If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely.
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Memories Dreams Reflections A Biography by Aniela Jaffe
The difference between most people and myself is that for me the “dividing walls” are transparent.
That is my peculiarity.
Others find these walls so opaque that they see nothing behind them and therefore think nothing is there.
To some extent I perceive the processes going on in the background, and that gives me an inner certainty.
People who see nothing have no certainties and can draw no conclusions–or do not trust them even if they do.
I do not know what started me off perceiving the stream of life. Probably the unconscious itself. Or perhaps my early dreams.
They determined my course from the beginning.
Knowledge of processes in the background early shaped my relationship to the world.
Basically, that relationship was the same in my childhood as it is to this day.
As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am stilI, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know.
Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.
The loneliness began with the experiences of my early dreams, and reached its climax at the time I was working on the unconscious.
If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely.
But loneliness is not necessarily inimical to companionship, for no one is more sensitive to companionship than the lonely man, and companionship thrives only when each individual remembers his individuality and does not identify himself with others. ~Carl Jung, MDR, Pages 355-356
Victor White: I am just indescribably lonely,
My dear C. G., November 8, 1953
The dilemma, reduced to its simplest terms, seems complete and insoluble.
If Christ is no longer an adequate and valid symbol of the Self, and in fact very inadequate, one-sided, unintegrated and harmful, then must not one choose—at whatever cost?
Faith in him, it seems to me, must be unconditional; once one “criticizes Christ” one has lost faith in him, and one cannot in honesty preach him any more.
And one has lost any sense of oneness that one ever had with one’s community, with the Church, with the “cause” that animates them. . . .
So I tell myself from time to time that, whatever the cost, I must get out. . . .
I am just indescribably lonely, and it’s some relief to me to tell you. . . .
I must confess there are times when I wish to heaven I had never heard of your psychology (and some of your disciples); and yet I tremble to think what would have happened if I hadn’t!
Ever Cordially,
Victor ~Jung-White Letters, Pages 216-217.
No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel
Neither propaganda nor exhibitionist confessions are needed.
If the archetype, which is universal, i.e., identical with itself always and anywhere, is properly dealt with in one place only, it is influenced as a whole, i.e. simultaneously and everywhere.
Thus an old alchemist gave the following consolation to one of his disciples:
“No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.”
It seems to me that noting essential has ever been lost, because the matrix is ever present within us and from this it can and will be reproduced if needed.
But only those can recover it who have learned the art of averting their eyes from the blinding light of current opinion, and close their ears to the noise of ephemeral slogans. ~C. G. Jung: Letters, Volume II, Page 595.
Sex is a playground fo lonely scientists
