You are a reincarnation of the savior, a messiah, and so on
Dr. Jung: Yes, personified autonomous contents.
For instance, a person might have a spirit of pride or of hostility, and the content would be essentially that emotion, or it might be personified as the spirit of an old aunt, or the grandfather, or anybody else.
But it can be proved that it is a memory image still alive, contents of the unconscious that act as if they were persons.
Now in investigating the psychology of such autonomous figures-experimenting with a planchette, say, or with a glass running round the table-if you can pin a ghost down and ask who said a certain thing, the unconscious replies:
”.John said it.” “But who is John?” And the answer comes: “Don’t you remember John Smith, your cousin?”
And you think you have really got hold of him.
Then you engage him in conversation, ask him questions ( one is naturally very curious about the land of the hereafter), and he tells you all sorts of interesting details, they are really very peculiar.
But if you inquire too closely he begins to be evasive, he tells you all sorts of lies, and in the end he often persuades you to believe the most foolish things.
He says:
“The reason that I am moved to be here is that you are a very great man,” and after a while it invariably turns out that you are a reincarnation of the savior, a messiah, and so on; or if you are a bit more modest, you are one of the apostles; or you are not exactly Julius Caesar, but his adjutant, and naturally you have a great destiny before you.
So you discover that it is all humbug, and you say to John, “You were always such a good friend, honest and loyal, such a nice man, how can you invent such hellish lies and try to hypnotize me into madness?”
And then he wriggles weakly out and evaporates somehow, he never will tell you why, so you come to the conclusion that the damned thing has no soul, it is soulless to the nth degree.
All the products of the collective unconscious, if too hard pressed, evaporate into nothingness; the moment you get at them with your personal problems and desires, with your human soul, you destroy them.
They are exactly like exceedingly delicate flowers which only blossom for one night and then wither.
You must take them as they are, the truth of a moment; if you treat them as flesh and blood you make the mistake of your life. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 944
The Hero, Leader, Savior
But, in the end, the hero, the leader, the savior, is one who discovers a new way to greater certainty. Everything could be left undisturbed did not the new way demand to be discovered, and did it not visit humanity with all the plagues of Egypt until it finally is discovered.
The undiscovered vein within us is a living part of the psyche; classical Chinese philosophy names this interior way “Tao,” and likens it to a flow of water that moves irresistibly towards its goal.
To rest in Tao means fulfillment, wholeness, one’s destination reached, one’s mission done; the beginning, end, and perfect realization of the meaning of existence innate in all things. Personality is Tao.
The next savior might be a coloured man.
I once said in the seminar it would be by no means impossible that the next savior might be a coloured man for the better humiliation of the white man’s spiritual inflation. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 81.
Jung always thought, for instance, that a black man would be the next Savior. So in some corner of Africa, perhaps a man will stand up and proclaim the new myth. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Visions and Voices, Page 60
Those perfectly natural beautiful beings who are so much more decent than we are, going about naked like animals or beautiful flowers, are taught by our Christianity to wear clothes; it is abominable, apart from the bad taste. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 493
Quite apart from the barbarities and blood baths perpetrated by the Christian nations among themselves throughout European history, the European has also to answer for all the crimes he has committed against the coloured races during the process of colonization. In this respect the white man carries a very heavy burden indeed. It shows us a picture of the common human shadow that could hardly be painted in blacker colours. The evil that comes to light in man and that undoubtedly dwells within him is of gigantic proportions. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 571
What we from our point of view call colonization, missions to the heathen, spread of civilization, etc., has another face the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel intentness for distant quarry a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen. ~Carl Jung, MDR, Page 248
The dignity of man— an essential notion still to be learned by all missionaries! ~Carl Jung, Hans Schmid Guisan Letters, Pages 100-114
When those doubtful blessings, missionaries, stop the initiation ceremonies of a tribe, it always decays. When you take these rites from the people they lose their sense of life, and then they just go from one cigarette to the next, and from one drink to the next. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 216.
[The forthcoming “Jaffe Protocols” which will include nearly 300 pages on “Africa” which were excluded from “Memories” and will likely provide additional insights into this subject and point out how Dr. Jung’s visits to Africa had such profound impact on the construction of “Bollingen.”]
