Carl Jung: Insight, Secrecy and Community
The Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Insight, Secrecy and Community
December 6, 1957
True connection with other people, with the world, with the cosmos, is impossible unless we know what is going on inside ourselves.
It was only my understanding of what is common to all people, the unconscious with its collective contents, the archetypal, that enabled me to relate to others.
As a young man, of course I thought I understood people and had relationships.
But other people basically meant nothing to me!
However, the urge to understand the mysteries of the soul would not let me go; I felt compelled to reflect on these things.
It did not simply come down to a compulsion, but to my own will, my temperament. It was actually what I always wanted.
Because of this intense desire to understand the soul, as a young doctor I even wished that I could experience schizophrenia myself, or at least have a love affair with a schizophrenic woman, so that I could find out what went on in these people.
I became lonely, not on account of my desire for insight, but because of what this led me to – the acquisition of insight. first there was no one around me who could understand.
And, strictly speaking, even now I am talking to you about matters I was never able to explain before – to anyone. you gain something from it, you too will be set apart from others.
Knowledge can make you feel alone, cause a loneliness.
The opposite is also true, however: knowledge of the archetypal forces is necessary to understand the deeper meaning of community and companionship.
True community comes through shared knowledge and insight.
There is little point in finding community through shared banalities.
Some special exclusive insight that can be shared with a few others is what binds people together.
For primitive people, therefore, community is always linked with secrecy. Community is a kind of mystery cult. ~Carl Jung, Reflections on the Life and Dreams of C.G. Jung, Page15-16
The individual exists. What is community? It is a crowd.
Psychology of Yoga and Meditation
The individual exists. What is community? It is a crowd.
Only the individual gives it meaning and value. When all is said and done, it is absolutely exclusively the Christ in us.
Otherwise we turn idols into gods and deliver ourselves up to idolatry. ~Carl Jung, Psychology of Yoga and Meditation, Page 60
Jung’s remark can be seen as a critical statement regarding Nazi Germany and other fascist states at the time.
At least the audience in the auditorium understood it that way. ES commented in his script: “Great applause.”
In 1933, Jung also emphasized the importance of the self-development of the individual in order to fulfil its task within a collective movement: “
The self-development of the individual is especially necessary in our time.
When the individual is unconscious of himself, the collective movement too lacks a clear sense of purpose.
Only the self-development of the individual, which I consider to be the supreme goal of all psychological endeavor, can produce consciously responsible spokesmen and leaders of the collective movement.” [Interview with Adolf Weizsäcker, 26 June 1933 in McGuire/Hull, 1977, p. 64] ~Psychology of Yoga and Meditation, Page 60, fn 218
The Church means serving the community, therapy serves the individual.
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Letters of C. G. Jung: Volume I, 1906-1950 (Vol 1)
To Pastor Fritz Pfafflin
Dear Pastor Pfafflin, 30 August 1937
A real grounding as a psychotherapist requires systematic study, above all a training analysis.
I don’t think occasional consultations can replace the continuity of the analytical process.
Of course you can learn all sorts of useful things from them, but that is not a professional grounding.
I think you would do better to acquire as much knowledge within your own field of work as you reasonably and possibly can, and so gain sufficient understanding from daily life.
In this way you will build up over the years a procedure that is peculiarly your own.
After all, there must be not only psychotherapists but also theologians with psychological knowledge, otherwise it would be better to turn the whole Church into a psychological clinic.
But the task of the Church is not the same as that of psychotherapy.
The Church means serving the community, therapy serves the individual.
There are plenty of people who can only be reached collectively.
Best thanks for your interesting review.
Your honest words will be a thorn in the flesh for many.
With best regards,
Yours sincerely,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 235
