The second half, the cultural phase, involved a reevaluation of earlier values
In his 1926 revision of The Psychology of the Unconscious Processes, he highlighted the significance of the midlife transition.
He argued that the first half of life could be characterized as the natural phase, in which the prime aim was establishing oneself in the world, earning an income, and raising a family.
The second half, the cultural phase, involved a reevaluation of earlier values. ~The Black Books, Vol. I, Page 99
Carl Jung on the value of Dogma
It may not be quite clear why I call certain dogmas “immediate experiences,” since in itself a dogma is the very thing that precludes immediate experience.
Yet the Christian images I have mentioned are not peculiar to Christianity alone (although in Christianity they have undergone a development and intensification of meaning not be found in any other religion).
They occur just as often in pagan religions, and besides that they can reappear spontaneously in all sorts of variations as psychic phenomena, just as in the remote past they originated in visions, dreams, or trances. Ideas like these are never invented.
They came into being before man had learned to use his mind purposively. Before man learned to produce thoughts, thoughts came to him. HE DID NOT THINK-HE PERCEIVED HIS MIND FUNCTIONING. Dogma is like a dream, reflecting the spontaneous and autonomous activity of the objective psyche, the unconscious.
Such and expression of the unconscious is a much more efficient means of defense against further immediate experiences than any scientific theory.
The theory has to disregard the emotional values of the experience. The dogma, on the other hand is extremely eloquent in just this respect. One scientific theory is soon superseded by another.
Dogma lasts for untold centuries.
The suffering God-Man may be at least five thousand years old and the Trinity is probably even older. Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 46, Paragraph 81.
Learning to cherish and emphasize feminine values
From Emma Jung’s “Animus and Anima, Two Essays” (p. 42): For women working with the animus….
“Learning to cherish and emphasize feminine values is the primary condition of our holding our own against the masculine principle which is mighty in a double sense – both within the psyche and without. If it attains sole mastery, it threatens that field of woman which is most peculiarly her own, the field in which she can achieve what is most real to her and what she does best – indeed, it endangers her very life.
But when women succeed in maintaining themselves against the animus, instead of allowing themselves to be devoured by it, then it ceases to be only a danger and becomes a creative power. We women need this power, for, strange as it seems, only when this masculine entity becomes an integrated part of the soul and carries on its proper function there is it possible for a woman to be truly a woman in the higher sense, and, at the same time, also being herself, to fulfill her individual human destiny.
Commentary courtesy of Nancy Gravely
Carl Jung on the value of a person
C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950
Anonymous
Dear Herr N., 27 October 1930
The wonderful Chinese statuette not only came as an extraordinary surprise but has also given me much pleasure.
As I am a great admirer of Chinese art I can appreciate your gift all the more highly.
May I take this opportunity to express the hope that the latest developments have not shaken anything essential in you.
In the last resort the value of a person is never expressed in his relation to others but consists in itself.
Therefore we should never let our self-confidence or self-esteem depend on the behaviour of another person however much we may be humanly affected by him.
Everything that happens to us, properly understood, leads us back to ourselves; it is as though there were some unconscious guidance whose aim it is to deliver us from all ties and all dependence and make us dependent on our-selves.
This is because dependence on the behaviour of others is a last vestige of childhood which we think we can’t do without.
Yours sincerely,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 78
