“It is exactly as if a dialogue were taking place between two human beings . .. “
Once these fantasies had been produced and embodied, two approaches were possible: creative formulation and understanding.
Each needed the other, and both were necessary to produce the transcendent function, which arose out of the union of conscious and unconscious contents.
For some people, Jung noted, it was simple to note the “other” voice in writing and to answer it from the standpoint of the I:
“It is exactly as if a dialogue were taking place between two human beings . .. ”
This dialogue led to the creation of the transcendent function, which resulted in a widening of consciousness.
This depiction of inner dialogues and the means of evoking fantasies in a waking state represents Jung’s own undertaking in the Black Books.
The interplay of creative formulation and understanding corresponds to Jung’s work in Liber Novus.
Jung did not publish this paper.
He later remarked that he never finished his work on the transcendent function because he did it only half-heartedly.
In 1917, Jung published a short book with a long title: The Psychology of the Unconscious Processes: An Overview of the Modern Theory and Method of Analytical Psychology.
In his preface, dated December 1916, he proclaimed the psychological processes that accompanied the war had brought the problem of the chaotic unconscious to the forefront of attention.
However, the psychology of the individual corresponded to the psychology of the nation, and only the transformation of the attitude of the individual could bring about cultural renewal.
This articulated the intimate interconnection between individual and collective events that was at the center of Liber Novus .
For Jung, the conjunction between his precognitive visions and the outbreak of war had made apparent the deep subliminal connections between individual fantasies and world events- and hence between the psychology of the individual and that of the nation.
What was now required was to work out this connection in more detail. Jung noted that after one had analyzed and integrated the contents of the personal unconscious, one came up against mythological fantasies that stemmed from the phylogenetic layer of the unconscious.
The Psychology of the Unconscious Processes provided an exposition of the collective, suprapersonal, absolute unconscious- these terms being used interchangeably Jung argued that one needed to separate oneself from the unconscious by presenting it visibly as something separate from one.
It was vital to differentiate the I from the non- I, namely, the collective psyche or absolute unconscious.
To do this, “man must necessarily stand upon firm feet in his I -function; that is, he must fulfil his duty toward life completely, so that he may in every respect be a vitally living member of society.”
Jung had been endeavoring to accomplish these tasks during this period. ~Sonu Shamdasani, The Red Book, Page 209
