Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Modern Man in Search of a Soul
It is true that widely accepted ideas are never the personal property of their so-called author; on the contrary, he is the bond-servant of his ideas.
Impressive ideas which are hailed as truths have something peculiar to themselves.
Although they come into being at a definite time, they are and have always been timeless; they arise from that realm of procreative, 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 a source that is not contained within one man’s personal life.
We do not create them; they create us.
To be sure, when we deal in ideas we inevitably make a confession, for they bring to the light of day not only the best that in us lies, but our worst insufficiencies and personal shortcomings as well.
This is especially the case with ideas about psychology.
Whence should they come except from the most subjective side of life?
Can experience with the objective world save us from subjective prejudgments?
Is not every experience, even in the best of circumstances, to a large extent subjective interpretation?
On the other hand, the subject also is an objective fact, a piece of the world.
What issues from it comes, after all, from the universal soil, just as the rarest and strangest organism is none the less supported and nourished by the earth which we all share in common.
It is precisely the most subjective ideas which, being closest to nature and to the living being, deserve to be called the truest.
But what is truth? ~Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Page 115-116