Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Carl Jung Quotations 8




Language, in its origin and essence, is simply a system of signs or symbols that denote real occurrences or their echo in the human soul. Carl Jung; Symbols of Transformation; para. 13.


How am I to be creative? Nature knows only one answer to that: Through a child (the gift of love). ~Carl Jung; Symbols of Transformation; para 76.


The symbols of the self arise in the depths of the body and they express its materiality every bit as much as the structure of the perceiving consciousness. The symbol is thus a living body, corpus et anima. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; para 291.


The strong and natural love that binds the child to the father turns away, during the years when the child is outgrowing the family circle, to the higher forms of the father, to authority, to the “Fathers” of the Church and to the father-god visibly represented by them. Nevertheless, mythology is not lacking in consolations. Did not the Word become flesh? And did not the divine pneuma enter into the Virgin’s womb? The whirlwind of Anaxagoras was that same divine nous that produced the world out of itself. Why do we cherish the image of the Immaculate Mother even to this day?” ~Carl Jung; CW 8, para. 76.


Anyone sufficiently interested in the dream problem cannot have failed to observe that dreams also have a continuity forwards-if such an expression be permitted-since dreams occasionally exert a remarkable influence on the conscious mental life even of persons who cannot be considered superstitious or particularly abnormal. ~ Carl Jung; General Aspects of Dream Psychology; In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. pg. 444


In contrast to the meditation found in yoga practice, the psychoanalytic aim is to observe the shadowy presentation — whether in the form of images or of feelings — that are spontaneously evolved in the unconscious psyche and appear without his bidding to the man who looks within. In this way we find once more things that we have repressed or forgotten. Painful though it may be, this is in itself a gain — for what is inferior or even worthless belongs to me as my Shadow and gives me substance and mass. How can I be substantial if I fail to cast a Shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole; and inasmuch as I become conscious of my Shadow I also remember that I am a human being like any other. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul; Page 35.


One has to remind oneself again and again that in therapy it is more important for the patient to understand than for the analyst's theoretical expectations to be satisfied. The patient's resistance to the analyst is not necessarily wrong; it is rather a sign that something does not "click." Either the patient is not yet at a point where he would be able to understand, or the interpretation does not fit. ~Carl Jung; Man and His Symbols. (1964) Essay retitled "Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams" In CW 18: P.61


It is the individuals’ task to differentiate himself from all the others and stand on his own feet. All collective identities…interfere with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible… ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections


What we call civilized consciousness has steadily separated itself from the basic instincts. But these instincts have not disappeared. They have merely lost their contact with our consciousness and are thus forced to assert themselves in an indirect fashion. This may be . . . physical symptoms . . . neurosis . . . various incidents . . . moods . . . unexpected forgetfulness . . . or mistakes of speech. ~Carl Jung; Man and His Symbols; Page 72


No judgment can be considered to be final in which its reversibility has not been taken into account. ~Carl Jung; Man and His Symbols.


Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul


Lack of conscious understanding does not mean that the dream has no effect at all. Even civilized man can occasionally observe that a dream which he cannot remember can slightly alter his mood for better or worse. Dreams can be "understood" to a certain extent in a subliminal way, and that is mostly how they work. ~Carl Jung; "Approaching the Unconscious" In Man and His Symbols; Revised and included in CW 18 as "Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams" Page 52.


Whereas I formerly believed it to be my bounden duty to call other persons to order, I now admit that I need calling to order myself. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul.


The two fundamental points in dealing with dreams are these: First, the dream should be treated as a fact, about which one must make no previous assumption except that it somehow makes sense; and second, the dream is a specific expression of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung; Man and His Symbols


He must concern himself with psychic realities, even if he cannot embody them in scientific definitions. That is why no textbook can teach psychology; one learns only by actual experience. ~Carl Jung; Man and His symbols; Page 83.


As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual who will experience it and carry it through. The change must indeed begin with an individual; it might be any one of us. Nobody can afford to look round and to wait for somebody else to do what he is loath to do himself. Carl Jung; Man and His Symbols.


We are susceptible only to those suggestions with which we are already secretly in accord. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul.


The archetypal image of the wise man, the savior or redeemer, lies buried and dormant in man's unconscious since the dawn of culture; it is awakened whenever the times are out of joint and a human society is committed to a serious error. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul.


I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the Self I had attained what was for me the ultimate. Perhaps someone else knows more, but not I. ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections, Page 197.


It is ... only in the state of complete abandonment and loneliness that we experience the helpful powers of our own natures. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul


Wherever there is a reaching down into innermost experience, into the nucleus of personality, most people are overcome by fright, and many run away. Such was the case with this theologian. I am of course aware that theologians are in a more difficult situation than others. On the one hand they are closer to religion, but on the other hand they are more bound by church and dogma. The risk of inner experience, the adventure of the spirit, is in any case alien to most human beings. The possibility that such experience might have psychic reality is anathema to them. All very well if it has a supernatural or at least a "historical" foundation. But psychic? Face to face with this question, the patient will often show an unsuspected but profound contempt for the psyche. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections; Pages 141-142.


But what will he do when he sees only too clearly why his patient is ill; when he sees that it arises from his having no love, but only sexuality; no faith, because he is afraid to grope in the dark; no hope, because he is disillusioned by the world and by life; and no understanding, because he has failed to read the meaning of his own existence? ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul.


Faith cannot be made: it is in the truest sense a gift of grace. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul

The primordial experience is the source of [creativity]. ... In itself it offers no words or images, for it is a vision seen "as in a glass, darkly." It is merely a deep presentiment that strives to find expression. It is like a whirlwind that seizes everything within reach and, by carrying it aloft, assume a visible shape. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul


A special ability means a heavy expenditure of energy in a particular direction, with a consequent drain from some other side of life. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul.


Neurosis is an inner cleavage-the state of being at war with one- self. ... What drives people to war with themselves is the intuition or the knowledge that they consist of two persons in opposition to one another. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul


Archetypal statements are based upon instinctive preconditions and have nothing to do with reason; they are neither rationally grounded nor can they be banished by rational arguments. They have always been part of the world scene representations collectives, as Levy-Bruhl rightly called them. Certainly the ego and its will have a great part to play in life; but what the ego wills is subject in the highest degree to the interference, in ways of which the ego is usually unaware, of the autonomy and numinosity of archetypal processes. Practical consideration of these processes is the essence of religion, insofar as religion can be approached from a psychological point of view. ~Carl Jung Memories Dreams and Reflections; Page 353


. . . no man can converse with an animus for five minutes without becoming the victim of his own anima. Anyone who still had enough sense of humour to listen objectively to the ensuing dialogue would be staggered by the vast number of commonplaces, misapplied truisms, clichés from newspapers and novels, shop-soiled platitudes of every description interspersed with vulgar abuse and brain-splitting lack of logic. It is a dialogue which, irrespective of its participants, is repeated millions and millions of times in all languages of the world and always remains essentially the same. ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections; Page 392 and Aion, CW 9, ii, Page 15


The God-image thrown up by a spontaneous act of creation is a living figure, a being that exists in its own right and there-fore confronts its ostensible creator autonomously… As proof of this it may be mentioned that the relation between the creator and the created is a dialectical. ~Carl Jung; CW 8, para. 95-96.


We carry our past with us, to wit, the primitive and inferior man with his desires and emotions, and it is only with an enormous effort that we can detach ourselves from this burden. If it comes to a neurosis, we invariably have to deal with a considerably intensified shadow. And if such a person wants to be cured it is necessary to find a way in which his conscious personality and his shadow can live together. ~Carl Jung; Answer to Job; CW 11; Psychology and Religion: West and East; Page 1.


The dream is specifically the utterance of the unconscious. . . . It is imperative that we do not pare down the meaning of a dream to fit some narrow doctrine ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul; Page 11.


It is the way of dreams to give us more than we ask ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul; Page.


In alchemy the egg stands for the chaos apprehended by the artifex, the prima materia containing the captive world-soul. Out of the egg — symbolized by the round cooking vessel — will rise the eagle or phoenix, the liberated soul, which is ultimately identical with the Anthropos who was imprisoned in the embrace of Physis. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy; Page 202.


Dreams are the direct expression of unconscious psychic activity ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul; Page 2.


The psychic fact “God” is a typical autonomism, a collective archetype…It is therefore characteristic not only of all higher forms of religion, but appears spontaneously in the dreams of individuals. ~Carl Jung; CW 8; fn 29.


Bringing to light the parts of the personality that were previously unconscious and subjecting them to conscious discrimination…is…a call to arms that must be answered by the whole personality. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul; Page 10.


The stirring up of conflict is a Lucipherian virtue in the true sense of the word. Conflict engenders fire, the fire of affects and emotions, and like every other fire it has two aspects, that of combustion and that of creating light. On the one hand, emotion is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes (omnes superfluitates comburit). But on the other hand, emotion is the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light or from inertia to movement without emotion. - "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype" (1939). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P. 179


I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has really been healed who did not regain his religious outlook. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul


No psychic value can disappear without being replaced by another of equivalent intensity. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul; Page 209


The reality of evil and its incompatibility with good cleave the opposites asunder and lead inexorably to the crucifixion and suspension of everything that lives. Since ‘the soul is by nature Christian’ this result is bound to come as infallibly as it did in the life of Jesus: we all have to be ‘crucified with Christ,’ i.e., suspended in a moral suffering equivalent to veritable crucifixion. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy; Paragraph 470.


Just as the body bears the traces of its phylogenetic development, so also does the human mind. ~Carl Jung; General Aspects of Dream Psychology; CW 8: 475.



At such moments ["when an archetypal situation occurs"] we are no longer individuals, but the race. . . . ~Carl Jung; On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry; CW 15: 128.


To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self. Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle. ~Carl Jung; Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology; CW 10; Civilization in Transition; Page 872.


A man who is unconscious of himself acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything that he is not conscious of in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections upon his neighbour. ~Carl Jung; The Philosophical Tree; CW 13; Alchemical Studies; Page 335.


No, the demons are not banished; that is a difficult task that still lies ahead. Now that the angel of history has abandoned the Germans, the demons will seek a new victim. And that won’t be difficult. Every man who loses his shadow, every nation that falls into self-righteousness, is their prey…. We should not forget that exactly the same fatal tendency to collectivization is present in the victorious nations as in the Germans, that they can just as suddenly become a victim of the demonic powers. ~Carl Jung; The Postwar Psychic Problems of the Germans.


Upon every gift that cometh from the god-sun the devil layeth his curse. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections; Appendix V; Septem Sermones ad Mortuos.


Archetypes speak the language of high rhetoric, even of bombast. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections; Chapter 6.


The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is "man" in a higher sense - he is "collective man," a vehicle and molder of the unconscious psychic life of mankind. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Literature


At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections; Pages 225-226.


Have the horrors of the World War done nothing to open our eyes, so that we still cannot see that the conscious mind is even more devilish and perverse than the naturalness of the unconscious? ~Carl Jung; CW 16: 327.


Knowledge does not enrich us; it removes us more and more from the mythic world in which we were once at home by right of birth. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections; Chapter 9.


. . . every psychic advance of man arises from the suffering of the soul. ~Carl Jung; Psychotherapists or the Clergy; CW 11: 497


. . . we have plunged down a cataract of progress which sweeps us on into the future with ever wilder violence the farther it takes us from our roots. ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections; Chapter 8.

1 comment:

  1. Thank You for putting This out ❣️
    Easy to read and
    so beautifully done

    ReplyDelete