Carl Jung: the relativity of the symbol.
Psychological Types (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 6)
We now come to the main theme of this chapter—the relativity of the symbol.
The “relativity of God,” as I understand it, denotes a point of view that does not conceive of God as “absolute,” i.e., wholly “cut off” from man and existing outside and beyond all human conditions, but as in a certain sense dependent on him; it also implies a reciprocal and essential relation between man and God, whereby man can be understood as a function of God, and God as a psychological function of man.
From the empirical standpoint of analytical psychology, the God-image is the symbolic expression of a particular psychic state, or function, which is characterized by its absolute ascendency over the will of the subject, and can therefore bring about or enforce actions and achievements that could never be done by conscious effort.
This overpowering impetus to action (so far as the God-function manifests itself in acts), or this inspiration that transcends conscious understanding, has its source in an accumulation of energy in the unconscious.
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
Carl Jung: the relativity of the symbol.
Psychological Types (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 6)
We now come to the main theme of this chapter—the relativity of the symbol.
The “relativity of God,” as I understand it, denotes a point of view that does not conceive of God as “absolute,” i.e., wholly “cut off” from man and existing outside and beyond all human conditions, but as in a certain sense dependent on him; it also implies a reciprocal and essential relation between man and God, whereby man can be understood as a function of God, and God as a psychological function of man.
From the empirical standpoint of analytical psychology, the God-image is the symbolic expression of a particular psychic state, or function, which is characterized by its absolute ascendency over the will of the subject, and can therefore bring about or enforce actions and achievements that could never be done by conscious effort.
This overpowering impetus to action (so far as the God-function manifests itself in acts), or this inspiration that transcends conscious understanding, has its source in an accumulation of energy in the unconscious.
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 Symbol of the Crystal.
The symbol of the crystal signifies the unalterable law of events that comes of itself In this seed you grasp what is to come. I saw something terrible and incomprehensible. (It was on the night of Christmas day of the year 1913.)
I saw the peasant’s boot, the sign of the horrors of the peasant war, of murdering incendiaries and of bloody cruelty: I knew to interpret this sign for myself as nothing but the fact that something bloody and dreadful lay before us. I saw the foot of a giant that crushed a whole city: How could I interpret this sign otherwise?
I saw that the way to self-sacrifice began here. They will all become terribly enraptured by these tremendous experiences, and in their blindness will want to understand them as outer events. It is an inner happening; that is the way to the perfection of the mystery of Christ, so that the peoples learn self-sacrifice. ~Carl Jung, Red Book, Page 254
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