The symbolic story of the beginning, which speaks to us from the mythology of all ages,
The form of representation peculiar to the unconscious is not that of the conscious mind.
It neither attempts nor is able to seize hold of and define its objects in a series of discursive explanations, and reduce them to clarity by logical analysis.
The way of the unconscious is different.
Symbols gather round the thing to be explained, understood, interpreted.
The act of becoming conscious consists in the concentric grouping of symbols around the object, all circumscribing and describing the unknown from many sides.
Each symbol lays bare another essential side of the object to be grasped, points to another facet of meaning.
Only the canon of these symbols congregating about the center in question, the coherent symbol group, can lead to an understanding of what the symbols point to and of what they are trying to express.
The symbolic story of the beginning, which speaks to us from the mythology of all ages, is the attempt made by man’s childlike, prescientific consciousness to master problems and enigmas which are mostly beyond the grasp of even our developed modern consciousness.
If our consciousness, with epistemological resignation, is constrained to regard the question of the beginning as unanswerable and therefore unscientific, it may be right; but the psyche, which can neither be taught nor led astray by the self-criticism of the conscious mind, always poses this question afresh as one that is essential to it. ― Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness, Page 7
What is the myth you are living?
Besides the obvious personal sources, creative fantasy also draws upon the forgotten and long buried primitive mind with
its host of images, which are to be found in the mythologies of all ages and all peoples.
The sum of these images constitutes the collective unconscious, a heritage which is potentially present in every individual.
It is the psychic correlate of the differentiation of the human brain.
This is the reason why mythological image are able to arise spontaneously over and over again, and to agree with one another not only in all the corners of the wide earth, but at all times.
As they are present always and everywhere, it is an entirely natural proceeding to relate mythologems, which may be very far apart both temporally and ethnically, to an individual fantasy system.
The creative substratum is everywhere this same human psyche and this same human brain, which, with relatively minor variations, functions everywhere in the same way. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Page xxix
I was driven to ask myself in all seriousness: “What is the myth you are living?”
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.
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 due 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.
This resolve led me to devote many years of my life to investigating the subjective contents which are the products of unconscious processes, and to work out methods which would enable us, or at any rate help us, to explore the manifestations of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Pages xxiv-xxv
God always speaks mythologically. If he didn’t, he would reveal reason and science. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 9-10.
Ideas of God are first of all myths, statements about things that are philosophically and scientifically indeterminable; that is, they are psychological objects which are amenable to discussion. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 65-68.
No doubt the archetypes are present everywhere, but there is also a widespread resistance to this “mythology.” That is why even the gospel has to be “demythologized.” ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 83-86.
I should not worry about all this localization talk. It’s practically all foolishness, and a remnant of the old brain mythology like the explanation of sleep through the contraction of the ganglia, which is by no means more intelligent than the localization of the psyche in the pituitary gland. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 159-161.
Mythological motifs are facts; they never change; only theories change. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 191-192.
What we need is the development of the inner spiritual man, the unique individual whose treasure is hidden on the one hand in the symbols of our mythological tradition, and on the other hand in man’s unconscious psyche. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 201-208
On the other hand “God” is a verbal image, a predicate or mythologem founded on archetypal premises which underlie the structure of the psyche as images of the instincts (“instinctual patterns”). ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 254-256.
Mythology as a vital psychic phenomenon is as necessary as it is unavoidable. In this discussion, it seems to me, the gnostic danger of ousting the unknowable and incomprehensible and unutterable God by philosophems and mythologems must be clearly recognized, so that nothing is shoved in between human consciousness and the primordial numinous experience. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 254-256.
If theologians think that whenever they say “God” then God is, they are deifying anthropomorphisms, psychic structures and myths. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 257-264.
The reason why mythic statements invariably lead to word-magic is that the archetype possesses a numinous autonomy and has a psychic life of its own. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 257-264.
The archetype is not just the formal condition for mythological statements but an overwhelming force comparable to nothing I know. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 257-264.
Our psychic foundations are shrouded in such great and inchoate darkness that, as soon as you peer into it, it is instantly compensated by mythic forms. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 327-329.
If, for instance, we were to create a myth, we would say that “God” has two aspects, spiritual and chthonic, or rather: material. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 341-343.
As regards the Incarnation, the idea of God’s descent into human nature is a true mythologem. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 341-343.
This, too,[UFO’s] is an expression of something that has always claimed my deepest interest and my greatest attention: the manifestation of archetypes, or archetypal forms, in all the phenomena of life: in biology, physics, history, folklore, and art, in theology and mythology, in parapsychology, as well as in the symptoms of insane patients and neurotics, and finally in the dreams and life of every individual man and woman. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 397-398.
The underlying scheme, the quaternio, i.e., the psychological equation of primordial dynamis (prima causa) with gods and their mythology, time and space, is a psychological problem of the first order. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 426-427
Although the assertion of immortality is in itself a fact, it is no more proof of immortality than are any other mythological statements. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 457-458
After thinking all this over I have come to the conclusion that being “made in the likeness” applies not only to man but also to the Creator: he resembles man or is his likeness, which is to say that he is just as unconscious as man or even more unconscious, since according to the myth of the incarnatio he actually felt obliged to become man and offer himself to man as a sacrifice. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 493-496
I fully agree with it, only I would ask you to state explicitly that in my psychology the ” mythological” aspect means “religious attitude.” ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 468
You will surely have noticed in reading my writings that I do not mince my words and clearly and expressly point out that the regard for mythological parallels is conducive to a religious attitude. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 468
It was the Enlightenment which destroyed this bulwark by reducing the unitary view to nothing but mythology. In its modern usage mythology simply means “it is nothing,” since myths are unrealistic. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 468
But if the believer without religion now thinks that he has got rid of mythology he is deceiving himself: he cannot get by without “myth.” ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 482-488
Materia is in the end simply a chthonic mother goddess, and the late Pope seems to have had an inkling of this. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 482-488
Clearly the anti-mythological trend is due to the difficulties we have in clinging on to our previous mythological tenets of belief. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 482-488
“Reason” is, notoriously, not necessarily ethical any more than intelligence is. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 482-488
It [Myth] gives the ultimately unimaginable religious experience an image, a form in which to express itself, and thus makes community life possible, whereas a merely subjective religious experience lacking the traditional mythic imagery remains inarticulate and asocial, and, if it does anything at all, it fosters a spiritually anchoritic life. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 482-488
In the intellectual world in which I grew up, Hegelian thought played no role at all; on the contrary, it was Kant and his epistemology on the one hand, and on the other straight materialism, which I never shared, knowing too much about its ridiculous mythology. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 500-502
Nobody seems to have noticed that without a reflecting psyche the world might as well not exist, and that, in consequence, consciousness is a second world-creator, and also that the cosmogonic myths do not describe the absolute beginning of the world but rather the dawning of consciousness as the second Creation. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 482-488
Myth is pre-eminently a social phenomenon: it is told by the many and heard by the many. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 482-488
The starry vault of heaven is in truth the open book of cosmic projection, in which are reflected the mythologems, i.e., the archetypes. In this vision astrology and alchemy, the two classical functionaries of the psychology of the collective unconscious, join hands. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Page 195, Para 392.
I watched the creation of myths going on, and got an insight into the structure of the unconscious, forming thus the concept that plays such a role in the Types. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 35
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
Besides the obvious personal sources, creative fantasy also draws upon the forgotten and long buried primitive mind with its host of images, which are to be found in the mythologies of all ages and all peoples. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Pages xxiv-xxv
The religious myth is one of man’s greatest and most significant achievements, giving him the security and inner strength not to be crushed by the monstrousness of the universe. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 343
Just as the unconscious world of mythological images speaks indirectly, through the experience of external things, to the man who surrenders wholly to the outside world, so the real world and its demands find their way indirectly to the man who has surrendered wholly to the soul; for no man can escape both realities. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 280
Myth is not fiction: it consists of facts that are continually repeated and can be observed over and over again. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 648.
It [myth] is something that happens to man, and men have mythical fates just as much as the Greek heroes do. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 648.
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