has several souls several autonomous complexes with a high degree of spontaneity, so that they appear as having a separate existence (as in certain mental disorders). On a higher level the number of souls decreases, until at the highest level of culture the soul resolves itself into the subject’s general awareness of his psychic activities and exists only as a term for the totality of psychic processes ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 419
The libido concentrated in the unconscious was formerly invested in objects, and this made the world seem all-powerful. God was then “outside,” but now he works from within, as the hidden treasure conceived as God’s kingdom. If then, Meister Eckhart reaches the conclusion that the soul is itself God’s kingdom, it is conceived as a function of relation to God, and God would be the power working within the soul and perceived by it. Eckhart even calls the soul the image of God ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 424
It is evident from the ethnological and historical material that the soul is a content that belongs partly to the subject and partly to the world of spirits, i.e., the unconscious. Hence the soul always has an earthly as well as a rather ghostly quality. It is the same with magical power, the divine force of primitives, whereas on the higher levels of culture God is entirely separate from man and is exalted to the heights of pure ideality. But the soul never loses its intermediate position But symbols are shaped energies, determining ideas whose affective power is just as great as their spiritual value ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 425
The organ of perception, the soul, apprehends the contents of the unconscious, and, as the creative function, gives birth to its dynamis in the form of a symbol. The soul gives birth to images that from the rational standpoint of consciousness are assumed to be worthless. And so they are, in the sense that they cannot immediately be turned to account in the objective world ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 426
We hear the voice of the collective psyche in new bold ideas, which with imperturbable assurance and the finality of natural law brings about spiritual transformation and renewal. The unconscious currents reached the surface at the time of the Reformation. The Reformation largely did away with the Church as the dispenser of salvation and established once more the personal relation to God ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 433
The end of the jewel [Pandora’s] is mysterious: it falls into the hands of a wandering Jew. “It was not a Jew of this world, and his clothes seemed to us exceedingly strange.” (Prometheus and Epimetheus p. 164). This peculiar Jew can only be Ahasuerus, who did not accept the actual Redeemer, and now, as it were, steals his image. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 454
The story of Ahasuerus is a late Christian legend, which cannot be traced back earlier than the thirteenth century. Psychologically, it sprang from a component of the personality or a charge of libido that could find no outlet in the Christian attitude to life and the world and was therefore repressed. The Jews were always a symbol for this, hence the persecution mania against the Jews in the Middle Ages ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 454
The ritual murder idea also plays a part in Spitteler’s story of Pandora in his Prometheus the Jew steals the wonder-child from heaven. It is a mythologized projection of a dim realization that the workings of the Redeemer are constantly being frustrated by the presence of an unredeemed element in the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 454
This unredeemed, untamed, barbarian element, which can only be held on a chain and cannot be allowed to run free, is projected upon those who have never accepted Christianity. There is an unconscious awareness of this intractable element whose existence we don’t like to admit hence the projection. In reality it is a part of ourselves that has contrived to escape the Christian process of domestication. The restlessness of the wandering Jew is a concretization of this unredeemed state ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 454
The paranoid idea can be the result, in pathological cases, of a particularly isolated and uninfluenceable complex which has become an “over-valued idea”, a dominant that defies all criticism and enjoys complete autonomy, until it finally becomes an all-controlling factor manifesting itself as “spleen.” In pathological cases it turns into an obsessive or paranoid idea, absolutely unshakable, that rules the individual’s entire life ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 467
The extravert generally has a relaxed attitude. Exceptions, however, are frequent, even in one and the same individual., put an extravert in a dark and silent room, where all his repressed complexes can gnaw at him, and he will get into such a state of tension that he will jump at the slightest stimulus ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 482
Empathy is a kind of perceptive process, characterized by the fact that, through feeling, some essential psychic content is projected into the object, so that the object is assimilated to the subject and coalesces with him to such an extent that the subject feels himself, as it were, in the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 486
This happens when the projected content is associated to a higher degree with the subject than with the object. He does not, however, feel himself projected into the object; rather, the “empathized” object appears animated to him [the subject], as though it were speaking to him of its own accord ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 486
It should be noted that in itself projection is usually an unconscious process not under conscious control. On the other hand it is possible to imitate the projection consciously by means of a conditional sentence for instance, “if you were my father “thus bringing about the situation of empathy ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 486
`As a rule, the projection transfers unconscious contents into the object, for which reason empathy is also termed “transference” (Freud) in analytical psychology. Empathy, therefore, is a form of extraversion ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 486
Worringer defines the aesthetic experience of empathy as follows: “Aesthetic enjoyment is objectified self-enjoyment” (Abstraction and Empathy, p. 5). Consequently, only a form one can empathize with is beautiful. Lipps says: “Only so far as this empathy extends are forms beautiful. Their beauty is simply my ideal having free play in them” (Aesthetic, p. 247). According to this, any form one cannot empathize with would be ugly. But here the theory of empathy reaches its limitations, for, as Worringer points out, there are art forms to which the empathetic attitude cannot be applied ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 487
It is indeed true that empathy presupposes a subjective attitude of confidence, or trustfulness toward the object. It is a readiness to meet the object halfway, a subjective assimilation that brings about a good understanding between subject and object or at least simulates it ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 489
As the essence of empathy is the projection of subjective contents, it follows that the preceding unconscious act must be the opposite a neutralizing of the object that renders it inoperative. In this way the object is emptied, so to speak, robbed of its spontaneous activity, and thus made a suitable receptacle for subjective contents ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 491
The empathizing subject wants to feel his own life in the object; hence the independence of the object and the difference between it and the subject must not be too great. As a result of the unconscious act that preceded empathy, the sovereignty of the object is depotentiated, or rather it is overcompensated, because the subject immediately gains ascendency over the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 491
This can only happen unconsciously, through an unconscious fantasy that either devalues and depotentiates the object or enhances the value and importance of the subject. Only in this way can that difference of potential arise which empathy needs in order to convey subjective contents into the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 491
Just as abstraction is based on the magical significance and power of the object, the basis of empathy is the magical significance of the subject, who gains power over the object by means of mystical identification. The primitive is in a similar position: he is magically influenced by the power of the fetish, yet at the same time he is the magician and accumulator of magical power who charges the fetish with potency. An example of this is the churinga rite of the Australian aborigines ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 496
The abstracting attitude is centripetal, i.e., introverting. Worringer’s conception of abstraction therefore corresponds to the introverted attitude. It is significant that Worringer describes the influence of the object as fear or dread. The abstracting attitude endows the object with a threatening or injurious quality against which it has to defend itself. This seemingly a priori quality is doubtless a projection, but a negative one. We must therefore suppose that abstraction is preceded by an unconscious act of projection which transfers negative contents to the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 490
The man with the abstracting attitude finds himself in a frighteningly animated world that seeks to overpower and smother him. He therefore withdraws into himself, in order to think up a saving formula calculated to enhance his subjective value at least to the point where he can hold his own against the influence of the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 492
The man with the empathetic attitude finds himself, on the contrary, in a world that needs his subjective feeling to give it life and soul. He animates it with himself, full of trust; but the man with the abstract attitude retreats mistrustfully before the daemonism of objects, and builds up a protective interlude composed of abstractions ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 492
Worringer rightly says of Oriental art: Tormented by the confusion and flux of the phenomenal world, these people were dominated by an immense need for repose. The enjoyment they sought in art consisted not so much in immersing themselves in the things of the outside world and finding pleasure there, as in raising the individual object out of its arbitrary and seemingly fortuitous existence, immortalizing it by approximation to abstract forms, and so finding a point of repose amid the ceaseless flux of appearances (Abstraction and Empathy, p. 16) ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 493
All is on fire. The eye and all the senses are on fire, with the fire of passion, the fire of hate, the fire of delusion; the fire is kindled by birth, old age, and death, by pain and lamentation, by sorrow, suffering, and despair…The whole world is in flames, the whole world is wrapped in smoke, the whole world is consumed by fire, the whole world trembles (Warren, Buddhism in Translations, p. 352) ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 494
It is this fearful and sorrowful vision of the world that forces the Buddhist into his abstracting attitude, just as, according to legend, a similar impression started the Buddha on his life’s quest. The dynamic animation of the object as the impelling cause of abstraction is strikingly expressed in the Buddha’s symbolic language. This animation does not come from empathy, but from an unconscious projection that actually exists a priori. The term “projection” hardly conveys the real meaning of this phenomenon. Projection is really an act that happens, and not a condition existing a priori, which is what we are obviously dealing with here ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 495
The primitive’s objects have a dynamic animation. They are charged with soul-stuff or soul-force (and not always possessed of souls, as the animist theory supposes) so that they have a direct psychic effect upon him, producing what is practically a dynamic identification with the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 495
In certain primitive languages articles of personal use have a gender denoting “alive” (the suffix of animation). With the abstracting attitude it is much the same, for here too the object is alive and autonomous from the beginning and in no need of empathy; on the contrary, it has such a powerful effect that the subject is forced into introversion ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 495
Its strong libido investment comes from its participation mystique with the subject’s own unconscious. This is clearly expressed in the words of the Buddha: the universal fire is identical with the fire of libido, with the subject’s burning passion, which appears to him as an object because it is not differentiated into a disposable function ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 495
Identification with the directed function has an undeniable advantage in that a man can best adapt to collective demands and expectations; moreover, it also enables him to keep out of the way of his inferior, undifferentiated, undirected functions by self-alienation. In addition, “selflessness” is always considered a particular virtue from the standpoint of social morality ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 502
For the more he identifies with one function, the more he invests it with libido, and the more he withdraws libido from the other functions. They can tolerate being deprived of libido for even quite long periods, but in the end they will react. Being drained of libido, they gradually sink below the threshold of consciousness, lose their associative connection with it, and finally lapse into the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 502
This is a regressive development, a reversion to the infantile and finally to the archaic level. Since man has spent only a few thousand years in a cultivated state, as opposed to several hundred thousand years in a state of savagery, the archaic modes of functioning are still extraordinarily vigorous and easily reactivated. Hence, when certain functions disintegrate by being deprived of libido, their archaic foundations in the unconscious become operative again ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 502
It is sufficient to note that the peculiar nature of the extravert constantly urges him to expend and propagate himself in every way, while the tendency of the introvert is to defend himself against all demands from outside, to conserve his energy by withdrawing it from objects, thereby consolidating his own position ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 559
Blake’s intuition did not err when he described the two classes of men as “prolific” and “devouring.” Just as, biologically, the two modes of adaptation work equally well and are successful in their own way, so too with the typical attitudes. The one achieves its end by a multiplicity of relationships, the other by monopoly ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 559
The very adjustment of the normal extraverted type is his limitation. He owes his normality on the one hand to his ability to fit into existing conditions with comparative ease. His requirements are limited to the objectively possible, for instance to the career that holds out good prospects at this particular moment ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 564
The normal extraverted type does what is needed of him, or what is expected of him, and refrains from all innovations that are not entirely self-evident or that in any way exceed the expectations of those around him. On the other hand, his normality must also depend essentially on whether he takes account of his subjective needs and requirements, and this is just his weak point ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 564
The tendency of his type is so outer-directed that even the most obvious of all subjective facts, the condition of his own body, receives scant attention. The body is not sufficiently objective or “outside,” so that the satisfaction of elementary needs which are indispensable to physical well-being is no longer given its due. The body accordingly suffers, to say nothing of the psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 564
One can feel “correctly” only when feeling is not disturbed by anything else. Nothing disturbs feeling so much as thinking. It is therefore understandable that in this type [extraverted feeling] thinking will be kept in abeyance as much as possible. This does not mean that the woman does not think at all; on the contrary, she may think a great deal and very cleverly, but her thinking is never sui generis [of its own kind]it is an Epimethean appendage to her feeling. What she cannot feel, she cannot consciously think. “But I can’t think what I don’t feel,” such a type said to me once in indignant tones. So far as her feeling allows, she can think very well, but every conclusion, however logical, that might lead to a disturbance of feeling is rejected at the outset. It is simply not thought. Thus everything that fits in with the objective values is good, and is loved, and everything else seems to her to exist in a world apart ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 598
As feeling is undeniably a more obvious characteristic of feminine psychology than thinking, the most pronounced feeling types are to be found among women. When extraverted feeling predominates we speak of an extraverted feeling type. Examples of this type that I can call to mind are, almost without exception, women. The woman of this type follows her feeling as a guide throughout life. As a result of upbringing her feeling has developed into an adjusted function subject to conscious control. Except in extreme cases, her feeling has a personal quality, even though she may have repressed the subjective factor to a large extent ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 597
Her [extraverted feeling type] personality appears adjusted in relation to external conditions. Her feelings harmonize with objective situations and general values. This is seen nowhere more clearly than in her love choice: the “suitable” man is loved, and no one else; he is suitable not because he appeals to her hidden subjective nature about which she usually knows nothing but because he comes up to all reasonable expectations in the matter of age, position, income, size and respectability of his family, etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 597
Accordingly the unconscious of this type [extraverted feeling] contains first and foremost a peculiar kind of thinking, a thinking that is infantile, archaic, negative. So long as the conscious feeling preserves its personal quality, or, to put it another way, so long as the personality is not swallowed up in successive states of feeling, this unconscious thinking remains compensatory. But as soon as their personality is dissociated and dissolves into a succession of contradictory feeling states, the identity of the ego is lost and the subject lapses into the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 600
When this happens, it [the ego] gets associated with the unconscious thinking processes and occasionally helps them to the surface. The stronger the conscious feeling is and the more ego-less it becomes, the stronger grows the unconscious opposition. The unconscious thoughts gravitate round just the most valued objects and mercilessly strip them of their value ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 600
The “nothing but” type of thinking comes into its own here, since it effectively depotentiates all feelings that are bound to the object. The unconscious thinking reaches the surface in the form of obsessive ideas which are invariably of a negative and depreciatory character ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 600
Women of this type have moments when the most hideous thoughts fasten on the very objects most valued by their feelings. This negative thinking utilizes every infantile prejudice or comparison for the deliberate purpose of casting aspersions on the feeling value and musters every primitive instinct in the attempt to come out with “nothing but” interpretations. Hysteria, with the characteristic infantile sexuality of its unconscious world of ideas, is the principal form of neurosis in this type ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 600
Objects are valued in so far as they excite sensations, and so far as lies within the power of sensation, they are fully accepted into consciousness whether they are compatible with rational judgments or not. The sole criterion of their value is the intensity of the sensation produced by their objective qualities. Accordingly, all objective processes which excite any sensations at all make their appearance in consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 605
Sensation is strongly developed in children and primitives, since in both cases it predominates over thinking and feeling, though not necessarily over intuition. I [Jung] regard sensation as conscious, and intuition as unconscious, perception. For me sensation and intuition represent a pair of opposites, or two mutually compensating functions, like thinking and feeling ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 795
The extraverted sensation type is the lover of tangible reality, with little inclination for reflection and no desire to dominate. To feel the object, to have sensations and if possible enjoy them that is his constant aim. He is by no means unlovable, on the contrary, his lively capacity for enjoyment makes him very good company. He is usually a jolly fellow, and sometimes a refined aesthete. In the former case the great problems of life hang on a good or indifferent dinner, and in the latter, it’s all a question of good taste ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 607
As the extraverted sensation type has no ideals connected with ideas, he has no reason to act in any way contrary to the reality of things as they are. This manifests itself in all the externals of his life. He dresses well, as befits the occasion; he keeps a good table with plenty of drink for his friends, making them feel very grand, or at least giving them to understand that his refined taste entitles him to make a few demands of them. He may even convince them that certain sacrifices are decidedly worthwhile for the sake of style ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 607
The more sensation predominates, the subject disappears behind the sensation, and the less agreeable does this type [extraverted sensation] become. He develops into a crude pleasure-seeker, or else degenerates into an unscrupulous, effete aesthete. Although the object has become quite indispensable to him, yet, as something existing in its own right, it is none the less devalued. It is ruthlessly exploited and squeezed dry, since now its sole use is to stimulate sensation ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 608
What comes from inside seems to the extraverted sensation type as morbid and suspect. He always reduces his thoughts and feelings to objective causes, to influences emanating from objects, quite unperturbed by the most glaring violations of logic. Once he can get back to tangible reality in any form he can breathe again. In this respect he is surprisingly credulous ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 607
The bondage to the object is carried to the extreme limit. In consequence, the unconscious is forced out of its compensatory role into open opposition. Above all, the repressed intuitions begin to assert themselves in the form of projections. The wildest suspicions arise; if the object is a sexual one, jealous fantasies and anxiety states gain the upper hand ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 608
More acute cases develop every sort of phobia, and, in particular, compulsion symptoms. The pathological contents have a markedly unreal character, with a frequent moral or religious streak. A pettifogging captiousness follows, or a grotesquely punctilious morality combined with primitive “magical” superstitions that fall back on abstruse rites ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 608
All these things have their source in the repressed inferior functions which have been driven into harsh opposition to the conscious attitude, and they appear in a guise that is all the more striking because they rest on the most absurd assumptions, in complete contrast to the conscious sense of reality ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 608
The whole structure of thought and feeling seems, in this second personality, to be twisted into a pathological parody: reason turns into hair-splitting pedantry, morality into dreary moralizing and blatant Pharisaism, religion into ridiculous superstition, and intuition, the noblest gift of man, into meddlesome officiousness, poking into every corner; instead of gazing into the far distance, it descends to the lowest level of human meanness ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 608
No other human type can equal the extraverted sensation type in realism. His sense for objective facts is extraordinarily developed. His life is an accumulation of actual experiences of concrete objects, and the more pronounced his type, the less use does he make of his experience. In certain cases the events in his life hardly deserve the name “experience” at all. What he experiences serves at most as a guide to fresh sensations; anything new that comes within his range of interest is acquired by way of sensation and has to serves its ends ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 606
The subjective factor has, from the earliest times and among all peoples, remained in large measure constant, elementary perceptions and cognitions being almost universally the same, it is a reality that is just as firmly established as the external object. By the subjective factor I understand that psychological action or reaction which merges with the effect produced by the object and so gives rise to a new psychic datum ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 622
How extraordinarily strong the subjective factor can be is shown most clearly in art. Its predominance sometimes amounts to a complete suppression of the object’s influence ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 647
It is precisely in the present epoch, and particularly in those movements which are somewhat ahead of the time, that the subjective factor reveals itself in exaggerated, tasteless forms of expression bordering on caricature. Owing to the extraverted overvaluation of the object e.g., the art of the present day ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 645
The image is called primordial when it possesses an archaic character. I [Jung] speak of its archaic character when the image is in striking accord with familiar mythological motifs. It then expresses material primarily derived from the collective unconscious, and indicates at the same time that the factors influencing the conscious situation of the moment are collective rather than personal ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 746
The primordial image, elsewhere also termed archetype, is always collective, i.e., it is at least common to entire peoples or epochs. In all probability the most important mythological motifs are common to all times and races. I [Jung] have, in fact, been able to demonstrate a whole series of motifs from Greek mythology in the dreams and fantasies of pure-bred Negroes suffering from mental disorders ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 747
The primordial image is related just as much to certain palpable, self-perpetuating, and continually operative natural processes as it is to certain inner determinants of psychic life and of life in general. The primordial image expresses the unique and unconditioned creative power of the psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 748
The primordial image frees psychic energy from its bondage to sheer uncomprehended perception. At the same time, it links the energies released by the perception of stimuli to a definite meaning, which then guides action along paths corresponding to this meaning ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 749
It releases unavailable, dammed-up energy by leading the mind back to nature and canalizing sheer instinct into mental forms ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 749
The primordial image has one great advantage over the clarity of the idea, and that is its vitality. It is a self-activating organism, “endowed with generative power” ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 754
The primordial image is an inherited organization of psychic energy, an ingrained system, which not only gives expression to the energic process but facilitates its operation. It shows how the energic process has run its unvarying course from time immemorial, while simultaneously allowing a perpetual repetition of it by means of an apprehension or psychic grasp of situations so that life can continue into the future ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 754
The primordial images, in their totality, constitute a psychic mirror-world. It is a mirror with the peculiar faculty of reflecting the existing contents of consciousness not in their known and customary form but, as it were, sub specie aeternitatis, somewhat as a million-year-old consciousness might see them. Such a consciousness would see the becoming and passing away of things simultaneously with their momentary existence in the present, and not only that, it would also see what was before their becoming and will be after their passing hence ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 649
The predominance of the subjective factor in consciousness naturally involves a devaluation of the object. The object is not given the importance that belongs to it by right. Just as it plays too great a role in the extraverted attitude, it has too little meaning for the introvert. To the extent that his consciousness is subjectivized and excessive importance attached to the ego, the object is put in a position which in the end becomes untenable. The object is a factor whose power cannot be denied, whereas the ego is a very limited and fragile thing ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 626
It would be a very different matter if the Self opposed the object. Self and world are commensurable factors; hence a normal introverted attitude is as justifiable and valid as a normal extraverted attitude. But if the ego has usurped the claims of the subject, this naturally produces, by way of compensation, an unconscious reinforcement of the influence of the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 626
In spite of positively convulsive efforts to ensure the superiority of the ego, the object comes to exert an overwhelming influence, which is all the more invincible because it seizes on the individual unawares and forcibly obtrudes itself on his consciousness ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 626
As a result of the ego’s unadapted relation to the object for a desire to dominate it is not adaptation a compensatory relation arises in the unconscious which makes itself felt as an absolute and irrepressible tie to the object. The more the ego struggles to preserve its independence, freedom from obligation, and superiority, the more it becomes enslaved to the objective data ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 626
The individual’s freedom of mind is fettered by the ignominy of his financial dependence, his freedom of action trembles in the face of public opinion, his moral superiority collapses in a morass of inferior relationships, and his desire to dominate ends in a pitiful craving to be loved ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 626
It is now the unconscious that takes care of the relation to the object, and it does so in a way that is calculated to bring the illusion of power and the fantasy of superiority to utter ruin. The object assumes terrifying proportions in spite of the conscious attempt to degrade it ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 626
In consequence, the ego’s efforts to detach itself from the object and get it under control become all the more violent. In the end it surrounds itself with a regular system of defences (aptly described by Adler) for the purpose of preserving at least the illusion of superiority. The introvert’s alienation from the object is now complete; he wears himself out with defence measures on the one hand, while on the other he makes fruitless attempts to impose his will on the object and assert himself. These efforts are constantly being frustrated by the overwhelming impressions received from the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 626
The object continually imposes itself on him against his will, it arouses in him the most disagreeable and intractable affects and persecutes him at every step. A tremendous inner struggle is needed all the time in order to “keep going.” The typical form his neurosis takes is psychasthenia, a malady characterized on the one hand by extreme sensitivity and on the other by great proneness to exhaustion and chronic fatigue ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 626
The introvert’s fear of objects develops into a peculiar kind of cowardliness; he shrinks from making himself or his opinions felt, fearing that this will only increase the object’s power ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 627
He is terrified of strong affects in others, and is hardly ever free from the dread of falling under hostile influences ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 627
Objects possess puissant and terrifying qualities for him qualities he cannot consciously discern in them, but which he imagines he sees through his unconscious perception ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 627
As the introvert’s relation to the object is very largely repressed, it takes place via the unconscious, where it becomes charged with the latter’s qualities. These qualities are mostly infantile and archaic, so that the relation to the object becomes primitive too, and the object seems endowed with magical powers ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 627
Anything strange and new arouses fear and mistrust, as though concealing unknown perils; heirlooms and suchlike are attached to the introvert’s soul as by invisible threads; any change is upsetting, if not positively dangerous, as it seems to denote a magical animation of the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 627
The introvert’s ideal is a lonely island where nothing moves except what he permits to move ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 627
Since the introverted feeling type appears rather cold and reserved, it might seem on a superficial view that such women have no feelings at all. But this would be quite wrong. Such a misunderstanding is a common occurrence in the life of this type, and is used as a weighty argument against the possibility of any deeper feeling relation to the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 641
It is principally among women that I have found the predominance of introverted feeling. “Still waters run deep” is very true of such women. They are mostly silent, inaccessible, hard to understand; often they hide behind a childish or banal mask, and their temperament is inclined to melancholy ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 640
The introverted feeling type neither shine nor reveal themselves. As they are mainly guided by their subjective feelings, their true motives generally remain hidden. Their outward demeanour is harmonious, inconspicuous, giving an impression of pleasing repose, or of sympathetic response ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 640
Introverted feeling is conditioned subjectively and is only secondarily concerned with the object. It seldom appears on the surface and is generally misunderstood. It is a feeling which seems to devalue the object, and it therefore manifests itself for the most part negatively ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 638
Secret feelings give a woman of this type a mysterious power that may prove terribly fascinating to the extraverted man, for it touches his unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 642
The existence of positive feeling can be inferred only indirectly. The aim of introverted feeling is not to adjust itself to the object, but to subordinate it in an unconscious effort to realize the underlying images. It is continually seeking an image which has no existence in reality, but which it has seen in a vision. It glides unheedingly over all objects that do not fit in with its aim. It strives after inner intensity, for which the objects serve at most as a stimulus ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 638
The primordial images are, of course, just as much ideas as feelings. Fundamental ideas, ideas like God, freedom, and immortality, are just as much feeling-values as they are significant ideas. Everything, therefore, that we have said about introverted thinking is equally true of introverted feeling, only here everything is felt while there it was thought. But the very fact that thoughts can generally be expressed more intelligibly than feelings demands a more than ordinary descriptive or artistic ability before the real wealth of this feeling can be even approximately presented or communicated to the world. If subjective thinking can be understood only with difficulty because of it unrelatedness, this is true in even higher degree of subjective feeling ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 639
In order to communicate with others, it [feeling] has to find an external form not only acceptable to itself, but capable also of arousing a parallel feeling in them. Thanks to the relatively great inner (as well as outer) uniformity of human beings, it is actually possible to do this, though the form acceptable to feeling is extraordinarily difficult to find so long as it is still mainly oriented to the fathomless store of primordial images ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 639
If, however, feeling is falsified by an egocentric attitude, it at once becomes unsympathetic, because it is then concerned mainly with the ego. It inevitably creates the impression of sentimental self-love, of trying to make itself interesting, and even of morbid self-admiration. The intensification of egocentric feeling only leads to inane transports of feeling for their own sake. This is the mystical, ecstatic stage which opens the way for the extraverted functions that feeling has repressed ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 639
Just as introverted thinking is counterbalanced by a primitive feeling, to which objects attach themselves with a magical force, introverted feeling is counterbalanced by a primitive thinking, whose concretism and slavery to facts surpass all bounds. Feeling progressively emancipates itself from the object and creates for itself a freedom of action and conscience that is purely subjective and may even renounce all traditional values. But so much the more does unconscious thinking fall a victim to the power of objective reality ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 639
Introverted feeling makes little effort to respond to the real emotions of the other person. They are more often damped down and rebuffed, or cooled off by a negative value judgment ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 640
The introverted feeling type has no desire to affect others, to impress, influence, or change them in any way. If this outward aspect is more pronounced, it arouses a suspicion of indifference and coldness, which may actually turn into a disregard for the comfort and well-being of others. One is distinctly aware then of the movement of feeling away from the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 640
The mysterious power of this type comes from the deeply felt, unconscious images, but consciously the introverted feeling type is apt to relate it to the ego, where upon her influence becomes debased into a personal tyranny. Whenever the unconscious subject is identified with the ego, the mysterious power of intensive feeling turns into a banal and overweening desire to dominate, into vanity and despotic bossiness. This produces a type of woman notorious for her unscrupulous ambition and mischievous cruelty. It is a change, however that leads to neurosis ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 642
Although the tendency [of the introverted feeling type] to overpower or coerce the other person with her secret feelings rarely plays a disturbing role in the normal type, some trace of it nevertheless seeps through in the form of a domineering influence often difficult to define. It is sensed as a sort of stifling or oppressive feeling which holds everybody around her under a spell ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 642
Although, with the introverted feeling type, there is a constant readiness for peaceful and harmonious co-existence, strangers are shown no touch of amiability, no gleam of responsive warmth, but are met with apparent indifference or a repelling coldness. Often they are made to feel entirely superfluous. This type observes a benevolent though critical neutrality, coupled with a faint trace of superiority that soon takes the wind out of the sails of a sensitive person. Any stormy emotion, however, will be struck down with murderous coldness ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 640
The introverted feeling type’s feelings are intensive rather than extensive. They develop in depth. While an extensive feeling of sympathy can express itself in appropriate words and deeds, and thus quickly gets back to normal again, an intensive sympathy, being shut off from every means of expression, acquires a passionate depth that comprises a whole world of misery and simple gets benumbed. To the outside world, or to the blind eyes of the extravert, this intensive sympathy looks like coldness, because usually it does nothing visible, and an extraverted consciousness is unable to believe in invisible forces ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 641
Introverted feeling remains normal so long as the ego feels subordinate to the unconscious subject, and feeling is aware of something higher and mightier than the ego, otherwise it leads to neurosis ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 643
With the introverted intuitive type, a compulsion neurosis expresses itself with hypochondriacal symptoms, hypersensitivity of the sense organs, and compulsive ties to particular persons or objects. A condition occurring through a forced exaggeration of the conscious attitude ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 663
In the introverted sensation type a compulsion neurosis results as soon as the unconscious becomes antagonistic. The archaic intuitions come to the surface and exert their pernicious influence, forcing themselves on the individual and producing compulsive ideas of the most perverse kind. Hysterical features are masked by symptoms of exhaustion ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 654
Since extraverted intuition is directed predominantly to objects, it actually comes very close to sensation; indeed, the expectant attitude to external objects is just as likely to make use of sensation. Hence, if intuition is to function properly, sensation must to a large extent be suppressed ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 611
This type seizes on new objects or situations with great intensity, sometimes with extraordinary enthusiasm, only to abandon them cold-bloodedly, without any compunction and apparently without remembering them, as soon as their range is known and no further developments can be divined. So long as a new possibility is in the offing, the intuitive is bound to it with the shackles of fate. It is as though his whole life vanished in the new situation ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 613
The extraverted intuitive claims a freedom and exemption from restraint, submitting his decisions to no rational judgment and relying entirely on his nose for the possibilities that chance throws in his way ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 615
The extraverted intuitive is continually scenting out new possibilities which he pursues with equal unconcern for his own welfare and for that of others, pressing on quite heedless of human considerations and tearing down what has been built in his everlasting search for change ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 658
The extraverted intuitive type is uncommonly important both economically and culturally. If his intentions are good, i.e., if his attitude is not too egocentric, he can render exceptional service as the initiator or promoter of new enterprises. He is the natural champion of all minorities with a future. Because he is able, when oriented more to people than things, to make an intuitive diagnosis of their abilities and potentialities, he can also “make” men. His capacity to inspire courage or to kindle enthusiasm for anything new is unrivalled, although he may already have dropped it by the morrow ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 614
The stronger his intuition, the more his ego becomes fused with all the possibilities he envisions. He brings his vision to life, he presents it convincingly and with dramatic fire, he embodies it, so to speak. But this is not play-acting, it is a kind of fate ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 614
Since the extraverted intuitive tends to rely most predominantly on his vision, his moral efforts become one-sided; he makes himself and his life symbolic adapted, it is true, to the inner and eternal meaning of events, but unadapted to present-day reality. He thus deprives himself of any influence upon it because he remains uncomprehended. His language is not the one currently spoken it has become too subjective. His arguments lack the convincing power of reason. He can only profess or proclaim. His is “the voice of one crying in the wilderness” ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 662
Because extraverted intuition is oriented by the object, there is a marked dependence on external situations, but it is altogether different than the dependence of the sensation type ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 613
The extraverted intuitive type would seem to be more common among women than among men. In women the intuitive capacity shows itself not so much in the professional as in the social sphere. Such women understand the art of exploiting every social occasion, they make the right social connections, they seek out men with prospects only to abandon everything again for the sake of a new possibility ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 613
The extraverted intuitive will experience through a forced exaggeration of the conscious attitude, a complete subordination to inner perceptions, the unconscious goes over to the opposition, giving rise to compulsive sensations whose excessive dependence on the object directly contradicts the conscious attitude ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 663
The exrraverted intuitive exempts himself from the restrictions of reason only to fall victim to neurotic compulsions in the form of over-subtle ratiocinations, hairsplitting dialectics, and a compulsive tie to the sensation aroused by the object. His conscious attitude towards both sensation and object is one of ruthless superiority. Not that he means to be ruthless or superior he simply does not see the object that everyone else sees and rides roughshod over it, just as the sensation type has no eyes for its soul. But sooner or later the object takes revenge in the form of compulsive hypochondriacal ideas, phobias, and every imaginable kind of absurd bodily sensation ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 615
Thinking and feeling, the indispensable components of conviction, are his [extraverted intuitive] inferior functions, carrying no weight and hence incapable of effectively withstanding the power of intuition. And yet these functions are the only ones that could compensate its supremacy by supplying the judgment which the intuitive type totally lacks. The intuitive’s morality is governed neither by thinking nor by feeling; he has his own characteristic morality, which consists in a loyalty to his vision and in voluntary submission to its authority ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 613
The extraverted intuitive’s consideration for the welfare of others is weak. Their psychic well-being counts as little with him as does his own. He has equally little regard for their convictions and way of life, and on this account he is often put down as an immoral and unscrupulous adventurer ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 613
The extraverted intuitive represses the sensation of the object, giving rise to a compensatory extraverted sensation function of an archaic character. The unconscious personality can best be described as an extraverted sensation type of a rather low and primitive order. Instinctuality and intemperance are the hallmarks of this sensation, combined with an extraordinary dependence on sense-impressions ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 663
The extraverted intuitive’s consideration for the welfare of others is weak. Their psychic well-being counts as little with him as does his own. He has equally little regard for their convictions and way of life, and on this account he is often put down as an immoral and unscrupulous adventurer ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 613
The extraverted intuitive’s remarkable indifference to external objects is shared by the introverted intuitive in relation to inner objects ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 658
Apperception is a psychic process by which a new content is articulated with similar, already existing contents in such a way that it becomes understood, apprehended, or “clear.” We distinguish active from passive apperception ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 683
Active apperception is a process by which the subject, of his own accord and from his own motives, consciously apprehends a new content with attention and assimilates it to other contents already constellated ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 683
Passive apperception is a process by which a new content forces itself upon consciousness either from without (through the senses) or from within (from the unconscious) and, as it were, compels attention and enforces apprehension ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 683
Such contents are what Lévy-Bruhl calls the représentations collectives of primitives. Among primitives, the représentations collectives are at the same time collective feelings, as Lévy-Bruhl has shown. Because of this collective feeling-value he calls the représentations collectives “mystical,” since they are not merely intellectual but emotional ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 692
Among civilized peoples, too, certain collective ideas God, justice, fatherland, etc. are bund up with collective feelings. This collective quality adheres not only to particular psychic elements or contents but to whole functions (q.v.). Thus the thinking function as a whole can have a collective quality, when it possesses general validity and accords with the laws of logic. Similarly, the feeling function as a whole can be collective, when it is identical with the general feeling and accords with general expectations, the general moral consciousness, etc. In the same way, sensation and intuition are collective when they are at the same time characteristic of a large group of men ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 692
Thinking is oriented by the object and fed from objective data transmitted largely by sense perception, therefore it need not be purely concretistic since it can just as well be purely ideal thinking ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 577
The thinking type restricts the products of sensation and intuition since choice is made by a rational judgment. It is not the intensity of a sensation that decides action but judgment ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 602
The thinking function as a whole can have a collective quality when it possesses general validity and accords with the laws of logic ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 692
Thinking is a directed function, and so is feeling. When these functions are concerned not with a rational choice of objects, or with the qualities and interrelations of objects, but with the perception of accidentals which the actual object never lacks, they at once lose the attribute of directedness and, with it, something of their rational character, because they then accept the rational. They begin to be irrational. Thinking and feeling find fulfillment only when they are in complete harmony with the laws of reason ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 776
Concretism is a concept which falls under the more general concept of participation mystique. Just as the latter represents a fusion of the individual with external objects, concretism represents a fusion of thinking and feeling with sensation, so that the object of one is at the same time the object of the other. This fusion prevents any differentiation of thinking and feeling and keeps them both within the sphere of sensation; they remain its servants and can never be developed into pure functions ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 698
Concretism, therefore, is an archaism. The magical influence of the fetish is not experienced as a subjective state of feeling but sensed as a magical effect. That is concretistic feeling. The primitive does not experience the idea of divinity as a subjective content; for him the sacred tree is the abode of the god, or even the god himself. That is concretistic thinking. In civilized man, concretistic thinking consists in the inability to conceive of anything except immediately obvious facts transmitted by the senses, or in the inability to discriminate between subjective feeling and the sensed object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 697
Differentiation is a form of mental activity that frees a content from its association with the irrelevant elements by distinguishing it from them or, in other words, differentiating it ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 677
Differentiation means the development of differences, the separation of parts from a whole. It consists in the separation of the function from other functions, and in the separation of its individual parts from each other. Without differentiation direction is impossible, since the direction of a function towards a goal depends on the elimination of anything irrelevant. Fusion with the irrelevant precludes direction; only a differentiated function is capable of being directed ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 705
Feeling is primarily a process that takes place between the ego and a given content, a process, moreover, that imparts to the content a definite value in the sense of acceptance or rejection (“like” or “dislike”). The process can also appear isolated, as it were, in the form of a “mood,” regardless of the momentary contents of consciousness or momentary sensations ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 724
Feeling, therefore, is an entirely subjective process, which may be in every respect independent of external stimuli, though it allies itself with every sensation. Even an “indifferent” sensation possesses a feeling-tone, namely that of indifference, which again expresses some sort of valuation. Hence feeling is a kind of judgment, differing from intellectual judgment in that its aim is not to establish conceptual relations but to set up a subjective criterion of acceptance or rejection. Valuation by feeling extends to every content of consciousness, of whatever kind it may be ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 725
Feeling may be distinguished from affect, in spite of the fact that the dividing line is fluid, since every feeling, after attaining a certain strength, releases physical innervations, thus becoming an affect ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 681
Feeling restricts the products of sensation and intuition since the choice is made by a rational judgment. It is not the intensity of a sensation that decides action but judgment (feeling) ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 602
One can feel “correctly” only when feeling is not disturbed by anything else. Nothing disturbs feeling so much as thinking. It is therefore understandable that thinking will be kept in abeyance as much as possible ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 598
If feeling is falsified by an egocentric attitude, it at once becomes unsympathetic, because it is then concerned mainly with the ego. It inevitably creates the impression of sentimental self-love, of trying to make itself interesting, and even of morbid self-admiration ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 639
Identification is a psychological process in which the personality is partially or totally dissimilated. Identification is an alienation of the subject from himself for the sake of the object, in which he is, so to speak, disguised ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 738
For example, identification with the father means, in practice, adopting all the father’s ways of behaving, as though the son were the same as the father and not a separate individuality ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 738
Identification differs from imitation in that it is an unconscious imitation, whereas imitation is a conscious copying. Imitation is an indispensable aid in developing the youthful personality. It is beneficial so long as it does not serve as a mere convenience and hinder the development of ways and means suited to the individual ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 738
Similarly, identification can be beneficial so long as the individual cannot go his own way. But when a better possibility presents itself, identification shows its morbid character by becoming just as great a hindrance as it was an unconscious help and support before. It now has a dissociative effect, splitting the individual into two mutually estranged personalities ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 738
Identification does not always apply to persons but may also apply to things (e.g., a movement of some kind, a business, etc.) and to psychological functions. The latter kind is, in fact, particularly important ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 739
Identification then leads to the formation of a secondary character, the individual identifying with his best developed function to such an extent that he alienates himself very largely or even entirely from his original character, with the result that his true individuality falls into the unconscious. This is nearly always the rule with people who have one highly differentiated function. It is, in fact, a necessary transitional stage on the way to individuation ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 739
The primordial image, elsewhere also termed archetype, is always collective, i.e., it is at least common to entire peoples or epochs. In all probability the most important mythological motifs are common to all times and races. I [Jung] have, in fact, been able to demonstrate a whole series of motifs from Greek mythology in the dreams and fantasies of pure-bred Negroes suffering from mental disorders ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 747
The primordial image is the precursor of the idea, and its matrix. By detaching it from the concretism peculiar and necessary to the primordial image, reason develops it into a concept i.e., an idea which differs from all other concepts in that it is not a datum of experience but is actually the underlying principle of all experience. The idea derives this quality from the primordial image, which, as an expression of the specific structure of the brain, gives every experience a definite form ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 750
The term introjection was introduced by Avenarius to correspond with projection. The expulsion of a subjective content into an object, which is what Avenarius meant, Ferenczi has now defined introjection as the opposite of projection, namely as an indrawing of the object into the subjective sphere of interest, while projection is an expulsion of subjective contents into the object. Introjection is a sort of “diluting process,” an “expansion of the circle of interest” ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 767
Reductive means `leading back.’ The term is used to denote a method of psychological interpretation which regards the unconscious product not as a symbol but semiotically, as a sign or symptom of an underlying process ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 788
The reductive method traces the unconscious product back to its elements, no matter whether these be reminiscences of events that actually took place, or elementary psychic processes. The reductive method is oriented backwards, in contrast to the constructive method, whether in the purely historical sense or in the figurative sense of tracing complex, differentiated factors back to something more general and more elementary ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 788
The interpretive methods of both Freud and Adler are reductive, since in both cases there is a reduction to the elementary processes of wishing or striving, which in the last resort are of an infantile or physiological nature ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 788
Reduction has a disintegrative effect on the real significance of the unconscious product, since this is either traced back to its historical antecedents and thereby annihilated, or integrated once again with the same elementary process whence it arose ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 788
Sensation is chiefly conditioned by the object, those objects that excite the strongest sensations will be decisive for the individual’s psychology. The result is a strong sensuous tie to the object. Sensation is therefore a vital function equipped with the strongest vital instinct ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 605
Abstract sensation is a sensation that is abstracted or separated from the other psychic elements. Abstract sensation is a differentiated kind of perception, which might be termed “aesthetic” in so far as, obeying its own principle, it detaches itself from all contamination with the different elements in the perceived object and from all admixtures of thought and feeling, and thus attains a degree of purity beyond the reach of concrete sensation ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 794
Abstract sensation, like every abstraction, is always associated with the will, i.e., with a sense of direction. The will that is directed to abstract sensation is an expression and application of the aesthetic sensation attitude ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 794
Abstract sensation immediately picks out the most salient sensuous attributes, e.g., of a flower and its redness, and by makes this the sole or at least the principal content of consciousness, entirely detached from all other admixtures. Abstract sensation is found chiefly among artists. Like every abstraction, it is a product of functional differentiation ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 794
Concrete sensation is a reactive phenomenon, in contrast to abstract sensation which is always associated with the will, i.e., with a sense of direction ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 794
Concrete sensation conveys a full perception, e.g., in the case of a flower. The perception not only of the flower as such, but also of the stem, leaves, habitat, and so on. It is also instantly mingled with feelings of pleasure or dislike which the sight of the flower evokes, or with simultaneous olfactory perceptions, or with thoughts about its botanical classification, etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 794
Concrete sensation never appears in “pure” form, but is always mixed up with ideas, feelings, thoughts ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 794
With men the anima is usually personified by the unconscious as a woman; with women the animus is personified as a man. In every case where the individuality is unconscious, and therefore associated with the soul, the soul-image has the character of the same sex ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 808
In all cases where there is an identity with the persona, and the soul accordingly is unconscious, the soul-image is transferred to a real person. This person is the object of intense love or equally intense hate (or fear). The influence of such a person is immediate and absolutely compelling, because it always provokes an effective response ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 808
The affect is due to the fact that a real, conscious adaptation to the person representing the soul-image is impossible. Because an objective relationship is non-existent and out of the question, the libido gets dammed up and explodes in an outburst of affect. Affects always occur where there is a failure of adaptation ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 808
Conscious adaptation to the person representing the soul-image is impossible precisely because the subject is unconscious of the soul. Were he conscious of it, it could be distinguished from the object, whose immediate effects might then be mitigated, since the potency of the object depends on the projection of the soul-image. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 808
Precisely because the new symbol is born of man’s highest spiritual aspirations and must at the same time spring from the deepest roots of his being, it cannot be a one-sided product of the most highly differentiated mental functions but must derive equally from the lowest and most primitive levels of the psyche. For this collaboration of opposing states to be possible at all, they must first face one another in the fullest conscious opposition. This necessarily entails a violent disunion with oneself, to the point where thesis and antithesis negate one another, while the ego is forced to acknowledge its absolute participation in both ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 824
The living symbol cannot come to birth in a dull or poorly developed mind, for such a mind will be content with the already existing symbols offered by established tradition. Only the passionate yearning of a highly developed mind, for which the traditional symbol is no longer the unified expression of the rational and the irrational, of the highest and the lowest, can create a new symbol ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 823
The raw material shaped by thesis and antithesis, and in the shaping of which the opposites are united, is the living symbol. Its profundity of meaning is inherent in the raw material itself, the very stuff of the psyche, transcending time and dissolution; and its configurations by the opposites ensures its sovereign power over all the psychic functions ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 828
Hysteria is characterized by a centrifugal movement of libido, while in schizophrenia the movement is more centripetal. The reverse obtains, however, when the illness has fully established its compensatory effects ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 859
In the hysteric the libido is then hampered in its movement of expansion and is forced to regress upon itself. The patients cease to partake in the common life, are wrapped up in their daydreams, keep to their beds, remain shut up in their sickrooms, etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 859
During the incubation of his illness the schizophrenic likewise turns away from the outer world in order to withdraw into himself, but when the period of morbid compensation arrives, he seems constrained to draw attention to himself, to force himself upon the notice of those around him, by his extravagant, insupportable, or directly aggressive behavior ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 859
Of these perhaps the most important was Claudius Galen, the Greek physician who lived in the second century A.D. He distinguished four basic temperaments: the sanguine, the phlegmatic, the choleric, and melancholic ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 883
The underlying idea goes back to the fifth century B.C., to the teachings of Hippocrates, that the human body was composed of the four elements, air, water, fire, and earth. Corresponding to these elements, four substances were to be found in the living body, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. It was Galen’s idea that, by the varying admixture of these four substances, men could be divided into four classes ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 883
Those in whom there was a preponderance of blood belonged to the sanguine type; a preponderance of phlegm produced the phlegmatic; yellow bile produced the choleric, and black bile the melancholic. As our language shows, these differences of temperament have passed into history, though they have, of course, long since been superseded as a physiological theory ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 883
The earliest sign of extraversion in a child is his quick adaptation to the environment, and the extraordinary attention he gives to objects and especially to the effect he has on them ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 896
Fear of objects is minimal; he lives and moves among them with confidence. His apprehension is quick but imprecise. He appears to develop more rapidly than the introverted child, since he is less reflective and usually without fear ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 896
The extraverted child feels no barrier between himself and objects and can therefore play with them freely and learn through them. He likes to carry his enterprises to the extreme and exposes himself to risks. Everything unknown is alluring ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 896
One of the earliest signs of introversion in a child is a reflective, thoughtful manner, marked shyness and even fear of unknown objects. Very early there appears a tendency to assert himself over familiar objects, and attempts are made to master them. Everything unknown is regarded with mistrust; outside influences are usually met with violent resistance ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 897
The child wants his own way, and under no circumstances will he submit to an alien rule he cannot understand. When he asks questions, it is not from curiosity or a desire to create a sensation, but because he wants names, meanings, explanation to give him subjective protection against the object ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 897
Thus very early in an introverted child the characteristic defensive attitude can be noted which the adult introvert displays toward the object; just as in an extraverted child one can very early observe a marked assurance and initiative, a happy trustfulness in his dealings with objects ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 897
This is indeed the basic feature of the extraverted attitude: psychic life is, as it were, enacted outside the individual in objects and objective relationships. In extreme cases there is even a sort of blindness for his own individuality ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 897
The introvert, on the contrary, always acts as though the object possessed a superior power over him against which he has to defend himself. His real world is the inner one ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 897
The distinction between mind and body is an artificial dichotomy, an act of discrimination based far more on the peculiarity of intellectual cognition than on the nature of things. In fact, so intimate is the intermingling of bodily and psychic traits that not only can we draw far-reaching inferences as to the constitution of the psyche from the constitution of the body, but we can also infer from psychic peculiarities the corresponding bodily characteristics ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 916
It is true that the latter process is far more difficult, not because the body is less influenced by the psyche than the psyche by the body, but for quite another reason. In taking the psyche as our starting point, we work from the relatively unknown to the known; while in the opposite case we have the advantage of starting from something known, that is, from the visible body ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 916
Despite all the psychology we think we possess today; the psyche is still infinitely more obscure to us than the visible surface of the body. The psyche is still a foreign, barely explored country of which we have only indirect knowledge, mediated by conscious functions that are open to almost endless possibilities of deception ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 916
To the same class of interpretations from outward signs belong palmistry, Gall’s phrenology, Lavater’s physiognomy, and more recently graphology, Kretschmer’s physiological types, and Rorschach’s klexographic method. As we can see, there are any number of paths leading from outside inwards, from the physical to the psychic, and it is necessary that research should follow this direction until the elementary psychic facts are established with sufficient certainty 91~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 7
These characteristics of the complex throw a significant light on its origin. It obviously arises from the clash between a demand of adaptation and the individual’s constitutional inability to meet the challenge. Seen in this light, the complex is a valuable symptom which helps us to diagnose an individual disposition ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 926
Experience shows us that complexes are infinitely varied, yet careful comparison reveals a relatively small number of typical primary forms, which are all built upon the first experiences of childhood. This must necessarily be so, because the individual disposition is already a factor in infancy; it is innate, and not acquired in the course of life ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 927
A study of the complexes leads logically to the problem of their origin, experience shows that complexes always contain something like a conflict, or at least are either the cause or the effect of a conflict. At any rate the characteristics of conflict shock, upheaval, mental agony, inner strife are peculiar to the complexes ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 924
They are the “sore spots,” the bétes noires, the “skeletons in the cupboard” which we do not like to remember and still less to be reminded of by others, but which frequently come back to mind unbidden and in the most unwelcome fashion. They always contain memories, wishes, fears, duties, needs, or insights which somehow we can never really grapple with, and for this reason they constantly interfere with our conscious life in a disturbing and usually a harmful way ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 924
Complexes obviously represent a kind of inferiority in the broadest senseit only means that something discordant, unassimilated, and antagonistic exists, perhaps as an obstacle, but also as an incentive to greater effort, and so, perhaps, to new possibilities of achievement ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 925
Complexes are focal or nodal points of psychic life which we would not wish to do without; indeed, they should not be missing, for otherwise psychic activity would come to a fatal standstill. They point to the unresolved problems in the individual, the places where he has suffered a defeat, at least for the time being, and where there is something he cannot evade or overcome his weak spots in every sense of the word ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 925
I need only mention the whole mythological complex of the dying and resurgent god and its primitive precursors all the way down to the recharging of fetishes and churingas with magical force. It expresses a transformation of attitude by means of which a new potential, a new manifestation of life, a new fruitfulness, is created. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Page 325
The inner personality is the way one behaves in relation to one’s inner psychic processes; it is the inner attitude, the characteristic face, that is turned towards the unconscious. I call the outer attitude, the outward face, the persona; the inner attitude, the inward face, I call the anima. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 803
… in a man the soul, i.e., anima, or inner attitude, is represented in the unconscious by definite persons with the corresponding qualities. Such an image is called a “soul-image.” Sometimes these images are of quite unknown or mythological figures. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 808
The Christian principle which unites the opposites is the worship of God, in Buddhism it is the worship of the self (self-development), while in Spitteler and Goethe it is the worship of the soul symbolized by the worship of woman. Implicit in this categorization is the modern individualistic principle on the one hand, and on the other a primitive Polydaemonism which assigns to every race, every tribe, every family, every individual its specific religious principle. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 376
[The patient] … is quite right to treat the anima as an autonomous personality and to address personal questions to her. I mean this as an actual technique … The art of it consists only in allowing our invisible partner to make herself herd … [O]ne should cultivate the art of conversing with oneself in the setting provided by an affect … ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 322
[In the German text the word Anima is used only twice … Everywhere else the word used is Seele (soul). In this translation anima is substituted for “soul” when it refers specifically to the feminine component in a man … “Soul” is retained only when it refers to the psychic factor common to both sexes. The distinction is not always easy to make … ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 803, fn 80.
As to the common human qualities, the character of the anima can be deduced from that of the persona … But as regards its individual qualities, nothing can be deduced … We can only be certain that when a man is identical with his persona, his individual qualities will be associated with the anima. This association frequently gives rise in dreams to the symbol of psychic pregnancy … The child that is to be born signifies the individuality, which, though present, is not yet conscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 806
His mistress appears before him … seeming to him like a goddess in heaven. The repressed erotic impression has activated the latent primordial image of the goddess, i.e., the archetypal sol-image. Through insight into the actual existence of his erotic desire, [the shepherd of] Hermas was able to acknowledge this metaphysical reality. The sensual libido … now passed to his soul-image and invested it with the reality which the object had claimed exclusively for itself. Consequently his soul could speak to good effect and successfully enforce her demands. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 383
Prometheus surrenders himself … to his soul, that is, to the function of relation to the inner world … Prometheus concedes her an absolute significance, as mistress and guide … He sacrifices his individual ego to the soul, to the relation with the unconscious as the matrix of eternal images and meanings … Prometheus loses all connection with the surrounding world, and hence also the very necessary corrective offered by external reality. ~Carl CW 6, Para 278
I am first and foremost a doctor and practising psychotherapist, and all my psychological formulations are based on the experiences gained in the hard course of my daily professional work. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Page 18
Carl Jung: *CW 7 “Two Essays on Analytical Psychology”
Nature is often obscure or impenetrable, but she is not, like man, deceitful. We must therefore take it that the dream is just what it pretends to be, neither more nor less. If it shows something in a negative light, there is no reason for assuming that it is meant positively. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 162.
I expose myself to his critical judgment because I feel it is the duty of one who goes his own way to inform society of what he finds on his voyage of discovery, be it cooling water for the thirsty or the sandy wastes of unfruitful error. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 201
stands in sorry contrast to the dazzling persona … [ T] he “nothing but fantasy” attitude will never persuade me to regard my anima manifestations as anything more than fatuous weakness. If, however, I take the line that the world is outside and inside, … I must logically accept the upsets and annoyances that come to me from inside as symptoms of faulty adaptation to the conditions of that inner world. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 428
When the anima continually thwarts the good intentions of the conscious mind, by contriving a private life that stands in sorry contrast to the dazzling persona, it is exactly the same as when a naïve individual, who has not the ghost of a persona, encounters the most painful difficulties in his passage through the world. … But if we reverse the picture and confront the man who possesses a brilliant persona with the anima, … then we shall see that the latter is just as well informed about the anima and her affairs as the former is about the world. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 318
Just as the persona is the image of himself which the subject presents to the world, and which is seen by the world, so the anima is the image of the subject in his relation to the collective unconscious … One could also say: the anima is the face of the subject as seen by the collective unconscious … If the ego adopts the standpoint of the anima, adaptation to reality is severely compromised. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 521
… when anima forfeits the daemonic power of an autonomous complex … she is depotentiated … no longer is the soul to be called “Mistress,” but a psychological function of an intuitive nature, akin to what the primitives mean when they say, “He has gone into the forest to talk with the spirits” or “My snake spoke with me …” ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 374
The archaic souls, the ha and ka of the Egyptians, are complexes of this kind. At a still higher level, … this complex is invariably of the feminine gender – anima … Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 295
The dissolution of the anima means that we have gained insight into the driving forces of the unconscious, but not that we have made these forces ineffective. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 391)
To the degree that the patient takes an active part, the personified figure of anima or animus will disappear. It becomes the function of relationship between conscious and unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 370
… the immediate goal has been achieved, namely the conquest of the anima as an autonomous complex, and her transformation into a function of relationship between the conscious and the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 374
The man who is pauper or parasite will never solve the social question. Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 226
A mask of the collective psyche, a mask that feigns individuality, making others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks . . . [it is] a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 157
For the purpose of individuation, or self-realization it is essential for a man to distinguish between what he is and how he appears to himself and to others, so it is also necessary for the same purpose that he should become conscious of his invisible system of relations to the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 195
. . . what Freud probably means is the essential fact that every process is a phenomenon of energy, and that all energy can only proceed from the tension of opposites . . . it is sufficiently obvious that life, like any process, has a beginning and an end, and that every beginning is also the beginning of the end. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 34
For if such a large percentage of the population has an insatiable need for this counterpole to the scientific spirit, we can be sure that the collective psyche in every individual – be he never so scientific – has this psychological requirement in equally high degree. A certain kind of “scientific” scepticism and criticism in our time is nothing but a misplaced compensation of the powerful and deep-rooted superstitious impulses of the collective psyche. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 495
Even today, however, astrology is still highly regarded in the East, particularly in Persia, India, and China.” One must be smitten with blindness to write such a thing nowadays. The truth is that astrology flourishes as never before. There is a regular library of astrological books and magazines that sell for far better than the best scientific works. The Europeans and Americans who have horoscopes cast for them may be counted not by the hundred thousand but by the million. Astrology is a flourishing industry. Yet the encyclopaedia can say: “The poet Dryden (d. 1701) still had horoscopes cast for his children.” Christian Science, too, has swamped Europe and America. Hundreds and thousands of people on both sides of the Atlantic swear by theosophy and anthroposophy, and anyone who believes that the Rosicrucians are a legend of the dim bygone has only to open his eyes to see them as much alive today as they ever were. Folk magic and secret lore have by no means died out. Nor should it be imagined that only the dregs of the populace fall for such superstitions. We have, as we know, to climb very high on the social scale to find the champions of this other principle. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 494
It is sufficient to know that the human psyche is both individual and collective, and that its well-being depends on the natural co-operation of these two apparently contradictory sides. Their union is essentially an irrational life process that can, at most, be described in individual cases, but can neither be brought about, nor understood, nor explained rationally. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 487
Every individual needs revolution, inner division, overthrow of the existing order, and renewal, but not by forcing them upon his neighbors under the hypocritical cloak of Christian love or the sense of social responsibility or any of the other beautiful euphemisms for unconscious urges to personal power. Individual self-reflection return of the individual to the ground of human nature, to his own deepest being with its individual and social destiny—here is the beginning of a cure for the blindness which reigns at the present hour. – C.G. Jung, CW 7, Page 5
Individuation . . .. means to become a single, discrete being, and inasmuch as the concept of individuality embraces that innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness of our being, it also includes the idea of becoming one’s own real self . . . ‘coming to selfhood,’ or ‘self-realization.’ ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 240
Something works behind the veil of fantastic images, whether we give this something either a good name or a bad. It is something real, and for this reason its vital manifestations must be taken seriously. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 240
For Jung, the great benefit of active imagination is to ‘distinguish ourselves from the unconscious contents. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 373
I write about things which actually happen, and am not propounding methods of treatment’ ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 22
We should never identify ourselves with reason, for man is not and never will be a creature of reason alone, a fact to be noted by all pedantic culture-mongers. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para III
We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women who pass by without exciting attention, and who betray to the world nothing of the conflicts that rage within them except possibly by a nervous breakdown. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 425
The old religions with their sublime and ridiculous, their friendly and fiendish symbols did not drop from the blue but were born of this human soul that dwells within us at this moment. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 326
Failure to adapt to this inner world is a negligence entailing just as serious consequences as ignorance and ineptitude in the outer world. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 326
Too much of the animal distorts the civilized man, too much civilization makes sick animals. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 32
Neurosis is self-division. Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 18
True education can only start from naked reality, not from a delusive ideal. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 93
Now, since the psychic process, like any other life-process, is not just a causal sequence, but is also a process with a teleological orientation, we might expect dreams to give us certain indicia about the objective causality as well as about the objective tendencies, because they are nothing less than self-portraits of the psychic life-process. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 210
The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definite world where there is water, light, air, salt, carbohydrates etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 188.
Love is of fundamental importance in human life and of far greater significance than the individual suspects. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 218.
I call every interpretation which equates the dream images with real objects an interpretation on the objective level… Interpretation on the objective level is analytic, because it breaks down the dream content into memory-complexes that refer to external situations. ~Carl Jung; CW 7, para. 131.
In contrast to this is the interpretation which refers every part of the dream and all the actors in it back to the dreamer himself. This I call interpretation on the subjective level. Interpretation on the subjective level is synthetic, because it detaches the underlying memory-complexes from their external causes, regards them as tendencies or components of the subject, and reunites them with that subject. ~Carl Jung; CW 7, para. 131.
Only what is really oneself has the power to heal. ~Carl Jung; CW 7, Page 258
The Self is our life’s goal, for it is the completest expression of that fateful combination we call individuality. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, par. 404.
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 285.
The great problems of life — sexuality, of course, among others — are always related to the primordial images of the collective unconscious. These images are really balancing or compensating factors which correspond with the life presents in actuality. This is not to be marveled at, since these images are deposits representing the accumulated experience of thousands of years of struggle for adaptation and existence. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 271
Repression is a process that begins in early childhood under the moral influence of the environment and continues through life. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, para 202.
The idea of angels, archangels, “principalities and powers” in St. Paul, the archons of the Gnostics, the heavenly hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite, all come from the perception of the relative autonomy of the archetypes. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 104.
The idea of transformation and renewal by means of the serpent is a well-substantiated archetype. It is [a] healing [symbol] ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Par 184.
The afternoon of life is just as full of meaning as the morning; only, its meaning and purpose are different…. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 114.
Often, indeed, a false ambition survives, in that an old man wants to be a youth again, or at least feels he must behave like one, although in his heart he can no longer make believe. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Pages 74-75.
What youth found and must find outside; the man of life’s afternoon must find within himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Pages 74-75.
Everything human is relative, because everything rests on an inner polarity; for everything is a phenomenon of energy. Energy necessarily depends on a pre-existing polarity, without which there could be no energy. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Pages 74-75.
The growth of culture consists, as we know, is a progressive subjugation of the animal in man. It is a process of domestication which cannot be accomplished without rebellion on the part of the animal nature that thirsts for freedom. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 19.
Just as in the early Middle Ages finance was held in contempt because there was as yet no differentiated financial morality to suit each case, but only a mass morality, so today there is only a mass sexual morality. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 27.
A girl who has an illegitimate baby is condemned and nobody asks whether she is a decent human being or not. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 27.
Any form of love not sanctioned by law is considered immoral, whether between worth-while people or bounders. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Pages 27.
We are still so hypnotized by what happens that we forget how and to whom it happens, just as for the Middle Ages finance was nothing but glittering gold, fiercely coveted and therefore the devil. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 27.
Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Par. 78.
The idea of transformation and renewal by means of the serpent is a well-substantiated archetype. It is [a] healing [symbol] ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Par 184
There are things that are not yet true today, perhaps we dare not find them true, but tomorrow they may be. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 201.
Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some supposed peculiarity. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 267f
[The Self] …might equally be called the God within us. Carl Jung, CW 7, Par. 399
Could the longing for a god be a passion welling up from our darkest, instinctual nature, a passion unswayed by any outside influences, deeper and stronger perhaps than the love for a human person? ~Carl Jung, CW 7, para 214.
No one who has undergone the process of assimilating the unconscious will deny that it gripped his very vitals and changed him. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 361
Disalliance with the unconscious is synonymous with loss of instinct and rootlessness. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 195
For the important thing is not to interpret and understand the fantasies, but primarily to experience them. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 342.
Neurosis is nothing less than an individual attempt, however unsuccessful, to solve a universal problem; indeed it cannot be otherwise, for a general problem, a “question,” is not an ens per se [thing in itself] but exists only in the hearts of individuals. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 438
Even the man whom we think we know best and who assures us himself that we understand him through and through is at bottom a stranger to us. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 363.
Life is born only of the spark of opposites. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 78
It should never be forgotten—and of this the Freudian school must be reminded—that morality was not brought down on tables of stone from Sinai and imposed on the people, but is a function of the human soul, as old as humanity itself. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 30.
The art of it consists only in allowing our invisible partner to make herself heard, in putting the mechanism of expression momentarily at her disposal, without being overcome by the distaste one naturally feels at playing such an apparently ludicrous game with oneself, or by doubts as to the genuineness of the voice of one’s interlocutor. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 323.
This remarkable capacity of the human psyche for change, expressed in the transcendent function, is the principal object of late medieval alchemistic philosophy, where it was expressed in terms of alchemical symbolism. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 360
It is only in modern times that te dream, this fleeting and insignificant-looking product of the psyche, has met with such profound contempt. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 21
A woman possessed by the animus is always in danger of losing her femininity, her adapted feminine persona, just as a man in like circumstances runs the risk of effeminacy. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 336
Just as a man brings forth his work as a complete creation out of his inner feminine nature, so the inner masculine side of a woman brings forth creative seeds which have the power to fertilize the feminine side of the man. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 336.
It [Dreams] leads straight to the deepest personal secrets, and is, therefore, an invaluable instrument in the hand of the physician and educator of the soul. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 25
It is sufficiently obvious that life, like any other process, has a beginning and an end and that every beginning is also the beginning of the end. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 34.
Individuation is an ineluctable psychological necessity. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 241.
We could therefore translate individuation as “coming to selfhood” or “self-realization.” ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 266
The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand, and of the suggestive power of primordial images on the other. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 269
To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 242.
In other words, in order to undergo a far-reaching psychological development, neither outstanding intelligence nor any other talent is necessary, since in this development moral qualities can make up for intellectual shortcomings. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 198
Morality is not imposed from outside; we have it in ourselves from the start—not the law, but our moral nature without which the collective life of human society would be impossible. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 27.
We shall probably get nearest to the truth if we think of the conscious and personal psyche as resting upon the broad basis of an inherited and universal psychic disposition which is as such unconscious, and that our personal psyche bears the same relation to the collective psyche as the individual to society. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 234
The persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 305
A wrong functioning of the psyche can do much to injure the body, just as conversely a bodily illness can affect the psyche; for psyche and body are not separate entities, but one and the same life. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 115
Nature is often obscure or impenetrable, but she is not, like man, deceitful. We must therefore take it that the dream is just what it pretends to be, neither more nor less. If it shows something in a negative light, there is no reason for assuming that it is meant positively. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 162
Neurosis is intimately bound up with the problem of our time and really represents an unsuccessful attempt on the part of the individual to solve the general problem in his own person. Neurosis is self-division. Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 18
Unfortunately far too many of us talk about a man only as it would be desirable for him to be, never about the man as he really is. But the doctor has always to do with the real man, who remains obstinately himself until all sides of his reality are recognized. True education can only start from naked reality, not from a delusive ideal. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 93
In spite of all indignant protestations to the contrary, the fact remains that love (using the word in the wider sense which belongs to it by right and embraces more than sexuality), its problems and its conflicts, is of fundamental importance in human life and, as careful inquiry consistently shows, is of far greater significance than the individual suspects. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 14
It is the way of moralists not to put the slightest trust in God, as if they thought that the good tree of humanity flourished only by dint of being pruned, tied back, and trained on a trellis; whereas in fact Father Sun and Mother Earth have allowed it to grow for their delight in accordance with deep, wise laws. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 427
A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbour; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 439
If ever there was a time when self-reflection was the absolutely necessary and only right thing, it is now, in our present catastrophic epoch. Yet whoever reflects upon himself is bound to strike upon the frontiers of the unconscious, which contains what above all else he needs to know. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 4
New ideas, if they are not just a flash in the pan, generally require at least a generation to take root. Psychological innovations probably take much longer, since in this field more than in any other practically everybody sets himself up as an authority. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 8
The effect of the unconscious images has something fateful about it. Perhaps—who knows—these eternal images are what men mean by fate. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 183
Now, it is by no means the special prerogative of the Christian Church to try to make it possible for the individual to detach himself from his original, animal-like condition; the Church is simply the latest, and specifically Western, form of an instinctive striving that is probably as old as mankind itself. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 172
Now, since the psychic process, like any other life-process, is not just a causal sequence, but is also a process with a teleological orientation, we might expect dreams to give us certain indicia about the objective causality as well as about the objective tendencies, because they are nothing less than self-portraits of the psychic life-process. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 210
The popular saying, “Old so-and-so chose the right time to die,” comes from a sure sense of the secret psychological cause. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 194
All ages before ours believed in gods in some form or other. Only an unparalleled impoverishment in symbolism could enable us to rediscover the gods as psychic factors, which is to say, as archetypes of the unconscious. No doubt this discovery is hardly credible as yet. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 72
The tragic counter play between inside and outside (depicted in Job and Faust as the wager with God) represents, at bottom, the energetics of the life process, the polar tension that is necessary for self-regulation. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 311
Love may be effectively used as a means for gaining the upper hand. Love and good behaviour are, from the standpoint of the power-instinct, known to be a choice means to this end. Virtuousness often serves to compel recognition from others ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 50
Love may summon forth unsuspected powers in the soul for which we had better be prepared ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 164
The term persona is really a very appropriate expression for this, for originally it meant the mask once worn by actors to indicate the role they played ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 245
If we endeavour to draw a precise distinction between what psychic material should be considered personal, and what impersonal, we soon find ourselves in the greatest dilemma, for by definition we have to say of the persona’s contents what we have said of the impersonal unconscious, namely, that it is collective ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 245
It is only because the persona represents a more or less arbitrary and fortuitous segment of the collective psyche that we can make the mistake of regarding it in toto as something individual. It is, as its name implies, only a mask of the collective psyche, a mask that feigns individuality, making others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 245
When we analyse the persona we strip off the mask, and discover that what seemed to be individual is at bottom collective; in other words, that the persona was only a mask for the collective psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 246
Fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be. He takes a name, earns a title, exercises a function, he is this or that ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 246
In a certain sense all this is real, yet in relation to the essential individuality of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a compromise formation, in making which others often have a greater share than he. The persona is a semblance, a two-dimensional reality, to give it a nickname ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 246
There is, after all, something individual in the peculiar choice and delineation of the persona, and that despite the exclusive identity of the ego-consciousness with the persona the unconscious Self, one’s real individuality, is always present and makes itself felt indirectly if not directly ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 247
Although the ego-consciousness is at first identical with the persona that compromise role in which we parade before the community, yet the unconscious Self can never be repressed to the point of extinction. Its influence is chiefly manifest in the special nature of the contrasting and compensating contents of the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 247
Through the analysis of the personal unconscious, the conscious mind becomes suffused with collective material which brings with it the elements of individuality ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 247
In the case of a patient of Jung [a philosophy student] her analysis revealed a persona behind which her real and authentic being, her individual Self, lay hidden. Indeed, to the extent that she at first completely identified herself with her role, she was altogether unconscious of her real Self. She was still in her nebulous infantile world and had not yet discovered the real world at all. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 248
But as, through progressive analysis, she became conscious of the nature of her transference, the dreams began to materialize. They brought up bits of the collective unconscious, and that was the end of her infantile world and of all the heroics. She came to herself and to her own real potentialities ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 248
This is roughly the way things go in most cases, if the analysis is carried far enough. That the consciousness of her individuality should coincide exactly with the reactivation of an archaic god-image is not just as isolated coincidence, but a very frequent occurrence which, in my view, corresponds to an unconscious law. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 248
Once the personal repressions are lifted, the individuality and the collective psyche begin to emerge in a coalescent state, thus releasing the hitherto repressed personal fantasies. The fantasies and dreams which now appear assume a somewhat different aspect. An infallible sign of collective images seems to be the appearance of the “cosmic” element, i.e., the images in the dream or fantasy are connected with cosmic qualities, such as:
Temporal and spatial infinity
Enormous speed and extension of movement
“Astrological” associations
Telluric, lunar, and solar analogies
Changes in the proportions of the body, etc.
The obvious occurrence of mythological and religious motifs in a dream also points to the activity of the collective unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 250
The collective element is very often announced by peculiar symptoms, as for example by dreams where the dreamer is flying through space like a comet, or feels that he is the earth, or the sun, or a star; or else is of immense size, or dwarfishly small; or that he is dead, is in a strange place, is a stranger to himself, confused, mad, etc. Similarly, feelings of disorientation, of dizziness and the like, may appear along with symptoms of inflation. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 250
The forces that burst out of the collective psyche has a confusing and blinding effect. One result of the dissolution of the persona is a release of involuntary fantasy, which is apparently nothing else than the specific activity of the collective psyche. This activity throws up contents whose existence one had never suspected before. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 251
But as the influence of the collective unconscious increases, so the conscious mind loses its power of leadership. Imperceptibly it becomes the led, while an unconscious and impersonal process gradually takes control. Thus, without noticing it, the conscious personality is pushed about like a figure on a chess-board by an invisible player. It is this player who decides the game of fate, not the conscious mind and its plans. This is how the resolution of the transference, apparently so impossible to the conscious mind, was brought about [in my patient. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 251
The plunge into this process [disintegration of the persona] becomes unavoidable, whenever the necessity arises of overcoming an apparently insuperable difficulty. But when this inner adaptation becomes a problem, strange, irresistible attraction proceeds from the unconscious and exerts a powerful influence on the conscious direction of life. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 252
Every individual needs revolution, inner division, overthrow of the existing order, and renewal, but not by forcing them upon his neighbours under the hypocritical cloak of Christian love or the sense of social responsibility or any of the other beautiful euphemisms for unconscious urges to personal power. Individual self-reflection return of the individual to the ground of human nature, to his own deepest being with its individual and social destiny ± here is the beginning of a cure for that blindness which reigns at the present hour. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 5
I have often been asked where the archetypes or primordial images come from. It seems to me that their origin can only be explained by assuming them to be deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity. One of the commonest and at the same time most impressive experiences is the apparent movement of the sun every day. We certainly cannot discover anything of the kind in the unconscious, so far as the known physical process is concerned. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 109
[T]he archetypes usually appear in projection; and, because projections are unconscious, they appear on persons in the immediate environment, mostly in the form of abnormal over- or under-evaluations which provoke misunderstandings, quarrels, fanaticisms, and follies of every description. Thus we say, He makes a god of so-and-so', or
so-and-so is Mr. X’s bete noire’. In this way, too, there grow up modern myth formations, i.e., fantastic rumours, suspicions, prejudices. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 152
[T]he idea of energy and its conservation must be a primordial image that was dormant in the collective unconscious. . .. [T]he most primitive
religions in the most widely separated parts of the earth are founded upon this image. These are the so-called dynamistic religions whose sole and determining thought is that there exists a universal magical power [i.e. mana] about which everything revolves. Tylor, the well-known English investigator, and Frazer likewise, misunderstood this idea as animism. In reality primitive peoples do not mean, by their power concept, souls or spirits at all, but something which the American investigator Lovejoy has appropriately termed `primitive energetics’. . .. So this idea has been stamped on the human brain for aeons. That is why it lies ready to hand in the unconscious of every man. Only, certain conditions are needed to cause it to appear. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 108
The predominance of unconscious influences, together with the associated disintegration of the persona and the deposition of the conscious mind from power, constitute a state of psychic disequilibrium which, in analytical treatment, is artificially induced for the therapeutic purpose of resolving a difficulty that might block further development. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 252
There are of course innumerable obstacles that can be overcome with good advice and a little moral support, aided by goodwill and understanding on the part of the patient. Excellent curative results can be obtained in this way. Cases are not uncommon where there is no need to breathe a word about the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 252
But again, there are difficulties to which one can foresee no satisfactory solution. If in these cases the psychic equilibrium is not already disturbed before treatment begins, it will certainly be upset during the analysis, and sometimes without any interference by the doctor. It often seems as though these patients had only been waiting to find a trustworthy person in order to give up and collapse. Such a loss of balance is similar in principle to a psychotic disturbance; that is, it differs from the initial stages of mental illness only by the fact that it leads in the end to greater health, while the latter leads to yet greater destruction. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 252
It is a condition of panic; a letting go in face of apparently hopeless complications. Mostly it was preceded by desperate efforts to master the difficulty by force of will; then came the collapse, and the once guiding will crumble completely. The energy thus freed disappears from consciousness and falls into the unconscious. As a matter of fact, it is at these moments that the first signs of unconscious activity appear. Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 252
Hence I regard the loss of balance as purposive, since it replaces a defective consciousness, which is aiming all the time at the creation of a new balance and will moreover achieve this aim, provided that the conscious mind is capable of assimilating the contents produced by the unconscious, i.e., of understanding and digesting them ~Car Jung, CW 7, Para 253
If I were to attempt to put in a nutshell the difference between man and woman in this respect, i.e., what it is that characterizes the animus as opposed to the anima, I could only say this: as the anima produces moods, so the animus produces opinions; and as the moods of a man issue from a shadowy background, so the opinions of a woman rest on equally unconscious prior assumptions. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 331
The animus does not appear as one person, but as a plurality of persons. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 332
This collection of condemnatory judges, a sort of College of Preceptors, corresponds to a personification of the animus. The animus is rather like an assembly of fathers or dignitaries of some kind who lay down incontestable, “rational,” ex cathedra judgments. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 332
It goes without saying that the animus is just as often projected as the anima. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 333
t would be insufficient to characterize the animus merely as a conservative, collective conscience; he is also a neologist who, in flagrant contradiction to his correct opinions, has an extraordinary weakness for difficult and unfamiliar words which act as a pleasant substitute for the odious task of reflection. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 333
Like the anima, the animus is a jealous lover. He is an adept at putting, in place of the real man, an opinion about him, the exceedingly disputable grounds for which are never submitted to criticism. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 334
Men can be pretty venomous here, for it is an inescapable fact that the animus always plays up the anima—and vice versa, of course—so that all further discussion becomes pointless. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 334
Like the anima, the animus is a jealous lover. He is an adept at putting, in place of the real man, an opinion about him, the exceedingly disputable grounds for which are never submitted to criticism. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 334
Animus opinions are invariably collective, and they override individuals and individual judgments in exactly the same way as the anima thrusts her emotional anticipations and projections between man and wife. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 334
In intellectual women the animus encourages a critical disputatiousness and would-be highbrowism, which, however, consists essentially in harping on some irrelevant weak point and nonsensically making it the main one. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 335
Without knowing it, such women are solely intent upon exasperating the man and are, in consequence, the more completely at the mercy of the animus. “Unfortunately I am always right,” one of these creatures once confessed to me. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 335
The animus does not belong to the function of conscious relationship; his function is rather to facilitate relations with the unconscious. Instead of the woman merely associating opinions with external situations—situations which she ought to think about consciously—the animus, as an associative function, should be directed inwards, where it could associate the contents of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 336
The technique of coming to terms with the animus is the same in principle as in the case of the anima; only here the woman must learn to criticize and hold her opinions at a distance; not in order to repress them, but, by investigating their origins, to penetrate more deeply into the background, where she will then discover the primordial images, just as the man does in his dealings with the anima. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 336
The animus is the deposit, as it were, of all woman’s ancestral experiences of man—and not only that, he is also a creative and procreative being, not in the sense of masculine creativity, but in the sense that he brings forth something we might call the \6yos ffirepvarixos, the spermatic word. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 336
This would be the femme inspiratrice who, if falsely cultivated, can turn into the worst kind of dogmatist and high-handed pedagogue—a regular “animus hound,” as one of my women patients aptly expressed it. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 336
A woman possessed by the animus is always in danger of losing her femininity, her adapted feminine persona, just as a man in like circumstances runs the risk of effeminacy. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 337
In woman the compensating figure is of a masculine character and can therefore appropriately be termed the animus. If it was no easy task to describe what is meant by the anima, the difficulties become almost insuperable when we set out to describe the psychology of the animus. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 328
A passionate exclusiveness therefore attaches to the man’s anima, and an indefinite variety to the woman’s animus. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 338
Whereas the man has, floating before him, in clear outlines, the alluring form of a Circe or a Calypso, the animus is better expressed as a bevy of Flying Dutchmen or unknown wanderers from over the sea, never quite clearly grasped, protean, given to persistent and violent motion. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 338
I do not expect every reader to grasp right away what is meant by animus and anima. But I hope he will at least have gained the impression that it is not a question of anything “metaphysical,” but far rather of empirical facts which could equally well be expressed in rational and abstract language. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 340
If the unconscious simply rides roughshod over the conscious mind, a psychotic condition develops. If it can neither completely prevail nor yet be understood, the result is a conflict that cripples all further advance. But with this question, namely the understanding of the collective unconscious, we come to a formidable difficulty. Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 253
On paper the interpretation of a dream may look arbitrary, muddled, and spurious; but the same thing in reality can be a little drama of unsurpassed realism. To experience a dream and its interpretation is very different from having a tepid rehash set before you on paper. Everything about this psychology is, in the deepest sense, experience; the entire theory, even where it puts on the most abstract airs, is the direct outcome of something experienced. ~Carl CW 7: Page 199.
The vast majority of people are quite incapable of putting themselves individually into the mind of another. This is indeed a singularly rare art, and truth to tell, it does not take us very far. Even the man whom we think we know best and who assures us himself that we understand him through and through is at bottom a stranger to us. He is different. The most we can do, and the best, is to have at least some inkling of his otherness, to respect it, and to guard against the outrageous stupidity of wishing to interpret it. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 363
For the primitive anything strange is hostile and evil. This line of division serves a purpose, which is why the normal person feels under no obligation to make these projections conscious, although they are dangerously illusory. War psychology has made this abundantly clear: everything my country does is good, everything the others do is bad. The centre of all iniquity is invariably found to lie a few miles behind the enemy lines. Because the individual has this same primitive psychology, every attempt to bring these age-old projections to consciousness is felt as irritating. Naturally one would like to have better relations with one’s fellows, but only on the condition that they live up to our expectations—in other words, that they become willing carriers of our projections. Yet if we make ourselves conscious of these projections, it may easily act as an impediment to our relations with others, for there is then no bridge of illusion across which love and hate can stream off so relievingly, and no way of disposing so simply and satisfactorily of all those alleged virtues that are intended to edify and improve others. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 517
What is true of humanity in general is also true of each individual, for humanity consists only of individuals. And as is the psychology of humanity so also is the psychology of the individual. The [first] World War brought a terrible reckoning with the rational intentions of civilization. What is called “will” in the individual is called “imperialism” in nations; for all will is a demonstration of power over fate, i.e., the exclusion of chance. Civilization is the rational, “purposeful” sublimation of free energies, brought about by will and intention. It is the same with the individual; and just as the idea of a world civilization received a fearful correction at the hands of war, so the individual must often learn in his life that so-called “disposable” energies are not his to dispose. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 74
This war has pitilessly revealed to civilized man that he is still a barbarian and has at the same time shown what an iron scourge lies in store for him if ever again he should be tempted to make his neighbour responsible for his own evil qualities. The psychology of the individual is reflected in the psychology of the nation. What the nation does is done also by each individual, and so long as the individual continues to do it, the nation will do likewise. Only a change in the attitude of the individual can initiate a change in the psychology of the nation. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 4
Human beings have one faculty which, though it is of the greatest utility for collective purposes, is most pernicious for individuation, and that is the faculty of imitation. Collective psychology cannot dispense with imitation, for without it all mass organizations, the State and the social order, are impossible. Society is organized, indeed, less by law than by the propensity to imitation, implying equally suggestibility, suggestion, and mental contagion. But we see every day how people use, or rather abuse, the mechanism of imitation for the purpose of personal differentiation: they are content to ape some eminent personality, some striking characteristic or mode of behaviour, thereby achieving an outward distinction from the circle in which they move. We could almost say that as a punishment for this the uniformity of their minds with those of their neighbours, already real enough, is intensified into an unconscious, compulsive bondage to the environment. As a rule these specious attempts at individual differentiation stiffen into a pose, and the imitator remains at the same level as he always was, only several degrees more sterile than before. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 242
The element of differentiation is the individual. All the highest achievements of virtue, as well as the blackest villainies, are individual. The larger a community is, and the more the sum total of collective factors peculiar to every large community rests on conservative prejudices detrimental to individuality, the more will the individual be morally and spiritually crushed, and, as a result, the one source of moral and spiritual progress for society is choked up. Naturally the only thing that can thrive in such an atmosphere is sociality and whatever is collective in the individual. Everything individual in him goes under, i.e., is doomed to repression. The individual elements lapse into the unconscious, where, by the law of necessity, they are transformed into something essentially baleful, destructive, and anarchical. Socially, this evil principle shows itself in the spectacular crimes—regicide and the like—perpetrated by certain prophetically-inclined individuals; but in the great mass of the community it remains in the background, and only manifests itself indirectly in the inexorable moral degeneration of society. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
It is a notorious fact that the morality of society as a whole is in inverse ratio to its size; for the greater the aggregation of individuals, the more the individual factors are blotted out, and with them morality, which rests entirely on the moral sense of the individual and the freedom necessary for this. Hence every man is, in a certain sense, unconsciously a worse man when he is in society than when acting alone; for he is carried by society and to that extent relieved of his individual responsibility. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
Any large company composed of wholly admirable persons has the morality and intelligence of an unwieldy, stupid, and violent animal. The bigger the organization, the more unavoidable is its immorality and blind stupidity {Senatus bestia, senatores boni viri). Society, by automatically stressing all the collective qualities in its individual representatives, puts a premium on mediocrity, on everything that settles down to vegetate in an easy, irresponsible way. Individuality will inevitably be driven to the wall. This process begins in school, continues at the university, and rules all departments in which the State has a hand. In a small social body, the individuality of its members is better safeguarded; and the greater is their relative freedom and the possibility of conscious responsibility. Without freedom there can be no morality. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
Our admiration for great organizations dwindles when once we become aware of the other side of the wonder: the tremendous piling up and accentuation of all that is primitive in man, and the unavoidable destruction of his individuality in the interests of the monstrosity that every great organization in fact is. The man of today, who resembles more or less the collective ideal, has made his heart into a den of murderers. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
The importance of personal prestige can hardly be overestimated, because the possibility of regressive dissolution in the collective psyche is a very real danger, not only for the outstanding individual but also for his followers. This possibility is most likely to occur when the goal of prestige —universal recognition—has been reached. The person then becomes a collective truth, and that is always the beginning of the end. To gain prestige is a positive achievement not only for the outstanding individual but also for the clan. The individual distinguishes himself by his deeds, the many by their renunciation of power. So long as this attitude needs to be fought for and defended against hostile influences, the achievement remains positive; but as soon as there are no more obstacles and universal recognition has been attained, prestige loses its positive value and usually becomes a dead letter. A schismatic movement then sets in, and the whole process begins again from the beginning. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 238
The office I hold is certainly my special activity; but it is also a collective factor that has come into existence historically through the cooperation of many people and whose dignity rests solely on collective approval. When, therefore, I identify myself with my office or title, I behave as though I myself were the whole complex of social factors of which that office consists, or as though I were not only the bearer of the office, but also and at the same time the approval of society. I have made an extraordinary extension of myself and have usurped qualities which are not in me but outside e. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 227
On closer examination one is always astonished to see how much of our so-called individual psychology is really collective. So much, indeed, that the individual traits are completely overshadowed by it. Since, however, individuation is an ineluctable psychological necessity, we can see from the ascendancy of the collective what very special attention must be paid to this delicate plant “individuality” if it is not to be completely smothered. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 241
We do not sufficiently distinguish between individualism and individuation. Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some supposed peculiarity, rather than to collective considerations and obligations. But individuation means precisely the better and more complete fulfilment of the collective qualities of the human being, since adequate consideration of the peculiarity of the individual is more conducive to better social achievement than when the peculiarity is neglected or suppressed. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 268
Human imperfection is always a discord in the harmony of our ideals. Unfortunately, no one lives in the world as we desire it, but in the world of actuality where good and evil clash and destroy one another, where no creating or building can be done without dirtying one’s hands. Whenever things get really bad, there is always someone to assure us amid great applause that nothing has happened, and everything is in order. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 263
Society expects, and indeed must expect every individual to play the part assigned to him as perfectly as possible. so that a man who is a parson must not only carry out his official functions objectively but must at all times and in all circumstances play the role of parson in a flawless manner. Society demands this as a kind of surety; each must stand at his post, here a cobbler, there a poet. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 305
Every calling or profession has its own characteristic persona. It is easy to study these things nowadays, when the photographs of public personalities so frequently appear in the press. A certain kind of behaviour is forced on them by the world, and professional people endeavour to come up to these expectations. Only, the danger is that they become identical with their personas—the professor with his text-book, the tenor with his voice. Then the damage is done; henceforth he lives exclusively against the background of his own biography. The garment of Deianeira has grown fast to his skin, and a desperate decision like that of Heracles is needed if he is to tear this Nessus shirt from his body and step into the consuming fire of the flame of immortality, in order to transform himself into what he really is. One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself. A man cannot get rid of himself in favour of an artificial personality without punishment. Even the attempt to do so brings on, in all ordinary cases, unconscious reactions in the form of bad moods, affects, phobias, compulsive ideas, backslidings, vices, etc. The social “strong man” is in his private life often a mere child where his own states of feeling are concerned; his discipline in public (which he demands quite particularly of others) goes miserably to pieces in private. His “happiness in his work” assumes a woeful countenance at home; his “spotless” public morality looks strange indeed behind the mask—we will not mention deeds, but only fantasies, and the wives of such men would have a pretty tale to tell. As to his selfless altruism, his children have decided views about that. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 307
I once made the acquaintance of a very venerable personage—in fact, one might easily call him a saint. I stalked round him for three whole days, but never a mortal failing did I find in him. My feeling of inferiority grew ominous, and I was beginning to think seriously of how I might better myself. Then, on the fourth day, his wife came to consult me. Well, nothing of the sort has ever happened to me since. But this I did learn that any man who becomes one with his persona can cheerfully let all disturbances manifest themselves through his wife without her noticing it, though she pays for her self-sacrifice with a bad neurosis. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 306
It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses, and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the monster’s body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature. Blindly he strives against the salutary dogma of original sin, which is yet so prodigiously true. Yes, he even hesitates to admit the conflict of which he is so painfully aware. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 35
We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women who pass by without exciting attention, and who betray to the world nothing of the conflicts that rage within them except possibly by a nervous breakdown. What is so difficult for the layman to grasp is the fact that in most cases the patients themselves have no suspicion whatever of the internecine war raging in their unconscious. If we remember that there are many people who understand nothing at all about themselves, we shall be less surprised at the realization that there are also people who are utterly unaware of their actual conflicts. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 425
It is of course a fundamental mistake to imagine that when we see the non-value in a value or the untruth in a truth, the value or the truth ceases to exist. It has only become relative. Everything human is relative, because everything rests on an inner polarity; for everything is a phenomenon of energy. Energy necessarily depends on a preexisting polarity, without which there could be no energy. There must always be high and low, hot and cold, etc., so that the equilibrating process—which is energy—can take place. Therefore the tendency to deny all previous values in favour of their opposites is just as much of an exaggeration as the earlier one-sidedness. And in so far as it is a question of rejecting universally accepted and indubitable values, the result is a fatal loss. One who acts in this wav empties himself out with his values, as Nietzsche has already said. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 115
The dream is often occupied with apparently very silly details, thus producing an impression of absurdity, or else it is on the surface so unintelligible as to leave us thoroughly bewildered. Hence we always have to overcome a certain resistance before we can seriously set about disentangling the intricate web through patient work. But when at last we penetrate to its real meaning, we find ourselves deep in the dreamer’s secrets and discover with astonishment that an apparently quite senseless dream is in the highest degree significant, and that in reality it speaks only of important and serious matters. This discovery compels rather more respect for the so-called superstition that dreams have a meaning, to which the rationalistic temper of our age has hitherto given short shrift. Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 24
Dreams contain images and thought associations which we do not create with conscious intent. They arise spontaneously without our assistance and are representatives of a psychic activity withdrawn from our arbitrary will. Therefore the dream is, properly speaking, a highly objective, natural product of the psyche, from which we might expect indications, or at least hints, about certain basic trends in the psychic process. Now, since the psychic process, like any other life-process, is not just a causal sequence, but is also a process with a teleological orientation, we might expect dreams to give us certain indicia about the objective causality as well as about the objective tendencies, because they are nothing less than self-portraits of the psychic life-process. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 210
On paper the interpretation of a dream may look arbitrary, muddled, and spurious; but the same thing in reality can be a little drama of unsurpassed realism. To experience a dream and its interpretation is very different from having a tepid rehash set before you on paper. Everything about this psychology is, in the deepest sense, experience; the entire theory, even where it puts on the most abstract airs, is the direct outcome of something experienced. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 199
I call every interpretation which equates the dream images with real objects an interpretation on the objective level. In contrast to this is the interpretation which refers every part of the dream and all the actors in it back to the dreamer himself. This I call interpretation on the subjective level. Interpretation on the objective level is analytic, because it breaks down the dream content into memory complexes that refer to external situations. Interpretation on the subjective level is synthetic, because it detaches the underlying memory-complexes from their external causes, regards them as tendencies or components of the subject, and reunites them with that subject. In this case, therefore, all the contents of the dream are treated as symbols for subjective contents. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 130
He would be better advised to put away his scholar’s gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart through the world. There, in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, Socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with real knowledge of the human soul. ~Carl Jung, CW 7 Para 409
It is difficult to gauge the spirit of one’s own time; but, if we observe the trend of art, of style, and of public taste, and see what people read and write, what sort of societies they found, what “questions” are the order of the day, what the Philistines fight against, we shall find that in the long catalogue of our present social questions by no means the last is the so-called “sexual question.” This is discussed by men and women who challenge the existing sexual morality and who seek to throw off the burden of moral guilt which past centuries have heaped upon Eros. One cannot simply deny the existence of these endeavours nor condemn then as indefensible; they exist, and probably have adequate grounds for their existence. It is more interesting and more useful to examine carefully the underlying causes of these contemporary movements than to join in the lamentations of the professional mourners of morality who prophesy the moral downfall of humanity. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 427
Eros is a superhuman power which, like nature herself, allows itself to be conquered and exploited as though it were impotent. But triumph over nature is dearly paid for. Nature requires no explanations of principle but asks only for tolerance and wise measure. “Eros is a mighty daemon,” as the wise Diotima said to Socrates. We shall never get the better of him, or only to our own hurt. He is not the whole of our inward nature, though he is at least one of its essential aspects. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para note
Eros is a questionable fellow and will always remain so, whatever the legislation of the future may have to say about it. He belongs on one side to man’s primordial animal nature which will endure as long as man has an animal body. On the other side he is related to the highest forms of the spirit. But he only thrives when spirit and instinct are in right harmony. If one or the other aspect is lacking to him, the result is injury or at least a lopsidedness that may easily veer towards the pathological. Too much of the animal distorts the civilized man, too much civilization makes sick animals. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 32
No man is so entirely masculine that he has nothing feminine in him. The fact is, rather, that very masculine men have—carefully guarded and hidden—a very soft emotional life, often incorrectly described as “feminine.” A man counts it a virtue to repress his feminine traits as much as possible, just as a woman, at least until recently, considered it unbecoming to be “mannish.” The repression of feminine traits and inclinations naturally causes these contrasexual demands to accumulate in the unconscious. No less naturally, the imago of woman (the soul-image) becomes a receptacle for these demands, which is why a man, in his love-choice, is strongly tempted to win the woman who best corresponds to his own unconscious femininity—a woman, in short, who can unhesitatingly receive the projection of his soul. Although such a choice is often regarded and felt as altogether ideal, it may turn out that the man has manifestly married his own worst weakness. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 297
The persona, the ideal picture of a man as he should be, is inwardly compensated by feminine weakness, and as the individual outwardly plays the strong man, so he becomes inwardly a woman, i.e., the anima, for it is the anima that reacts to the persona. But because the inner world is dark and invisible to the extraverted consciousness, and because a man is all the less capable of conceiving his weaknesses the more he is identified with the persona, the persona’s counterpart, the anima, remains completely in the dark and is at once projected, so that our hero comes under the heel of his wife’s slipper. If this results in a considerable increase of her power, she will acquit herself none too well. She becomes inferior, thus providing her husband with the welcome proof that it is not he, the hero, who is inferior in private, but his wife. In return the wife can cherish the illusion, so attractive to many, that at least she has married a hero, unperturbed by her own uselessness. This little game of illusion is often taken to be the whole meaning of life. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 309
Our life is like the course of the sun. In the morning it gains continually in strength until it reaches the zenith heat of high noon. Then comes the enantiodromia the steady forward movement no longer denotes an increase, but a decrease, in strength. Thus our task in handling a young person is different from the task of handling an older person. In the former case, it is enough to clear away all the obstacles that hinder expansion and ascent; in the latter, we must nurture everything that assists the descent, ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 114
An inexperienced youth thinks one can let the old people go, because not much more can happen to them anyway they have their lives behind them and are no better than petrified pillars of the past. But it is a great mistake to suppose that the meaning of life is exhausted with the period of youth and expansion; that, for example, a woman who has passed the menopause is “finished.” The afternoon of life is just as full of meaning as the morning; only, its meaning and purpose are different. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 114
Man has two aims the first is the natural aim, the begetting of children and the business of protecting the brood; to this belongs the acquisition of money and social position. When this aim has been reached a new phase begins the cultural aim. For the attainment of the former we have the help of nature and, on top of that, education; for the attainment of the latter, little or nothing helps. Often, indeed, a false ambition survives, in that an old man wants to be a youth again, or at least feels he must behave like one, although in his heart he can no longer make believe. This is what makes the transition from the natural to the cultural phase so terribly difficult and bitter for many people; they cling to the illusion of youth or to their children, hoping to salvage in this way a last little scrap of youth. One sees it especially in mothers, who find their sole meaning in their children and imagine they will sink into a bottomless void when they have to give them up. No wonder that so many bad neuroses appear at the onset of life’s afternoon. It is a sort of second puberty, another “storm and stress” period, not infrequently accompanied by tempests of passion—the “dangerous age.” But the problems that crop up at this age are no longer to be solved by the old recipes the hand of this clock cannot be put back. What youth found and must find outside; the man of life’s afternoon must find within himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 114
The rapid development of the towns, with the specialization of work brought about by the extraordinary division of labour, the increasing industrialization of the countryside, and the growing sense of insecurity, deprive men of many opportunities for giving vent to their affective energies. The peasant’s alternating rhythm of work secures him unconscious satisfactions through its symbolical content—satisfactions which the factory workers and office employees do not know and can never enjoy. What do these know of his life with nature, of those grand moments when, as lord and fructifier of the earth, he drives his plough through the soil, and with a kingly gesture scatters the seed for the future harvest; of his rightful fear of the destructive power of the elements, of his joy in the fruitfulness of his wife, who bears him the daughters and sons who mean increased working-power and prosperity? From all this we city-dwellers, we modern machine-minders, are far removed. Is not the fairest and most natural of all satisfactions beginning to fail us, when we can no longer regard with unmixed joy the harvest of our own sowing, the “blessing” of children? ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 428
A man is a philosopher of genius only when he succeeds in transforming the primitive and wholly natural vision into an abstract idea belonging to the common stock of consciousness. This achievement, and this alone, constitutes his personal value, for which he may take credit without necessarily succumbing to inflation. The personal value lies entirely in the philosophical achievement, not in the primary vision. To the philosopher this vision comes as so much increment and is simply a part of the common property of mankind, in which, in principle, everyone has a share. The golden apples drop from the same tree, whether they be gathered by an imbecile locksmith’s apprentice or by a Schopenhauer. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 229
Morality was not brought down on tables of stone from Sinai and imposed on the people, but is a function of the human soul, as old as humanity itself. Morality is not imposed from outside; we have it in ourselves from the start —not the law, but our moral nature without which the collective life of human society would be impossible. That is why morality is found at all levels of society. It is the instinctive regulator of action which also governs the collective life of the herd. But moral laws are only valid within a compact human group. Beyond that, they cease. There the old truth runs: Homo homini lupus. With the growth of civilization we have succeeded in subjecting ever larger human groups to the rule of the same morality, without, however, having yet brought the moral code to prevail beyond the social frontiers, that is, in the free space between mutually independent societies. There, as of old, reign lawlessness and license and mad immorality—though of course it is only the enemy who dares to say it out loud. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 30
The sense of moral inferiority always indicates that the missing element is something which, to judge by his feeling about it, really ought not be missing, or which could be made conscious if only one took sufficient trouble. The moral inferiority does not come from a collision with the generally accepted and, in a sense, arbitrary moral law, but from the conflict with one’s own self which, for reasons of psychic equilibrium, demands that the deficit be redressed. Whenever a sense of moral inferiority appears, it indicates not only a need to assimilate an unconscious component, but also the possibility of such assimilation. In the last resort it is a man’s moral qualities which force him, either through direct recognition of the need or indirectly through a painful neurosis, to assimilate his unconscious self and to keep himself fully conscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 218
We always start with the naive assumption that we are masters in our own house. Hence we must first accustom ourselves to the thought that, in our most intimate psychic life as well, we live in a kind of house which has doors and windows to the world, but that, although the objects or contents of this world act upon us, they do not belong to us. For many people this hypothesis is by no means easy to conceive, just as they do not find it at all easy to understand and to accept the fact that their neighbour’s psychology is not necessarily identical with their own. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 329
Every individual needs revolution, inner division, overthrow of the existing order, and renewal, but not by forcing these things upon his neighbours under the hypocritical cloak of Christian love or the sense of social responsibility or any of the other beautiful euphemisms for unconscious urges to personal power. Individual self-reflection return of the individual to the ground of human nature, to his own deepest being with its individual and social destiny here is the beginning of a cure for that blindness which reigns at the present hour. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 5
Old Heraclitus, who was indeed a very great sage, discovered the most marvellous of all psychological laws: the regulative function of opposites. He called it enantiodromia, a running contrariwise, by which he meant that sooner or later everything runs into its opposite. Thus the rational attitude of culture necessarily runs into its opposite, namely the irrational devastation of culture. We should never identify ourselves with reason, for man is not and never will be a creature of reason alone, a fact to be noted by all pedantic culture-mongers. The irrational cannot be and must not be extirpated. The gods cannot and must not die. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para III
A man is only half understood when we know how everything in him came into being. If that were all, he could just as well have been dead years ago. As a living being he is not understood, for life does not have only a yesterday, nor is it explained by reducing today to yesterday. Life has also a tomorrow, and today is understood only when we can add to our knowledge of what was yesterday the beginnings of tomorrow. This is true of all life’s psychological expressions, even of pathological symptoms. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 67
It is the duty of one who goes his own way to inform society of what he finds on his voyage of discovery, be it cooling water for the thirsty or the sandy wastes of unfruitful error. The one helps, the other warns. Not the criticism of individual contemporaries will decide the truth or falsity of his discoveries, but future generations. There are things that are not yet true today, perhaps we dare not find them true, but tomorrow they may be. So every man whose fate it is to go his individual way must proceed with hopefulness and watchfulness, ever conscious of his loneliness and its dangers. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 201
Too many still look outwards, some believing in the illusion of victory and of victorious power, others in treaties and laws, and others again in the overthrow of the existing order. But still too few look inwards, to their own selves, and still too few ask themselves whether the ends of human society might not best be served if each man tried to abolish the old order in himself, and to practise in his own person and in his own inward state those precepts and victories which he preaches at every street-corner, instead of always expecting these things of his fellow men. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 5
From a consideration of the claims of the inner and outer worlds, or rather, from the conflict between them, the possible and the necessary follows. Unfortunately our Western mind, lacking all culture in this respect, has never yet devised a concept, nor even a name, for the union of opposites through the middle path, that most fundamental item of inward experience, which could respectably be set against the Chinese concept of Tao. It is at once the most individual fact and the most universal, the most legitimate fulfilment of the meaning of the individual’s life. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 327
The tragic counter play between inside and outside (depicted in Job and Faust as the wager with God) represents, at bottom, the energetics of the life process, the polar tension that is necessary for self-regulation. However different, to all intents and purposes, these opposing forces may be, their fundamental meaning and desire is the life of the individual they always fluctuate round this centre of balance. Just because they are inseparably related through opposition, they also unite in a mediatory meaning, which, willingly or unwillingly, is born out of the individual and is therefore divined by him. He has a strong feeling of what should be and what could be. To depart from this divination means error, aberration, illness. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 311
We know that there is no human foresight or wisdom that can prescribe direction to our life, except for small stretches of the way. This is of course true only of the “ordinary” type of life, not of the “heroic” type. The latter kind also exists, though it is much rarer. Here we are certainly not entitled to say that no marked direction can be given to life, or only for short distances. The heroic conduct of life is absolute—that is, it is oriented by fateful decisions, and the decision to go in a certain direction holds, sometimes, to the bitter end. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 72
Nature is aristocratic, but not in the sense of having reserved the possibility of differentiation exclusively for species high in the scale. So too with the possibility of psychic development: it is not reserved for specially gifted individuals. In other words, in order to undergo a far-reaching psychological development, neither outstanding intelligence nor any other talent is necessary, since in this development moral qualities can make up for intellectual shortcomings. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 198
Much indeed can be attained by the will, but, in view of the fate of certain markedly strong-willed personalities, it is a fundamental error to try to subject our own fate at all costs to our will. Our will is a function regulated by reflection; hence it is dependent on the quality of that reflection. This, if it really is reflection, is supposed to be rational, i.e., in accord with reason. But has it ever been shown, or will it ever be, that life and fate are in accord with reason, that they too are rational? We have on the contrary good grounds for supposing that they are irrational, or rather that in the last resort they are grounded beyond human reason. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 72
We know of course that when for one reason or another we feel out of sorts, we are liable to commit not only the minor follies, but something really dangerous which, given the right psychological moment, may well put an end to our lives. The popular saying, “Old so-and-so chose the right time to die,” comes from a sure sense of the secret psychological cause. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 194
Our life is indeed the same as it ever was. At all events, in our sense of the word it is not transitory; for the same physiological and psychological processes that have been man’s for hundreds of thousands of years still endure, instilling into our inmost hearts this profound intuition of the “eternal” continuity of the living. But the self, as an inclusive term that embraces our whole living organism, not only contains the deposit and totality of all past life, but is also a point of departure, the fertile soil from which all future life will spring. This premonition of futurity is as clearly impressed upon our innermost feelings as is the historical aspect. The idea of immortality follows legitimately from these psychological premises. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 303
The idea of God is an absolutely necessary psychological function of an irrational nature, which has nothing whatever to do with the question of God’s existence. The human intellect can never answer this question, still less give any proof of God. Moreover such proof is superfluous, for the idea of an all-powerful divine Being is present everywhere, unconsciously if not consciously, because it is an archetype. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 110
“The transition from morning to afternoon means a revaluation of the earlier values. There comes the urgent need to appreciate the value of the opposite of our former ideals, to perceive the error in our former convictions, to recognize the untruth in our former truth, and to feel how much antagonism and even hatred lay in what, until now, had passed for love. Not a few of those who are drawn into the conflict of opposites jettison everything that had previously seemed to them good and worth striving for; they try to live in complete opposition to their former ego. Changes of profession, divorces, religious convulsions, apostasies of every description, are the symptoms of this swing over to the opposite. The snag about a radical conversion into one’s opposite is that one’s former life suffers repression and thus produces just as unbalanced a state as existed before, when the counterparts of the conscious virtues and values were still repressed and unconscious. Just as before, perhaps, neurotic disorders arose because the opposing fantasies were unconscious, so now other disorders arise through the repression of former idols. It is of course a fundamental mistake to imagine that when we see the non-value in a value or the untruth in a truth, the value or the truth ceases to exist. It has only become relative. Everything human is relative, because everything rests on an inner polarity; for everything is a phenomenon of energy. Energy necessarily depends on a pre-existing polarity, without which there could be no energy. There must always be high and low, hot and cold, etc., so that the equilibrating process-which is energy can take place. Therefore the tendency to deny all previous values in favour of their opposites is just as much of an exaggeration as the earlier one-sidedness. And in so far as it is a question of rejecting universally accepted and indubitable values, the result is a fatal loss. One who acts in this way empties himself out with his values, as Nietzsche has already said. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 115
It seems to me their origin can only be explained by assuming them to be deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 109
…for the contents of the collective unconscious are not only residues of archaic, specifically human modes of functioning, but also the residues of functions from [our] animal ancestry, whose duration in time was infinitely greater than the relatively brief epoch of specifically human existence ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 159.
I [Jung] regard dreams not only as a valuable source of information but as an extraordinarily effective instrument of education ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 174
It is a process of domestication which cannot be accomplished without rebellion on the part of the animal nature [in man] that thirsts for freedom. From time to time there passes as it were a wave of frenzy through the ranks of men too long constrained within the limitations of their culture ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 17
Antiquity experienced it [the frenzy] in the Dionysian orgies that surged over from the East and became an essential and characteristic ingredient of classical culture ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 17
Morality is not imposed from outside; we have it in ourselves from the start not the law, but our moral nature without which the collective life of human society would be impossible. That is why morality is found at all levels of society ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 30
It is a notorious fact that the morality of a society as a whole is in inverse ratio to its size; for the greater the aggregation of individuals, the more the individual factors are blotted out, and with them morality, which rests entirely on the moral sense of the individual and the freedom necessary for this ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
The spirit of these orgies contributed not a little towards the development of the stoic ideal of asceticism in the innumerable sects and philosophical schools of the last century before Christ, which produced from the polytheistic chaos of that epoch the twin ascetic religions of Mithraism and Christianity ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 17
But the most important method of getting at the pathogenic conflicts is, as Freud was the first to show, through the analysis of dreams ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 20
Hence every man is, in a certain sense, unconsciously a worse man when he is in society than when acting alone; for he is carried by society and to that extent relieved of his individual responsibility ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
Any large company composed of wholly admirable persons has the morality and intelligence of an unwieldy, stupid, and violent animal. The bigger the organization, the more unavoidable is its immorality and blind stupidity ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
Society, by automatically stressing all the collective qualities in its individual representatives, puts a premium on mediocrity, on everything that settles down to vegetate in an easy, irresponsible way ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
Individuality will inevitably be driven to the wall. This process begins in school, continues at the university, and rules all departments in which the State has a hand ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
The man of today, who resembles more or less the collective ideal, has made his heart into a den of murderers, as can easily be proved by the analysis of his unconscious, even though he himself is not in the least disturbed by it ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
In so far as he is normally “adapted” to his environment, it is true that the greatest infamy on the part of his group will not disturb him, so long as the majority of his fellows steadfastly believe in the exalted morality of their social organization ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
Morality is not imposed from outside; we have it in ourselves from the start not the law, but our moral nature without which the collective life of human society would be impossible. That is why morality is found at all levels of society ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 30
It is the instinctive regulator of action which also governs the collective life of the herd. But moral laws are only valid within a compact human group. Beyond that, they cease ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 30
In a small social body, the individuality of its members is better safeguarded; and the greater is their relative freedom and the possibility of conscious responsibility ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
“Eros is a mighty daemon,” as the wise Diotima said to Socrates. We shall never get the better of him, or only to our own hurt. He is not the whole of our inward nature, though he is at least one of its essential aspects ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 33
Man can suffer only a certain amount of culture without injury. The endless dilemma of culture and nature is always a question of too much or too little, never of either-or. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 41
Faust shows in Part I what it means to accept instinct, and in Part II what it means to accept the ego and its weird unconscious world ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 43
Love may be effectively used as a means for gaining the upper hand. Love and good behaviour are, from the standpoint of the power-instinct, known to be a choice means to this end. Virtuousness often serves to compel recognition from others ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 50
Chance falls into the category of the irrational not as denoting something contrary to reason, but something beyond reason ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 774
It results from the irrationality of the events of life and fate, reigning everywhere, hence reason and the will that is grounded in reason are valid only up to a point ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 72
It has become abundantly clear to me that life can flow forward only along the path of the gradient. But there is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites; hence it is necessary to discover the opposite to the attitude of the conscious mind ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 78
The conscious mind is on top, the shadow underneath, and just as high always longs for low and hot for cold, so all consciousness, perhaps without being aware of it, seeks its unconscious opposite, lacking which it is doomed to stagnation, congestion, and ossification. Life is born only of the spark of opposites ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 78
The reflective nature of the introvert causes him always to think and consider before acting. This naturally makes him slow to act. His shyness and distrust of things induce hesitation, and so he always has difficulty in adapting to the external world ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 80
The two types therefore seem created for a symbiosis. The ones takes care of reflection [introvert], and the other sees to the initiative and practical action [extravert] ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 80
The essence of the inferior function is autonomy; it is independent, it attacks, it fascinates and so spins us about that we are no longer masters of ourselves and can no longer rightly distinguish between ourselves and others ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 85
The original method was hypnotism: either interrogation in a state of hypnotic concentration or else the spontaneous production of fantasies by the patient while in this state. This method is still occasionally employed, but compared with the present technique it is primitive and often unsatisfactory ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 20
This [identification with the collective psyche] amounts to an acceptance of “godlikeness,” but now exalted into a system. That is to say, one is the fortunate possessor of the great truth, which was only waiting to be discovered, of the eschatological knowledge which spells the healing of the nation’s ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 476
Access to the collective psyche means a renewal of life for the individual, no matter whether this renewal is felt as pleasant or unpleasant. Everybody would like to hold fast to this renewal: one man because it enhances his life-feeling, another because it promises a rich harvest of knowledge ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 476
But he thrives only when spirit and instinct are in right harmony. If one or the other aspect is lacking to him, the result is injury or at least a lopsidedness that may easily veer towards the pathological. Too much of the animal distorts the civilized man, too much civilization makes sick animals ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 32
This dilemma reveals the vast uncertainty that Eros holds for man. For, at the bottom, Eros is a superhuman power which, like nature herself, allows itself to be conquered and exploited as though it were impotent. But triumph over nature is dearly paid for. Nature requires no explanations of principle, but asks only for tolerance and wise measure ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 32
The universal similarity of human brains leads to the universal possibility of a uniform mental functioning. This functioning is the collective psyche. This can be subdivided into the collective mind and the collective soul ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 456
Inasmuch as there are differentiations corresponding to race, tribe, and even family, there is also a collective psyche limited to race, tribe, and family over and above the “universal” collective psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 456
To borrow an expression from Pierre Janet, the collective psyche comprises the parties inférieures of the mental functions, that is to say those deep-rooted, well-nigh automatic portions of the individual psyche which are inherited and are to be found everywhere, and are thus impersonal or suprapersonal ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 456
Consciousness plus the personal unconscious constitutes the parties supérieures of the mental functions, those portions, therefore, that are developed ontogenetically and acquired as a result of personal differentiation ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 456
And that is what matters in practical treatment: that human beings should get a hold on their own lives, not that the principles by which they live should be proved rationally to be “right” ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 493
Sometimes it is enough to leave the unconscious to discover the new line, but this attitude is not to be recommended to the neurotic under all circumstances, although there are indeed cases where this is just what the patient needs to learn how to put his trust in so-called chance ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 501
However, it is not advisable to let oneself drift for any length of time; a watchful eye should at least be kept on the reactions of the unconscious, that is, on dreams, which indicate like a barometer the one-sidedness of our attitude ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 501
Unlike other psychologists, I therefore consider it necessary for the patient to remain in contact with his unconscious, even after analysis, if he wishes to avoid a relapse ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 501
Often enough I have observed an increase in the liability to physical illness, but only when the patients relish their condition and dwell on it too long ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 467
It is a process of domestication which cannot be accomplished without rebellion on the part of the animal nature that thirsts for freedom ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 427
This step beyond science is an unconditional requirement of the psychological development I have sought to depict, because without this postulate I could give no adequate formulation of the psychic processes that occur empirically ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 405
The Self could be characterized as a kind of compensation for the conflict between inside and outside. This formulation would not be unfitting, since the Self has somewhat the character of a result, of a goal attained, something that has come to pass very gradually and is experienced with much travail ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 404
So too the Self is our life’s goal, for it is the completest expression of that fateful combination we call individuality, the full flowering not only of the single individual, but of the group, in which each adds his portion to the whole ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 404
The fact is that the whole symbolism of initiation rises up, clear and unmistakable, in the unconscious contents. The objection that this is antiquated superstition and altogether unscientific is about as intelligent as remarking, in the presence of a cholera epidemic, that it is merely an infectious disease and exceedingly unhygienic ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 385
Hence the “magician” could only take possession of the ego only because the ego dreamed of victory over the anima. That dream was an encroachment, and every encroachment of the ego is followed by an encroachment from the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 382
Consequently, if the ego drops its claim to victory, possession by the magician ceases automatically. But what happens to the mana? ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 382
Now when the anima loses her mana, what becomes of it? Clearly the man who has mastered the anima acquires her mana, in accordance with the primitive belief that when a man kills the mana-person he assimilates the other’s mana into his own body ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 376
In the case of a real settlement with the unconscious it is not a question of interpretation: it is a question of releasing unconscious processes and letting them come into the conscious mind in the form of fantasies ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 342
Without knowing it, such women are solely intent upon exasperating the man and are, in consequence, the more completely at the mercy of the animus. “Unfortunately I am always right,” one of these creatures once confessed to me ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 335
It would be insufficient to characterize the animus merely as a conservative, collective conscience; he is also a neologist who, in flagrant contradiction to his correct opinions, has an extraordinary weakness for difficult and unfamiliar words which act as a pleasant substitute for the odious task of reflection ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 333
The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the Self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand, and the suggestive power of primordial images on the other ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 269
The moment of irruption can, however, be very sudden, so that consciousness is instantaneously flooded with extremely strange and apparently quite unsuspected contents. That is how it looks to the layman and even to the person concerned, but the experienced observer knows that psychological events are never sudden ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 270
In reality the irruption has been preparing for many years, often for half a lifetime, and already in childhood all sorts of remarkable signs could have been detected which, in more or less symbolic fashion, hinted at abnormal future developments ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 270
We should not, however, labor under the illusion that we have now discovered the real nature of the unconscious processes. We never succeed in getting further than the hypothetical “as if” ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 272
People who go illegitimately mooning after the infinite often have absurdly banal dreams which endeavor to damp down their ebullience. Thus, from the nature of the compensation, we can at once draw conclusions as to the seriousness and rightness of the conscious strivings ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 288
Even with us the collective dream has a feeling of importance about it that impels communication. It springs from a conflict of relationship and must therefore be built into our conscious relations, because it compensates these and not just some inner personal quirk ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 277
It is in fact one of the earliest and most universal acquisitions of humanity: it is nothing less than the conviction as to the concrete existence of a spirit-world ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 293
The spirit-world was certainly never an invention in the sense that fire-boring was an invention; it was far rather the experience, the conscious acceptance of a reality in no way inferior to that of the material world ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 293
The image is unconsciously projected, and when the parents die, the projected image goes on working as though it were a spirit existing on its own. The primitive then speaks of parental spirits who return by night (revenants), while the modern man calls it a father or mother complex ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 294
The more limited a man’s field of consciousness is, the more numerous the psychic contents (imagos) which meet him as quasi-external apparitions, either in the form of spirits, or as magical potencies projected upon living people (magicians, witches, etc.) ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 295
At a rather higher stage of development, where the idea of the soul already exists, not all the imagos continue to be projected (where this happens, even trees and stones talk), but one or the other complex has come near enough to consciousness to be felt as no longer strange, but as somehow “belonging” ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 295
A man counts it a virtue to repress his feminine traits as much as possible, just as a woman, at least until recently, considered it unbecoming to be “mannish.” The repression of feminine traits and inclinations naturally causes these contrasexual demands to accumulate in the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 297
The “spotless” man of honor and public benefactor, whose tantrums and explosive moodiness terrify his wife and children. What is the anima doing here? ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 319
Whence does the anima obtain the power to wield such enchantment. On the analogy with the persona there must be values or some other important and influential factors lying in the background like seductive promises. In such matters we must guard against rationalizations ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 320
Thus the whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned in to woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definite world where there is water, light, air, salt, carbohydrates, etc. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 300
“High rests on low,” says Lao-tzu. An opposite forces its way up from inside; it is exactly as though the unconscious suppressed the ego with the very same power which drew the ego into the persona ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 308
The absence of resistance outwardly against the lure of the persona means a similar weakness inwardly against the influence of the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 308
Outwardly an effective and powerful role is played, while inwardly an effeminate weakness develops in face of every influence coming from the unconscious. Moods, vagaries, timidity, even a limp sexuality (culminating in impotence), gradually gain the upper hand ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 308
In place of the parents, woman takes up her position as the most immediate environmental influence in the life of the adult man. She becomes his companion, she belongs to him in so far as she shares his life and is more or less the same age ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 296
Now, everything that is true of the persona and of all autonomous complexes in general also holds true of the anima. She likewise is a personality, and this is why she is so easily projected upon a woman. So long as the anima is unconscious she is always projected, for everything unconscious is projected ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 314
The first bearer of the soul-image is always the mother; later it is borne by those women who arouse the man’s feelings, whether in a positive or a negative sense. Because the mother is the first bearer of the soul-image, separation from her is a delicate and important matter of the greatest educational significance ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 314
The anima comes between them like a jealous mistress who tries to alienate the man from his family. An official post or any other advantageous social position can do the same thing, but there we can understand the force of the attraction ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 320
It could therefore be said just as truly that one should cultivate the art of conversing with oneself in the setting provided by an affect, as though the affect itself were speaking without regard to our rational criticism. So long as the affect is speaking, criticism must be withheld ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 323
These two examples of fantasy represent the positive activity of anima and animus. To the degree that the patient takes an active part, the personified figure of anima or animus will disappear. It becomes the function of relationship between conscious and unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 370
Victory over the collective psyche alone yields the true value the capture of the hoard, the invincible weapon, the magic talisman, or whatever it be that the myth deems most desirable ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 477
Anyone who identifies with the collective psyche or, in mythological terms, lets himself be devoured by the monster and vanishes in it, attains the treasure that the dragon guards, but he does so in spite of himself and to his own greatest harm ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 477
If we reduce this by analysis to something that is generally known, we destroy the true value of the symbol; but to attribute hermeneutic significance to it is consistent with its value and its meaning ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 492
Thus Freud’s sexual theory of neurosis is grounded on a true and factual principle. But it makes the mistake of being one-sided and exclusive; also it commits the imprudence of trying to lay hold of unconfinable Eros with the crude terminology of sex. In this respect Freud is a typical representative of the materialistic epoch, whose hope it was to solve the world riddle in a test-tube. Freud himself, with advancing years, admitted this lack of balance in his theory, and he opposed to Eros, whom he called libido, the destructive or death instinct ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 33
But the ecstatic by-passes the law of his own life and behaves, from the point of view of nature, improperly. This impropriety is the exclusive prerogative of man, whose consciousness and free will can occasionally loose themselves contra naturam from their roots in animal nature. It is the indispensable foundation of all culture, but also of spiritual sickness if exaggerated ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 41
I myself have known more than one person who owed his entire usefulness and reason for existence to a neurosis, which prevented all the critical follies in his life and forced him to a mode of living that developed his valuable potentialities. These might have been stifled had not the neurosis, with iron grip, held him to the place where he belonged ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 68
There are actually people who have the whole meaning of their life, their true significance, in the unconscious, while in the conscious mind is nothing but inveiglement and error. With others the case is reversed, and here neurosis has a different meaning. In these cases, but not in the former, a thorough going reduction is indicated ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 68
The question of the gradient is an eminently practical problem which crops up in most analyses. For instance, when in a favourable case the disposable energy, the so-called libido, does seize hold of a rational object, we think we have brought about the transformation through conscious exertion of the will. But in that we are deluded, because even the most strenuous exertions would not have sufficed had there not been present at the same time a gradient in that direction ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 77
When the man has made enough money, or if a fine legacy should drop from the skies and external necessity no longer presses, then they have time to occupy themselves with one another. Hitherto they stood back-to-back and defended themselves against necessity. But now they turn face to face and look for understanding only to discover that they have never understood one another. Each speaks a different language. Then the conflict between the two types begins ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 80
Let us suppose two youths are rambling in the country. They come to a fine castle; both want to see inside it. The introvert says, “I’d like to know what it’s like inside.” The extravert answers, “Right, let’s go in,” and makes for the gateway. The introvert draws back “Perhaps we aren’t allowed in,” says he, with visions of policemen, fines, and fierce dogs in the background. Whereupon the extravert answers, “Well, we can ask. They’ll let us in all right “with visions of kindly old watchmen, hospitable seigneurs, and the possibility of romantic adventures. On the strength of extraverted optimism they at length find themselves in the castle. But now comes the dénouement ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 81
The castle has been rebuilt inside and contains nothing but a couple of rooms with a collection of old manuscripts. As it happens, old manuscripts are the chief joy of the introverted youth. Hardly has he caught sight of them than he becomes as one transformed. He loses himself in contemplation of the treasures, uttering cries of enthusiasm. He engages the caretaker in conversation so as to extract from him as much information as possible, and when the result is disappointing he asks to see the curator in order to propound his questions to him. His shyness has vanished, objects have taken on a seductive glamour, and the world wears a new face ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 81
But meanwhile the spirits of the extraverted youth are ebbing lower and lower. His face grows longer and he begins to yawn. No kindly watchmen are forthcoming here, no knightly hospitality, not a trace of romantic adventure only a castle made over into a museum. There are manuscripts enough to be seen at home. While the enthusiasm of the one rises, the spirits of the other fall, the castle bores him, the manuscripts remind him of a library, library is associated with university, university with studies and menacing examinations ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 81
Gradually a veil of gloom descends over the once so interesting and enticing castle. The object becomes negative. “Isn’t it marvellous,” cries the introvert, “to have stumbled on this wonderful collection?” “The place bores me to extinction,” replies the other with undisguised ill humour. This annoys the introvert, who secretly vows never again to go rambling with an extravert. The latter is annoyed with the other’s annoyance, and he thinks to himself that he always knew the fellow was an inconsiderate egotist who would, in his own selfish interest, waste all the lovely spring day that could be enjoyed so much better out of doors ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 81
A feeling which the person who has a secret need to be understood and recognized speaks of but does not really believe ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 226
Positive as well as negative occurrences can constellate the inferior counter-function. When this happens, sensitiveness appears. Sensitiveness is a sure sign of the presence of inferiority. This provides the psychological basis for discord and misunderstanding, not only as between two people, but also in ourselves ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 85
We have to distinguish between a personal unconscious and an impersonal or transpersonal unconscious. We speak of the latter also as the collective unconscious, because it is detached from anything personal and is common to all men, since its contents can be found everywhere, which is naturally not the case with the personal contents ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 103
The personal unconscious contains lost memories, painful ideas that are repressed (i.e., forgotten on purpose), subliminal perceptions, by which are meant sense-perceptions that were not strong enough to reach consciousness, and finally, contents that are not yet ripe for consciousness. It corresponds to the figure of the shadow so frequently met with in dreams ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 103
The personal layer ends at the earliest memories of infancy, but the collective layer comprises the pre-infantile period, that is, the residues of ancestral life. Whereas the memory-images of the personal unconscious are, as it were, filled out, because they are images personally experienced by the individual, the archetypes of the collective unconscious are not filled out because they are forms not personally experienced ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 118
When on the other hand, psychic energy regresses, going beyond even the period of early infancy, and breaks into the legacy of ancestral life, the mythological images are awakened: these are the archetypes. An interior spiritual world whose existence we never suspected opens out and displays contents which seem to stand in sharpest contrast to all our former ideas ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 118
These images are so intense that it is quite understandable why millions of cultivated persons should be taken in by theosophy and anthroposophy. This happens simply because such modern gnostic systems meet the need for expressing and formulating the wordless occurrences going on within ourselves better than any of the existing forms of Christianity, not excepting Catholicism ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 118
The primordial images [archetypes] are as much feelings as thoughts; indeed, they lead their own independent life rather in the manner of part-souls, as can easily be seen in those philosophical or Gnostic systems which rely on perception of the unconscious as the source of knowledge ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 104
In the Old Testament the magic power glows in the burning bush and in the countenance of Moses; in the Gospels it descends with the Holy Ghost in the form of fiery tongues from heaven. In Heraclitus it appears as world energy, as “ever-living fire”; among the Persians it is the fiery glow of haoma, divine grace; among the Stoics it is the original heat, the power of fate ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 108
So this idea has been stamped on the human brain for aeons. That is why it lies ready to hand in the unconscious of every man. Only, certain conditions are needed to cause it to appear. These conditions were evidently fulfilled in the case of Robert Mayer. The greatest and best thoughts of man shape themselves upon these primordial images as upon a blueprint ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 109
His energy, until now laid up in unserviceable and pathological forms, has come into its proper sphere. It is essential, in differentiating the ego from the non-ego, that a man should be firmly rooted in his ego-function; that is, he must fulfil his duty to life, so as to be in every respect a viable member of the community ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 113
As soon as we speak of the collective unconscious we find ourselves in a sphere, and concerned with a problem, which is altogether precluded in the practical analysis of young people or of those who have remained infantile too long ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 113
Wherever the father and mother imagos have still to be overcome, wherever there is a little bit of life still to be conquered, which is the natural possession of the average man, then we had better make no mention of the collective unconscious and the problem of opposites ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 113
But once the parental transferences and the youthful illusions have been mastered, or are at least ripe for mastery, then we must speak of these things. We are here outside the range of Freudian and Adlerian reductions; we are no longer concerned with how to remove the obstacles to a man’s profession, or to his marriage, or to anything that means a widening of his life, but are confronted with the task of finding a meaning that will enable him to continue living at allay meaning more than blank resignation and mournful retrospect ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 113
The interpretation of a change of place as a change of attitude is corroborated by forms of speech in certain primitive languages, where, for example, “I am thinking of going” is expressed as “I am at the place of (on the point of) going” ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 132
In so far as through our unconscious we have a share in the historical collective psyche, we live naturally and unconsciously in a world of werewolves, demons, magicians, etc., for these are things which all previous ages have invested with tremendous affectivity. Equally we have a share in gods and devils, saviours and criminals; but it would be absurd to attribute these potentialities of the unconscious to ourselves personally ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 150
It is therefore absolutely essential to make the sharpest possible demarcation between the personal and the impersonal attributes of the psyche. This is not to deny the sometimes very formidable existence of the contents of the collective unconscious, but only to stress that, as contents of the collective psyche, they are opposed to and different from the individual psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 150
Thus the gods were disposed of. But the corresponding psychological function was by no means disposed of; it lapsed into the unconscious, and men were thereupon poisoned by the surplus of libido that had once been laid up in the cult of divine images. The devaluation and repression of so powerful a function as the religious function naturally has serious consequences for the psychology of the individual. The unconscious is prodigiously strengthened by this reflux of libido, and, through its archaic collective contents, begins to exercise a powerful influence on the conscious mind. The period of the Enlightenment closed, as we know, with the horrors of the French Revolution ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 150
On account of their affinity with physical phenomena, the archetypes usually appear in projection; and, because projections are unconscious, they appear on persons in the immediate environment, mostly in the form of abnormal over- or under-valuations which provoke misunderstandings, quarrels, fanaticisms, and follies of every description ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 152
Thus we say, “He makes a god of so-and-so,” or, “So-and-so is Mr. X’s bête noire.” In this way, too, there grow up modern myth-formations, i.e., fantastic rumours, suspicions, prejudices. The archetypes are therefore exceedingly important things with a powerful effect, meriting our closest attention. They must not be suppressed out of have, but must be very carefully weighed and considered, if only because of the danger of psychic infection they carry with them ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 152
Thus, when somebody projects the devil upon his neighbour, he does so because this person has something about him which makes the attachment of such an image possible. But this is not to say that the man is on that account a devil; on the contrary, he may be a particularly good fellow, but antipathetic to the maker of the projection, so that a “devilish” (i.e., dividing) effect arises between them ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 152
Nor need the projector necessarily be a devil, although he has to recognize that he has something just as devilish in himself and has only stumbled upon it by projecting it. But that does not make him a devil; indeed he may be just as decent as the other man. The appearance of the devil in such a case simply means that the two people are at present incompatible: for which reason the unconscious forces them apart and keeps them away from each other. The devil is a variant of the “shadow” archetype, i.e., of the dangerous aspect of the unrecognized dark half of the personality ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 152
A good example of this is Gustav Meyrink’s Golem, also the Tibetan wizard in the same author’s Fledermäuse, who unleashes world war by magic. Naturally Meyrink learned nothing of this from me; he brought it independently out of his unconscious by clothing in words and imagery a feeling not unlike the one which my patient had projected upon me ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 153
This figure often appears as dark-skinned and of mongoloid type, and then it represents a negative and possibly dangerous aspect. Sometimes it can hardly be distinguished, if at all, from the shadow; but the more the magical note predominates, the easier it is to make the distinction, and this is not without relevance in so far as the demon can also have a very positive aspect as the “wise old man” ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 154
She has too little hold upon life to risk all at once a complete reversal of standpoint. The collective unconscious has fallen upon her and threatens to bear her away from a reality whose demands have not been adequately met. Accordingly, as the dream indicates, the collective unconscious had to be presented to her as something dangerous, otherwise she would have been only too ready to make it a refuge from the demands of life ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 161
He [the patient] had a particularly close tie with his mother. By this we are not to understand a particularly good or intense conscious relationship, but something in the nature of a secret, subterranean tie which expresses itself consciously, perhaps, only in the retarded development of character, i.e., in a relative infantilism ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 171
In the case of this young man the images of the collective unconscious play an entirely positive role, which comes from the fact that he has no really dangerous tendency to fall back on a fantasy-substitute for reality and to entrench himself behind it against life. The effect of these unconscious images has something fateful about it. Perhaps who knows? These eternal images are what men mean by fate ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 183
Viewed in this light, the homosexuality of adolescence is only a misunderstanding of the otherwise very appropriate need for masculine guidance. One mght also say that the fear of incest which is based on the mother-complex extends to women in general; but in my opinion an immature man is quite right to be afraid of women, because his relations with women are generally disastrous ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 173
This natural process of individuation served me both as a model and guiding principle for my method of treatment. The unconscious compensation of a neurotic conscious attitude contains all the elements that could effectively and healthily correct the one-sidedness of the conscious mind, if these elements were made conscious, i.e., understood and integrated into it as realities ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 187
It is only very seldom that a dream achieves such intensity that the shock is enough to throw the conscious mind out of the saddle. As a rule dreams are too feeble and too unintelligible to exercise a radical influence on consciousness. In consequence, the compensation runs underground in the unconscious and has no immediate effect. But it has some effect all the same; only, it is indirect in so far as the unconscious opposition will, if consistently ignored, arrange symptoms and situations which irresistibly thwart our conscious intentions ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 187
The aim of the treatment is therefore to understand and to appreciate, so far as practicable, dreams and all other manifestations of the unconscious, firstly in order to prevent the formation of an unconscious opposition which becomes more dangerous as time goes on, and secondly in order to make the fullest possible use of the healing factor of compensation ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 187
When a case is treated in the manner indicated, the initiative lies with the unconscious, but all criticism, choice, and decision lie with the conscious mind. If the decision is right, it will be confirmed by dreams indicative of progress; in the other event correction will follow from the side of the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 189
The course of treatment is thus rather like a running conversation with the unconscious. That the correct interpretation of dreams is of paramount importance should be sufficiently clear from what has been said. But when, you may rightly ask, is one sure of the interpretation? Is there anything approaching a reliable criterion for the correctness of an interpretation? This question, happily, can be answered in the affirmative. If we have made a wrong interpretation, or if it is somehow incomplete, we may be able to see it from the next dream ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 189
Thus, for example, the earlier motif will be repeated in clearer form, or our interpretation may be deflated by some ironic paraphrase, or it may meet with straightforward violent opposition ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 189
Now supposing that these interpretations also go astray, the general inconclusiveness and futility of our procedure will make itself felt soon enough in the bleakness, sterility, and pointlessness of the undertaking, so that doctor and patient alike will be suffocated either by boredom or by doubt. Just as the reward of a correct interpretation is an uprush of life, so an incorrect one dooms them to deadlock, resistance, doubt, and mutual desiccation ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 189
A very large number of accidents of every description, more than people would ever guess, are of psychic causation, ranging from trivial mishaps like stumbling, banging oneself, burning one’s fingers, etc., to car smashes and catastrophes in the mountains: all these may be psychically caused and may sometimes have been preparing for weeks or even months ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 194
I have examined many cases of this kind, and often I could point to dreams which showed signs of a tendency to self-injury weeks beforehand. All those accidents that happen from so-called carelessness should be examined for such determinants ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 194
We know of course that when for one reason or another we feel out of sorts, we are liable to commit not only the minor follies, but something really dangerous which, given the right psychological moment, may well put an end to our lives ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 194
This activity should be thought of as completely autonomous only in pathological cases; normally it is co-ordinated with the conscious mind in a compensatory relationship ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 204
The progress of her life was thus held up, and that inner disunity so characteristic of a neurosis promptly made its appearance. The so-called normal person would probably be able to break the emotional bond in one or the other direction by a powerful act of will, or else and this is perhaps the more usual thing he would come through the difficulty unconsciously, on the smooth path of instinct, without ever being aware of the sort of conflict that lay behind his headaches or other physical discomforts ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 206
But any weakness of instinct (which may have many causes) is enough to hinder a smooth unconscious transition. Then all progress is delayed by conflict, and the resulting stasis of life is equivalent to a neurosis ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 206
In consequence of the standstill, psychic energy flows off in every conceivable direction, apparently quite uselessly. For instance, there are excessive innervations of the sympathetic system, which lead to nervous disorders of the stomach and intestines; or the vagus (and consequently the heart) is stimulated; or fantasies and memories, uninteresting enough in themselves, become overvalued and prey on the conscious mind (mountains out of molehills) ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 206
In this state a new motive is needed to put an end to the morbid suspension. Nature herself paves the way for this, unconsciously and indirectly, through the phenomenon of the transference (Freud). In the course of treatment the patient transfers the father-imago to the doctor, thus making him, in a sense, the father, and in the sense that he is not the father, also making him a substitute for the man she cannot reach. The doctor therefore becomes both a father and a kind of lover in other words, an object of conflict ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 206
In him the opposites are united, and for this reason he stands for a quasi-ideal solution of the conflict. Without in the least wishing it, he draws upon himself an over-valuation that is almost incredible to the outsider, for to the patient he seems like a saviour or a god ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 206
This way of speaking is not altogether so laughable as it sounds. It is indeed a bit much to be a father and lover at once. Nobody could possibly stand up to it in the long run, precisely because it is too much of a good thing. One would have to be a demigod at least to sustain such a role without a break, for all the time one would have to be the giver ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 206
To the patient in the state of transference, this provisional solution naturally seems ideal, but only at first; in the end she comes to a standstill that is just as bad as the neurotic conflict was. Fundamentally, nothing has yet happened that might lead to a real solution. The conflict has merely been transferred ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 206
Nevertheless a successful transference cant least temporarily cause the whole neurosis to disappear, and for this reason it has been very rightly recognized by Freud as a healing factor of first-rate importance, but, at the same time, as a provisional state only, for although it holds out the possibility of a cure, it is far from being the cure itself ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 206
But the energy of the transference is so strong that it gives one the impression of a vital instinct. That being so, what is the purpose of such fantasies? A careful examination and analysis of the dreams, revealed a very marked tendency in contrast to conscious criticism, which always seeks to reduce things to human proportions to endow the person of the doctor with superhuman attributes ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 214
He had to be gigantic, primordial, huger than the father, like the wind that sweeps over the earth was he then to be made into a god? Or, I said to myself, was it rather the case that the unconscious was trying to create a god out of the person of the doctor, as it were to free a vision of God from the veils of the personal, so that the transference to the person of the doctor was no more than a misunderstanding on the part of the conscious mind, a stupid trick played by “sound common sense”? ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 214
The analysis and conscious realization of unconscious contents engender a certain superior tolerance, thanks to which even relatively indigestible portions of one’s unconscious characterology can be accepted. This tolerance may look very wise and superior, but often it is no more than a grand gesture that brings all sorts of consequences in its train ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 224
Two spheres [the knowledge of good and evil] have been brought together which before were kept anxiously apart. After considerable resistances have been overcome, the union of opposites is successfully achieved, at least to all appearances ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 224
The deeper understanding thus gained, the juxtaposition of what was before separated [good and evil], and hence the apparent overcoming of the moral conflict, give rise to a feeling of superiority that may well be expressed by the term “godlikeness.” But this same juxtaposition of good and evil can have a very different effect on a different kind of temperament. Not everyone will feel himself a superman, holding in his hands the scales of good and evil. It may also seem as though he were a helpless object caught between hammer and anvil; not in the least a Hercules at the parting of the ways, but rather a rudderless ship buffeted between Scylla and Charybdis ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 224
For without knowing it, he is caught up in perhaps the greatest and most ancient of human conflicts, experiencing the throes of eternal principles in collision. Well might he feel himself like a Prometheus chained to the Caucasus, or as one crucified. This would be a “godlikeness” in suffering ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 224
Godlikeness is certainly not a scientific concept, although it aptly characterizes the psychological state in question. Nor do I imagine that every reader will immediately grasp the peculiar state of mind implied by “godlikeness.” The term belongs too exclusively to the sphere of belles-lettres. So I should probably be better advised to give a more circumspect description of this state ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 224
The insight and understanding, then, gained by the analysand usually reveal much to him that was before unconscious. He naturally applies this knowledge to his environment: in consequence he sees, or thinks he sees, many things that before were invisible. Since his knowledge was helpful to him, he readily assumes that it would be useful also to others ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 224
In this way he is liable to become arrogant; it may be well meant, but it is nonetheless annoying to other people. He feels as though he possesses a key that opens many, perhaps even all, doors ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 224
Psychoanalysis itself has this same bland unconsciousness of its limitations, as can clearly be seen from the way it meddles with works of art ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 224
Since human nature is not compounded wholly of light, but also abounds in shadows, the insight gained in practical analysis is often somewhat painful, the more so if, as is generally the case, one has previously neglected the other side. Hence there are people who take their newly won insight very much to heart, far too much in fact, quite forgetting that they are not unique in having a shadow-side. They allow themselves to get unduly depressed and are then inclined to doubt everything, finding nothing right anywhere ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 225
One man’s optimism makes him overweening, while another’s pessimism makes him over-anxious and despondent. Such are the forms which the great conflict takes when reduced to a smaller scale ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 225
But even in these lesser proportions the essence of the conflict is easily recognized: the arrogance of the one and the despondency of the other share a common uncertainty as to their boundaries. The one is excessively expanded, the other excessively contracted. Their individual boundaries are in some way obliterated ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 225
If we now consider the fact that, as a result of psychic compensation, great humility stands very close to pride, and that “pride goeth before a fall,” we can easily discover behind the haughtiness certain traits of an anxious sense of inferiority ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 225
In fact we shall see clearly how his uncertainty forces the enthusiast to puff up his truths, of which he feels none too sure, and to win proselytes to his side in order that his followers may prove to himself the value and trustworthiness of his own convictions ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 225
Nor is he altogether so happy in his fund of knowledge as to be able to hold out alone; at bottom he feels isolated by it, and the secret fear of being left alone with it induces him to trot out his opinions and interpretations in and out of season, because only when convincing someone else does he feel safe from gnawing doubts ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 225
It is just the reverse with our despondent friend. The more he withdraws and hides himself, the greater becomes his secret need to be understood and recognized. Although he speaks of his inferiority he does not really believe it. There arises within him a defiant conviction of his unrecognized merits, and in consequence he is sensitive to the slightest disapprobation, always wearing the stricken air of one who is misunderstood and deprived of his rightful due. In this way he nurses a morbid pride and an insolent discontent which is the very last thing he wants and for which his environment has to pay all the more dearly ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 226
Both [states] are at once too small and too big; their individual mean, never very secure, now becomes shakier than ever. It sounds almost grotesque to describe such a state as “godlike.” But since each in his way steps beyond his human proportions, both of them are a little “superhuman” and therefore, figuratively speaking, godlike ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 227
If we wish to avoid the use of this metaphor [godlike], I would suggest that we speak instead of “psychic inflation.” The term seems to me appropriate in so far as the state we are discussing involves an extension of the personality beyond individual limits, in other words, a state of being puffed up. In such a state a man fills a space which normally he cannot fill. He can only fill it by appropriating to himself contents and qualities which properly exist for themselves alone and should therefore remain outside our bounds. What lies outside ourselves belongs either to someone else, or to everyone, or to no one ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 227
Since psychic inflation is by no means a phenomenon induced exclusively by analysis, but occurs just as often in ordinary life, we can investigate it equally well in other cases. A very common instance is the humourless way in which many men identify themselves with their business or their titles. The office I hold is certainly my special activity; but it is also a collective factor that has come into existence historically through the cooperation of many people and whose dignity rests solely on collective approval. When, therefore, I identify myself with my office or title, I behave as though I myself were the whole complex of social factors of which that office consists, or as though I were not only the bearer of the office, but also and at the same time the approval of society. I have made an extraordinary extension of myself and have usurped qualities which are not in me but outside me. L’état c’est moi [I am the state!] is the motto for such people ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 227
Consequently, the individual who annexes the unconscious heritage of the collective psyche to what has accrued to him in the course of his ontogenetic development, as though it were part of the latter, enlarges the scope of his personality in an illegitimate way and suffers the consequences ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 235
In so far as the collective psyche comprises the parties inférieures of the psychic functions and thus forms the basis of every personality, it has the effect of crushing and devaluing the personality. This shows itself either in the aforementioned stifling of self-confidence or else in an unconscious heightening of the ego’s importance to the point of a pathological will to power ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 235
This discovery makes him therefore less individually unique, and more collective. His collectivization is not always a step to the bad; it may sometimes be a step to the good. There are people who repress their good qualities and consciously give free rein to their infantile desires ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 236
The lifting of personal repression at first brings purely personal contents into consciousness; but attached to them are the collective elements of the unconscious, the ever-present instincts, qualities, and ideas (images) as well as all those “statistical” quotas of average virtue and average vice which we recognize when we say, “Everyone has in him something of the criminal, the genius, and the saint” ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 236
If I were more of a therapist than an investigator, I would naturally be unable to check a certain optimism of judgment, because my eyes would then be glued to the number of cures. But my conscience as an investigator is concerned not with quantity but with quality ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 236
Nature is aristocratic, and one person of value outweighs ten lesser ones. My eye followed the valuable people, and from them I learned the dubiousness of the results of a purely personal analysis, and also to understand the reasons for this dubiousness ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 236
In primitives, development of personality, or more accurately, development of the person, is a question of magical prestige. The figure of the medicine-man or chief leads the way: both make themselves conspicuous by the singularity of their ornaments and their mode of life, expressive of their social roles ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 237
The singularity of his [the chief’s] outward tokens marks the individual off from the rest, and the segregation is still further enhanced by the possession of special ritual secrets. By these and similar means the primitive creates around him a shell, which might be called a persona (mask). Masks, as we know, are actually used among primitives in totem ceremoniesfor instance, as a means of enhancing or changing the personality. In this way the outstanding individual is apparently removed from the sphere of the collective psyche, and to the degree that he succeeds in identifying himself with his persona, he actually is removed. This removal means magical prestige ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 237
One could easily assert that the impelling motive in this development is the will to power. But that would be to forget that the building up of prestige is always a product of collective compromise: not only must there be one who wants prestige, there must also be a public seeking somebody on whom to confer prestige ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 237
That being so, it would be incorrect to say that a man creates prestige for himself out of his individual will to power; it is on the contrary an entirely collective affair. Since society as a whole needs the magically effective figure, it uses this need of the will to power in the individual, and the will to submit in the mass, as a vehicle, and thus brings about the creation of personal prestige. The latter is a phenomenon which, as the history of political institutions shows, is of the utmost importance for the comity of nations ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 237
The importance of personal prestige can hardly be overestimated, because the possibility of regressive dissolution in the collective psyche is a very real danger, not only for the outstanding individual but also for his followers. This possibility is most likely to occur when the goal of prestige universal recognition has been reached. The person then becomes a collective truth, and that is always the beginning of the end ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 238
To gain prestige is a positive achievement not only for the outstanding individual but also for the clan. The individual distinguishes himself by his deeds, the many by their renunciation of power. So long as this attitude needs to be fought for and defended against hostile influences, the achievement remains positive; but as soon as there are no more obstacles and universal recognition has been attained, prestige loses its positive value and usually becomes a dead letter. A schismatic movement then sets in, and the whole process begins again from the beginning ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 238
Because personality is of such paramount importance for the life of the community, everything likely to disturb its development is sensed as a danger. But the greatest danger of all is the premature dissolution of prestige by an invasion of the collective psyche. Absolute secrecy is one of the best-known primitive means of exorcising this danger ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 239
Collective thinking and feeling and collective effort are far less of a strain than individual functioning and effort; hence there is always a great temptation to allow collective functioning to take the place of individual differentiation of the personality ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 239
t is a notorious fact that the morality of a society as a whole is in inverse ratio to its size; for the greater the aggregation of individuals, the more the individual factors are blotted out, and with them morality, which rests entirely on the moral sense of the individual and the freedom necessary for this ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
Hence every man is, in a certain sense, unconsciously a worse man when he is in society than when acting alone; for he is carried by society and to that extent relieved of his individual responsibility ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
Any large company composed of wholly admirable persons has the morality and intelligence of an unwieldy, stupid, and violent animal. The bigger the organization, the more unavoidable is its immorality and blind stupidity ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
Society, by automatically stressing all the collective qualities in its individual representatives, puts a premium on mediocrity, on everything that settles down to vegetate in an easy, irresponsible way ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
Individuality will inevitably be driven to the wall. This process begins in school, continues at the university, and rules all departments in which the State has a hand ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
In a small social body, the individuality of its members is better safeguarded; and the greater is their relative freedom and the possibility of conscious responsibility ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
The man of today, who resembles more or less the collective ideal, has made his heart into a den of murderers, as can easily be proved by the analysis of his unconscious, even though he himself is not in the least disturbed by it ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
In so far as he is normally “adapted” to his environment, it is true that the greatest infamy on the part of his group will not disturb him, so long as the majority of his fellows steadfastly believe in the exalted morality of their social organization ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 240
The collective instincts and fundamental forms of human thought and feeling whose activity is revealed by the analysis of the unconscious constitute, for the conscious personality, an acquisition which it cannot assimilate without considerable disturbance ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 241
It is therefore of the utmost importance in practical treatment to keep the integrity of the personality constantly in mind. For, if the collective psyche is taken to be the personal possession of the individual, it will result in a distortion or an overloading of the personality which is very difficult to deal with ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 241
Hence it is imperative to make a clear distinction between personal contents and those of the collective psyche. This distinction is far from easy, because the personal grows out of the collective psyche and is intimately bound up with it. So it is difficult to say exactly what contents are to be called personal and what collective ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 241
There is no doubt, for instance, that archaic symbolisms such as we frequently find in fantasies and dreams are collective factors. All basic instincts and basic forms of thought and feeling are collective. Everything that all men agree in regarding as universal is collective, likewise everything that is universally understood, universally found, universally said and done ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 241
Human beings have one faculty which, though it is of greatest utility for collective purposes, is most pernicious for individuation, and that is the faculty of imitation. Collective psychology cannot dispense with imitation, for without it all mass organizations, the State and the social order, are impossible ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 242
Society is organized, indeed, less by law than by the propensity to imitation, implying equally suggestibility, suggestion, and mental contagion ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 242
But we see every day how people use, or rather abuse, the mechanism of imitation for the purpose of personal differentiation: they are content to ape some eminent personality, some striking characteristic or mode of behaviour, thereby achieving an outward distinction from the circle in which they move ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 242
We could almost say that as a punishment for this uniformity of their minds with those of their neighbours, already real enough, is intensified into an unconscious, compulsive bondage to the environment. As a rule these specious attempts at individual differentiation stiffen into a pose, and the imitator remains at the same level as he always was, only several degrees more sterile than before ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 242
To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 242
I have shown that to annex the deeper layers of the unconscious, which I have called the collective unconscious, produces an enlargement of the personality leading to the state of inflation. This state is reached by simply continuing the analytical work, By continuing the analysis we add to the personal consciousness certain fundamental, general, and impersonal characteristics of humanity, thereby bringing about the inflation which might be regarded as one of the unpleasant consequences of becoming fully conscious ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 243
This phenomenon, which results from the extension of consciousness, is in no sense specific to analytical treatment. It occurs whenever people are overcome by knowledge or by some new realization, “Knowledge puffeth up,” Paul writes to the Corinthians, for the new knowledge had turned the heads of many, as indeed constantly happens ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 243
The inflation has nothing to do with the kind of knowledge, but simply and solely with the fact that any new knowledge can so seize hold of a weak head that he no longer sees and hears anything else. He is hypnotized by it, and instantly believes he has solved the riddle of the universe ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 243
But that is equivalent to almighty self-conceit. This process is such a general reaction that, in Genesis 2: 17, eating of the tree of knowledge is represented as a deadly sin. It may not be immediately apparent why greater consciousness followed by self-conceit should be a dangerous thing ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 243
Genesis represents the act of becoming conscious as a taboo infringement, as though knowledge meant that a sacrosanct barrier had been impiously overstepped. I think that Genesis is right in so far as every step towards greater consciousness is a kind of Promethean guilt: through knowledge, the gods are as it were robbed of their fire, that is, something that was the property of the unconscious powers is torn out of its natural context and subordinated to the whims of the conscious mind ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 243
The man who has usurped the new knowledge suffers, however, a transformation or enlargement of consciousness, which no longer resembles that of his fellow men. He has raised himself above the human level of his age (“ye shall become like unto God”), but in so doing has alienated himself from humanity. The pain of this loneliness is the vengeance of the gods, for never again can he return to mankind. He is, as the myth says, chained to the lonely cliffs of the Caucasus, forsaken of God and man ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 243
The term persona is really a very appropriate expression for this, for originally it meant the mask once worn by actors to indicate the role they played ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 245
If we endeavour to draw a precise distinction between what psychic material should be considered personal, and what impersonal, we soon find ourselves in the greatest dilemma, for by definition we have to say of the persona’s contents what we have said of the impersonal unconscious, namely, that it is collective ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 245
It is only because the persona represents a more or less arbitrary and fortuitous segment of the collective psyche that we can make the mistake of regarding it in toto as something individual. It is, as its name implies, only a mask of the collective psyche, a mask that feigns individuality, making others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 245
When we analyse the persona we strip off the mask, and discover that what seemed to be individual is at bottom collective; in other words, that the persona was only a mask for the collective psyche ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 246
Fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be. He takes a name, earns a title, exercises a function, he is this or that ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 246
In a certain sense all this is real, yet in relation to the essential individuality of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a compromise formation, in making which others often have a greater share than he. The persona is a semblance, a two-dimensional reality, to give it a nickname ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 246
There is, after all, something individual in the peculiar choice and delineation of the persona, and that despite the exclusive identity of the ego-consciousness with the persona the unconscious Self, one’s real individuality, is always present and makes itself felt indirectly if not directly ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 247
Although the ego-consciousness is at first identical with the persona that compromise role in which we parade before the community yet the unconscious Self can never be repressed to the point of extinction. Its influence is chiefly manifest in the special nature of the contrasting and compensating contents of the unconscious ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 247
Through the analysis of the personal unconscious, the conscious mind becomes suffused with collective material which brings with it the elements of individuality ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 247
In the case of a patient of Jung [a philosophy student] her analysis revealed a persona behind which her real and authentic being, her individual Self, lay hidden. Indeed, to the extent that she at first completely identified herself with her role, she was altogether unconscious of her real Self. She was still in her nebulous infantile world and had not yet discovered the real world at all ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 248
But as, through progressive analysis, she became conscious of the nature of her transference, the dreams began to materialize. They brought up bits of the collective unconscious, and that was the end of her infantile world and of all the heroics. She came to herself and to her own real potentialities ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 248
This is roughly the way things go in most cases, if the analysis is carried far enough. That the consciousness of her individuality should coincide exactly with the reactivation of an archaic god-image is not just as isolated coincidence, but a very frequent occurrence which, in my view, corresponds to an unconscious law ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 248
Once the personal repressions are lifted, the individuality and the collective psyche begin to emerge in a coalescent state, thus releasing the hitherto repressed personal fantasies. The fantasies and dreams which now appear assume a somewhat different aspect. An infallible sign of collective images seems to be the appearance of the collective element is very often announced by peculiar symptoms, as for example by dreams where the dreamer is flying through space like a comet, or feels that he is the earth, or the sun, or a star; or else is of immense size, or dwarfishly small; or that he is dead, is in a strange place, is a stranger to himself, confused, mad, etc. Similarly, feelings of disorientation, of dizziness and the like, may appear along with symptoms of inflation ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 250
The forces that burst out of the collective psyche has a confusing and blinding effect. One result of the dissolution of the persona is a release of involuntary fantasy, which is apparently nothing else than the specific activity of the collective psyche. This activity throws up contents whose existence one had never suspected before. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, 251
But as the influence of the collective unconscious increases, so the conscious mind loses its power of leadership. Imperceptibly it becomes the led, while an unconscious and impersonal process gradually takes control. Thus, without noticing it, the conscious personality is pushed about like a figure on a chess-board by an invisible player. It is this player who decides the game of fate, not the conscious mind and its plans. This is how the resolution of the transference, apparently so impossible to the conscious mind, was brought about [in my patient] ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 251
The plunge into this process [disintegration of the persona] becomes unavoidable, whenever the necessity arises of overcoming an apparently insuperable difficulty. But when this inner adaptation becomes a problem, a strange, irresistible attraction proceeds from the unconscious and exerts a powerful influence on the conscious direction of life ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 252
The predominance of unconscious influences, together with the associated disintegration of the persona and the deposition of the conscious mind from power, constitute a state of psychic disequilibrium which, in analytical treatment, is artificially induced for the therapeutic purpose of resolving a difficulty t