Carl Jung: As nothing can happen without a pre-existing pattern, not even creation ex nihilo,...

“Just as the decision to become man apparently makes use of the ancient Egyptian model, so we can expect that the process itself will follow certain prefigurations.” ~Carl Jung, CW 11, par. 625

“As nothing can happen without a pre-existing pattern, not even creation ex nihilo, which must always resort to the treasure-house of eternal images in the fabulous mind of the "master workman," the choice of a model for the son who is now about to be begotten lies between Adam . . . and Abel.” ~Carl Jung, CW 11, par 641

What I want to call your attention to is the unqualified statement that "nothing can happen without a pre-existing pattern."

It is very instructive to observe how Jung elaborates his argument about the process of God's incarnating as man.

He emphasizes right at the start that even God has to have a pre-existing pattern.

That shows you what vital importance Jung attaches to psychic patterns of structure as the basic elemental requirements for any psychic operation.

This is a very important principle to apply in the course of practical analysis.

As we listen to patients and study their unconscious material we must always be on the alert for the basic patterns that are being revealed to us.

Those would be the very things that the patient misses entirely.

The patient is at sea in a chaos of events, but if we are familiar with the basic psychic patterns, we will perceive them and can point them out.

There will be, by and large, two different levels on which these patterns will be based.

First there will be psychological material derived chiefly from the personal level from personal childhood experience.

This material will reveal repetitions of the patterns of experience that were laid down in childhood: the particular family constellations and the particular experiential constellations that imprinted themselves on the child's psyche and
will remain there for all time.

Analysis does not erase those childhood patterns; the most it can do is to make them conscious.

Second, below that personal level of patterning will be the collective level, where we perceive the archetypal patterns.

The personal patterns that we detect on the basis of childhood experience also will have their archetypal
prototypes.

When the time has come for the patient to engage the archetypal dimension of the life patterns he is involved with, the dreams will indicate that fact by taking on an archetypal quality.

That will then encourage us to shift the interpretation of patterns from the personal to the archetypal level.

As Jung tells us here, God himself is dependent on pre-existing patterns whenever he wants to create something.

Jung could hardly state more emphatically how crucially important he considers the basic typical patterns of the psyche to be. ~Edward F. Edinger, Transformation of the God Image, Pages 65-66

Carl Jung across the web:

Blog: http: http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/102529939687199578205/posts

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WordPress: https://carljungdepthpsychology.wordpress.com/

Great Sites to visit:

1. Jenna Lilla's Path of the Soul http://jennalilla.org/

2. Steve Jung-Hearted Parker's Jung Currents http://jungcurrents.com/


3. Frith Luton's Jungian Dream Analysis and Psychotherapy: http://frithluton.com/articles/

Carl Jung and Tibetan Ghost Traps

Frederick Spielbergjet: Memory of C.G. Jung:

It was a colossal privilege for me to have been entitled to have several long talks with Jung.

In 1949, in Sikkim, I had discovered and acquired fourteen different types of Tibetan ghost traps, used for astrological, medical, and other reasons.

In Zurich I constructed a model of one of them.

This ghost trap I brought to Dr. Jung, because I knew he would be very interested in it. That was in the year 1956.

I brought it to him to his house in Kusnacht and he kept it, afterwards, in his tower, his big tower at Bollingen which is still in existence.

Now this ghost trap that I built I took with me to the railroad station on my way to Jung's place, and while I was waiting for the train with this huge thing at my side a man walked by and lifted his hat as if in respect to this thing he considered as at least a personality of dignity.

And then I talked to Dr. Jung and I told him this was one of my Tibetan ghost traps heel heard about, and the first thing he said was, "Have you trapped any ghosts with it yet?"

I said, 'Tm very surprised, Dr. Jung, that you as a psychologist ask such a question because we came to talk about the fact that obviously I would not have trapped a ghost with this contraption in Zurich because if there are any ghosts, and there may be some in Zurich and around the Jung Institute, these ghosts would not be the same as the Tibetans are accustomed to and for which purpose these particular contraptions were built."

But he was so interested in them and had many similar questions about their use and talked to me for a long time about somewhat related practices of village wizards in the Swiss villages, call "Strondel."

How many demons are there that can be trapped?

Usually the answer is that there are about 50,000, but if you ask about it closer you find out that each Tibetan has his own 50,000.

That makes quite a few billions!

Dr. Jung and I talked about that.

Why this enormous number?

Because we are maybe brought up as monotheists, it's a good thing to put all good things into one pot and call it God or all the bad things in one pot and call it the Satan.

Why so many?

Dr. Jung was very much in favor of polytheism in this sense because he said that every situation calls for its own demon and for its own projection.

It's much better if for every good occasion or for every bad occasion you have a separate angel and a separate ruling force that you can contact with instead of by mentalization to throw it all together in some abstract way.

One ghost trap was of special interest to Jung.

I told him that it was used to counteract the evil consequences of great success. "Of course," said Jung, "

You know, when somebody comes to me and boasts about the great success of his latest book I look deeply into his eyes and say, 'I hope, my friend, that this success will not harm you too much.'"

The last one of our conversations, in 1960, centered around the question of the decay of myth and religion.

To Jung's question, "What was your most recent publication about?"

I answered: "Alchemy as a way to salvation, in which I showed that the intellectualization of alchemy by Paracelsus and Boehme meant the death of alchemy.

Thereupon Jung said smilingly, "But I am an alchemist and I am not dead!"

The following discussion centered about this subject matter.

Jung, who had studied more medieval alchemy texts than anyone else, insisted that alchemy had not really died during the wrongly called "enlightenment," which relied one-sidedly on the material side of the exploration of Being.

In contrast to us, the alchemist did not feel body and soul as separated as we feel; the outside and the inside of his being were not
antagonistic.

If he faced a problem he went straight away down to his laboratory to find the solution by working with the materials of nature rather than to develop theories in his mind alone.

The problem he experienced thus has an aspect of the cosmic cycle that could be solved only in harmony with All.

His subconscious was not as subconscious as ours, his consciousness not so conscious.

So Jung became an alchemist, a harmonizer and combiner.

You will understand therefore when today I walk into a Jung Institute I do not feel that I am approaching just another psychiatric clinic where a few hundred people are helped in their personal suffering, but I have distinctly the impression of entering an alchemical laboratory, where the treasures of the deep are lifted up to the level of awareness.

Jung indeed was like a deep-sea fisherman who did not hesitate to touch, catch and accept the often beastly and dangerous, but also precious and wonderful essences that underlie our existence. ~Frederick Spiegelbergjet, J.E.T., Pages 83-85

Carl Jung across the web:

Blog: http: http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/102529939687199578205/posts

Facebook: Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/56536297291/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=4861719&sort=recent&trk=my_groups-tile-flipgrp

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Red Book: https://www.facebook.com/groups/792124710867966/

Scoop.It: http://www.scoop.it/u/maxwell-purrington

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxwellPurringt

WordPress: https://carljungdepthpsychology.wordpress.com/

Great Sites to visit:

1. Jenna Lilla's Path of the Soul http://jennalilla.org/

2. Steve Jung-Hearted Parker's Jung Currents http://jungcurrents.com/

3. Frith Luton's Jungian Dream Analysis and Psychotherapy: http://frithluton.com/articles/

4. Lance S. Owens The Gnosis Archives http://gnosis.org/welcome.html

Jung got very angry and denounced those Europeans who went down to save perfectly happy and contented Africans...

J. Marvin Spiegelman: Memory of C.G. Jung

My memories of Jung come from the period March, 1956, to March, 1959, during which I was a student at the Institute in Zurich.

He was to be seen at least once or twice a year then, at a public or Institute lecture or at a seminar for the advanced students.

At these events, times of great anticipation and excitement for us, Jung was much as he appears in the filmed interviews: alive, vital, intense, serious and attentive to all issues which were raised, yet full of good humor and laughter.

There were two moments during which he departed from those warming and awe-inspiring presentations, at one of which I was an unfortunate participator.

The first moment was during a seminar for advanced students.

One of our group had given Jung a number of paintings done by a patient in analysis and Jung was commenting on them.

At one point, he came upon a painting of a missionary clergyman helping some African blacks.

Jung got very angry and denounced those Europeans who went down to save perfectly happy and contented Africans who didn't need them.

"We need these saints in Europe," said Jung, "to help us save ourselves!"

The thinly veiled reference was probably to Schweitzer, but Jung's anger went way beyond some personal or individual criticism and was enormously heartfelt.

The second moment was at a lecture at the Institute.

Jung opened up to questions of a general sort after his talk and I foolishly raised a question about the nature of the symbol.

I had been having many conversations over the past months with a fellow-student who had very strong Freudian leanings and was trying to reconcile these with his Jungian views and interests.

In those conversations, he often quarreled with Jung's view of the symbol.

I told him to ask Jung himself, but when the time came at the public lecture, my friend wisely kept his mouth shut.

So I asked the question.

Jung got just furious.

He said, "You can find the answer to that in any book!" and went on to excoriate me for raising the question at all.

Well, I was naturally mortified.

I reddened deeply and sank into my chair as much as I could, which was not nearly enough.

But I weathered the storm, inside and out, and took my bruised ego home to reflect.

It turned out to be a good lesson for me.

Since then, I have appreciated the importance of speaking for myself and not being a mouthpiece for views or reflections that were not my own.

But my more personal encounter with Jung came at the end of my stay, in March, 1959, when I went to him as part of my ritual of completing my work at the Institute.

In my heart, I wanted to receive his blessing, just as I had received the blessing of my grandfather (who, in his middle nineties, was like an Old Testament prophet to me) when I went off to sea as a sailor in World War II.

I was a bit gun-shy from my previous encounter with Jung and couldn't bring myself to ask for the blessing directly.

I approached the interview, there at his home in Kusnacht, as a most special event indeed and my heart was thumping as I was ushered into the waiting room by the housekeeper.

I was soon calmed, however, by seeing the bookcase filled with paperback American detective stories (my wife would like that, I thought) and a painting of a silly-looking grand potentate surrounded by foolishly adoring people.

Jung was clearly trying to de-inflate people's images of him and I smiled and relaxed.

He came in shortly and brought me into his famous office, motioning me to sit down in a straw chair just inches from his own.

He lit his pipe and looked at me expectantly.

He seemed totally present.

I was overwhelmed with this closeness, this total availability both physically and psychologically, and babbled something to the effect that my problems were pretty well taken care of by my analyst, but I wanted to see Jung before I left Zurich.

He laughed easily and asked me how I liked the work.

I responded that I was deeply moved and affected by it, and that his books had always been a source of great value for me, although some had been hard to read.

He nodded and then laughed again, saying that they "had been hard to write."

We were both silent for a while, as if he were trying to sense really where my soul was, since I wasn't able to convey it to him.

Then he began to speak, from out of himself somewhere.

He spoke of his own life, of his trips to Africa and India, of his own search for himself, of the claims of the individuation process, of the loneliness of it, and how he had been glad of someone's participation in it.

He spoke of dreams he had, of one in particular that he had dreamt at Bollingen, where soldiers of the Middle Ages appeared.

He delightedly said that Miss von Franz had independently had the same dream when she slept on that spot.

Subsequently, he said, bones of just such soldiers were dug up there.

At another point, as he told a dream that he had in Africa, I made a slight face, hardly anything, but I didn't really agree with his interpretation.

He stopped at once, looked deeply at me and said, "I don't understand it at all!

What does it mean?" Jung was asking me to interpret his dream?

My God!

Still later, he spoke of a patient of his from America and showed me some pictures she had painted (she had since died) which were very beautiful.

The mandala lights were incredible, but those paintings done afterwards in America were much bleaker.

He said, "Her light went out in America," and I sighed for that was exactly what I had feared might happen to me when I returned home.

Then he laughed and said, "But it came on again!"

Throughout all this apparent soliloquy, I was totally present too and I had the experience, subsequently reported by others also, that Jung was "speaking to my condition," and addressing himself to all my problems, fears, concerns, and deep desires.

Most of all, it was an experience of Self speaking to Self.

At the end-I don't know whether it was an hour or two-I left with great thanks and a handshake that expressed all that I could not.

Without asking for it, I had received Jung's blessing.

In the years since then, Jung has appeared now and then in dreams or fantasies.


He was very much present once-together with my grandfather, of all things-when I even had to make a separation with the Jungian collective.

We did a "hora" together.

In all these dreams and fantasy encounters, Jung has always been supportive of my individuation, just as he was through my silence that special day in March, 1959. ~ J. Marvin Spiegelman, J.E.T., Pages 84-88

Carl Jung across the web:

Blog: http: http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/102529939687199578205/posts

Facebook: Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/56536297291/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=4861719&sort=recent&trk=my_groups-tile-flipgrp

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Carl-Jung-326016020781946/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/purrington104/

Red Book: https://www.facebook.com/groups/792124710867966/

Scoop.It: http://www.scoop.it/u/maxwell-purrington

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxwellPurringt

WordPress: https://carljungdepthpsychology.wordpress.com/

Great Sites to visit:

1. Jenna Lilla's Path of the Soul http://jennalilla.org/

2. Steve Jung-Hearted Parker's Jung Currents http://jungcurrents.com/

3. Frith Luton's Jungian Dream Analysis and Psychotherapy: http://frithluton.com/articles/

4. Lance S. Owens The Gnosis Archives http://gnosis.org/welcome.html

Luella Sibbald: Memory of Toni Wolff

Luella Sibbald: Memory of Toni Wolff

In 1948 I planned to go to Zurich to have some work with Miss Toni Wolff.

As it got near the time to go, several people intimated to me that Miss Wolff was not too easy a person to work with, that she had a very high standard about her work and could be quite severe.

On the first morning I went a bit tentatively to my hour.

Although Miss Wolff was a very serious person and could appear severe until she smiled, whether it was my feeling approach in contrast to her thinking, or not, we “clicked” immediately.

I deeply appreciated her as a wise person and I looked forward to every hour of our weeks together.

She conveyed her great respect for the unconscious and did expect a person to spend time and energy on the inner work when working with her.

In one interview I told her that as a teenager and in early university years I was very interested in astrology, but people belittled it so emphatically I had buried the interest.

She stated, “I think it is very important that you don’t’ let early interests go underground.”

Within seven years I was working hard at it and astrology has continued to be an important part of my life.

With the Aquarian Age so near it has been a satisfaction to be able to understand more thoroughly what is expected of us to meet the challenge of this age.

From a Greek myth I sound a statement, “The sun follows in the footsteps of God. The footsteps are the signs of the Zodiac. With every footstep the rituals and forms of religion must change.”

This may explain certain things which are happening now. ~ Luella Sibbald, J.E.T., Page 82

Carl Jung across the web:

Blog: http: http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/102529939687199578205/posts

Facebook: Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/56536297291/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=4861719&sort=recent&trk=my_groups-tile-flipgrp

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Carl-Jung-326016020781946/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/purrington104/

Red Book: https://www.facebook.com/groups/792124710867966/

Scoop.It: http://www.scoop.it/u/maxwell-purrington

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxwellPurringt

WordPress: https://carljungdepthpsychology.wordpress.com/

Great Sites to visit:

1. Jenna Lilla's Path of the Soul http://jennalilla.org/

2. Steve Jung-Hearted Parker's Jung Currents http://jungcurrents.com/

3. Frith Luton's Jungian Dream Analysis and Psychotherapy: http://frithluton.com/articles/

4. Lance S. Owens The Gnosis Archives http://gnosis.org/welcome.html

Joseph Campbell: ...the Sumerian myth of the goddess Inanna's descent to the nether world.

The oldest recorded account of the passage through the gates of metamorphosis is the Sumerian
myth of the goddess Inanna's descent to the nether world.

From the "great above" she set her mind toward
the "great below,"

The goddess, from the "great above" she set her
mind toward the "great below,"

Inanna, from the "great above" she set her mind
toward the "great below."

My lady abandoned heaven, abandoned earth,
To the nether world she descended,
Inanna abandoned heaven, abandoned earth,
To the nether world she descended,
Abandoned lordship, abandoned ladyship,
To the nether world she descended.

She adorned herself with her queenly robes and jewels.

Seven divine decrees she fastened at her belt.

She was ready to enter the "land of no return," the nether world of death and darkness,
governed by her enemy and sister goddess, Ereshkigal.

In fear, lest her sister should put her to death, Inanna instructed Ninshubur,
her messenger, to go to heaven and set up a hue and cry for her
in the assembly hall of the gods if after three days she should
have failed to return.

Inanna descended.

She approached the temple made of lapis lazuli, and at the gate was met by the
chief gatekeeper, who demanded to know who she was and why she had come.

"I am the
queen of heaven, the place where the sun rises," she replied.

"If thou art the queen of heaven," he said, "the place where the sun
rises, why, pray, hast thou come to the land of no return"?

On the road whose traveler returns not, how has thy heart led thee?"

Inanna declared that she had come to attend the funeral rites of
her sister's husband, the lord Gugalanna; whereupon Neti, the
gatekeeper, bid her stay until he should report to Ereshkigal.

Neti was instructed to open to the queen of heaven the seven
gates, but to abide by the custom and remove at each portal a
part of her clothing.

To the pure Inanna he says:

"Come, Inanna, enter."
Upon her entering the first gate,
The shugurra, the "crown of the plain" of her head, was removed.
"What, pray, is this?"

"Extraordinarily, O Inanna, have the decrees of the
nether world been perfected,
0 Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the second gate,
The rod of lapis lazuli was removed.
"What, pray, is this?"
"Extraordinarily, 0 Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
O Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the third gate,
The small lapis lazuli stones of her neck were removed.
"What, pray, is thin?"
"Extraordinarily, 0 Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
0 Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the fourth gate,
The sparkling stones of her breast were removed.
"What, pray, is this?"
"Extraordinarily, O Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
0 Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the fifth gate.
The gold ring of her hand was removed.
"What, pray, is this?"
"Extraordinarily, 0 Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
O Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the sixth gate,
The breastplate of her breast was removed.
"What, pray, is this?"
"Extraordinarily, O Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
O Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the seventh gate,
All the garments of ladyship of her body were removed.
"What, pray, is this?"
"Extraordinarily, 0 Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
0 Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Naked, she was brought before the throne. She bowed low. The
seven judges of the nether world, the Anunnaki, sat before the
throne of Ereshkigal, and they fastened their eyes upon Inannai—
the eyes of death.

At their word, the word which tortures the spirit,
The sick woman was turned into a corpse,
The corpse was hung from a stake.

Inanna and Ereshkigal, the two sisters, light and dark respectively,
together represent, according to the antique manner of
symbolization, the one goddess in two aspects; and their confrontation
epitomizes the whole sense of the difficult road of trials.

The hero, whether god or goddess, man or woman, the figure in a
myth or the dreamer of a dream, discovers and assimilates his opposite
(his own unsuspected self) either by swallowing it or by
being swallowed.

One by one the resistances are broken.

He must put aside his pride, his virtue, beauty, and life, and bow or
submit to the absolutely intolerable.

Then he finds that he and his opposite are not of differing species, but one flesh.

The ordeal is a deepening of the problem of the first threshold
and the question is still in balance: Can the ego put itself to death?

For many-headed is this surrounding Hydra; one head cut off, two
more appear—unless the right caustic is applied to the mutilated
stump.

The original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning of the
long and really perilous path of initiator)' conquests and moments of illumination.

Dragons have now to be slain and surprising barriers passed—again, again, and again.

Meanwhile there will be a multitude of preliminary victories, unretainable
ecstasies, and momentary glimpses of the wonderful land. ~Joseph Campbell,
Hero with a Thousand Faces, Pages 86-88

to the nether world.

From the "great above" she set her mind toward
the "great below,"

The goddess, from the "great above" she set her
mind toward the "great below,"

Inanna, from the "great above" she set her mind
toward the "great below."

My lady abandoned heaven, abandoned earth,
To the nether world she descended,
Inanna abandoned heaven, abandoned earth,
To the nether world she descended,
Abandoned lordship, abandoned ladyship,
To the nether world she descended.

She adorned herself with her queenly robes and jewels.

Seven divine decrees she fastened at her belt.

She was ready to enter the "land of no return," the nether world of death and darkness,
governed by her enemy and sister goddess, Ereshkigal.

In fear, lest her sister should put her to death, Inanna instructed Ninshubur,
her messenger, to go to heaven and set up a hue and cry for her
in the assembly hall of the gods if after three days she should
have failed to return.

Inanna descended.

She approached the temple made of lapis lazuli, and at the gate was met by the
chief gatekeeper, who demanded to know who she was and why she had come.

"I am the
queen of heaven, the place where the sun rises," she replied.

"If thou art the queen of heaven," he said, "the place where the sun
rises, why, pray, hast thou come to the land of no return"?

On the road whose traveler returns not, how has thy heart led thee?"

Inanna declared that she had come to attend the funeral rites of
her sister's husband, the lord Gugalanna; whereupon Neti, the
gatekeeper, bid her stay until he should report to Ereshkigal.

Neti was instructed to open to the queen of heaven the seven
gates, but to abide by the custom and remove at each portal a
part of her clothing.

To the pure Inanna he says:

"Come, Inanna, enter."
Upon her entering the first gate,
The shugurra, the "crown of the plain" of her head, was removed.
"What, pray, is this?"

"Extraordinarily, O Inanna, have the decrees of the
nether world been perfected,
0 Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the second gate,
The rod of lapis lazuli was removed.
"What, pray, is this?"
"Extraordinarily, 0 Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
O Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the third gate,
The small lapis lazuli stones of her neck were removed.
"What, pray, is thin?"
"Extraordinarily, 0 Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
0 Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the fourth gate,
The sparkling stones of her breast were removed.
"What, pray, is this?"
"Extraordinarily, O Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
0 Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the fifth gate.
The gold ring of her hand was removed.
"What, pray, is this?"
"Extraordinarily, 0 Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
O Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the sixth gate,
The breastplate of her breast was removed.
"What, pray, is this?"
"Extraordinarily, O Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
O Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Upon her entering the seventh gate,
All the garments of ladyship of her body were removed.
"What, pray, is this?"
"Extraordinarily, 0 Inanna, have the decrees of
the nether world been perfected,
0 Inanna, do not question the rites of the nether world."

Naked, she was brought before the throne. She bowed low. The
seven judges of the nether world, the Anunnaki, sat before the
throne of Ereshkigal, and they fastened their eyes upon Inannai—
the eyes of death.

At their word, the word which tortures the spirit,
The sick woman was turned into a corpse,
The corpse was hung from a stake.

Inanna and Ereshkigal, the two sisters, light and dark respectively, together represent, according to the antique manner of symbolization, the one goddess in two aspects; and their confrontation epitomizes the whole sense of the difficult road of trials.

The hero, whether god or goddess, man or woman, the figure in a myth or the dreamer of a dream, discovers and assimilates his opposite
(his own unsuspected self) either by swallowing it or by being swallowed.

One by one the resistances are broken.

He must put aside his pride, his virtue, beauty, and life, and bow or
submit to the absolutely intolerable.

Then he finds that he and his opposite are not of differing species, but one flesh.

The ordeal is a deepening of the problem of the first threshold and the question is still in balance: Can the ego put itself to death?

For many-headed is this surrounding Hydra; one head cut off, two more appear—unless the right caustic is applied to the mutilated stump.

The original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning of the
long and really perilous path of initiator)' conquests and moments of illumination.

Dragons have now to be slain and surprising barriers passed—again, again, and again.

Meanwhile there will be a multitude of preliminary victories, unretainable ecstasies, and momentary glimpses of the wonderful land. ~Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Pages 86-88

Frederick Spielbergjet: This ghost trap I brought to Dr. Jung,...

Frederick Spielberg: Memory of C.G. Jung:

It was a colossal privilege for me to have been entitled to have several long talks with Jung.

In 1949, in Sikkim, I had discovered and acquired fourteen different types of Tibetan ghost traps, used for astrological, medical, and other reasons.

In Zurich I constructed a model of one of them.

This ghost trap I brought to Dr. Jung, because I knew he would be very interested in it. That was in the year 1956.

I brought it to him to his house in Kusnacht and he kept it, afterwards, in his tower, his big tower at Bollingen which is still in existence.

Now this ghost trap that I built I took with me to the railroad station on my way to Jung's place, and while I was waiting for the train with this huge thing at my side a man walked by and lifted his hat as if in respect to this thing he considered as at least a personality of dignity.

And then I talked to Dr. Jung and I told him this was one of my Tibetan ghost traps heelheard about, and the first thing he said was, "Have you trapped any ghosts with it yet?"

I said, 'Tm very surprised, Dr. Jung, that you as a psychologist ask such a question because we came to talk about the fact that obviously I would not have trapped a ghost with this contraption in Zurich because if there are any ghosts, and there may be some in Zurich and around the Jung Institute, these ghosts would not be the same as the Tibetans are accustomed to and for which purpose these particular contraptions were built."

But he was so interested in them and had many similar questions about their use and talked to me for a long time about somewhat related practices of village wizards in the Swiss villages, call "Strondel."

How many demons are there that can be trapped?

Usually the answer is that there are about 50,000, but if you ask about it closer you find out that each Tibetan has his own 50,000.

That makes quite a few billions!

Dr. Jung and I talked about that.

Why this enormous number?

Because we are maybe brought up as monotheists, it's a good thing to put all good things into one pot and call it God or all the bad things in one pot and call it the Satan.

Why so many?

Dr. Jung was very much in favor of polytheism in this sense because he said that every situation calls for its own demon and for its own projection.

It's much better if for every good occasion or for every bad occasion you have a separate angel and a separate ruling force that you can contact with instead of by mentalization to throw it all together in some abstract way.

One ghost trap was of special interest to Jung.

I told him that it was used to counteract the evil consequences of great success. "Of course," said Jung, "

You know, when somebody comes to me and boasts about the great success of his latest book I look deeply into his eyes and say, 'I hope, my friend, that this success will not harm you too much.'"

The last one of our conversations, in 1960, centered around the question of the decay of myth and religion.

To Jung's question, "What was your most recent publication about?"

I answered: "Alchemy as a way to salvation, in which I showed that the intellectualization of alchemy by Paracelsus and Boehme meant the death of alchemy.

Thereupon Jung said smilingly, "But I am an alchemist and I am not dead!"

The following discussion centered about this subject matter.

Jung, who had studied more medieval alchemy texts than anyone else, insisted that alchemy had not really died during the wrongly called "enlightenment," which relied one-sidedly on the material side of the exploration of Being.

In contrast to us, the alchemist did not feel body and soul as separated as we feel; the outside and the inside of his being were not
antagonistic.

If he faced a problem he went straight away down to his laboratory to find the solution by working with the materials of nature rather than to develop theories in his mind alone.

The problem he experienced thus has an aspect of the cosmic cycle that could be solved only in harmony with All.

His subconscious was not as subconscious as ours, his consciousness not so conscious.

So Jung became an alchemist, a harmonizer and combiner.

You will understand therefore when today I walk into a Jung Institute I do not feel that I am approaching just another psychiatric clinic where a few hundred people are helped in their personal suffering, but I have distinctly the impression of entering an alchemical laboratory, where the treasures of the deep are lifted up to the level of awareness.

Jung indeed was like a deep-sea fisherman who did not hesitate to touch, catch and accept the often beastly and dangerous, but also precious and wonderful essences that underlie our existence. ~Frederick Spiegelbergjet, J.E.T., Pages 83-85

Carl Jung across the web:

Blog: http: http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com/

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Great Sites to visit:

1. Jenna Lilla's Path of the Soul http://jennalilla.org/

2. Steve Jung-Hearted Parker's Jung Currents http://jungcurrents.com/

3. Frith Luton's Jungian Dream Analysis and Psychotherapy: http://frithluton.com/articles/

4. Lance S. Owens The Gnosis Archives http://gnosis.org/welcome.html

Peter C. Lynn: Emma Jung was still actively teaching at the Institute

Peter C. Lynn Remembrance of C.G. Jung, Emma Jung, and Toni Wolff.

My wife and J spent three exciting years in Zurich, from 1950 through 1953.

In those days we were a small band of American students at the Zurich Institute, which was just beginning to hit its stride as a professional training center.

Life was cheap then, the G. I. Bill provided for basic necessities, and after David and I had persuaded the U.S. Embassy in Paris to
include the C. G . Jung Institute in Zurich in the list of approved institutions of higher education, we got by very nicely.

Jung himself was no longer teaching, bur about twice a year he would invite the diploma candidates to his house in Kusnacht for "fireside chats."

He would stand by the fireplace, pipe in mouth, and ask for questions on anything and everything, encouraging us to engage him in dialogue.

My most vivid recollections of these extraordinary evenings is the experience of Jung as a giant whose head couched the clouds and whose feet were rooted in the very center of the earth.

Within the same sentence he would connect an earthy, peasant-type joke (laughing uproarious!) with an obscure pre-Christian myth, both directly relevant to the question under discussion.

I used to come away from these gatherings with a great sense of awe, having glimpsed ultimate issues in a thoroughly human context.

His wife would appear now and then, but she never participated in the discussions.

Emma Jung was still actively teaching at the Institute and contact with her in class or in her home was always warm and cordial.

She was an ample woman, with an open and accepting attitude, very much her own person, who seemed to take the complexities and difficulties of life rather as a matter of course.

She was always available for counsel and made me feel genuinely welcome.

In stark contrast, Toni Wolff's appearance at the lnstitute (she was rarely privately approachable) was that of a ghost-like figure, gaunt, haughty and forbidding.

No smile ever crossed her face in class, in face she betrayed no emotions of any kind.

Questions were answered in clipped cones which made the questioner feel small, even stupid, for having asked the question in the first place.
The icy impression she conveyed made most of us ponder how she could ever have been a "femme fatale" or "femme inspiratrice" to anybody, least of all C. G. Jung.

Today, from the vantage point of a senior analyst with thirty years of experience I wonder about the accuracy of these perceptions: how much projection was there on my part?

All the same, I offer them herewith as images and impressions very much alive in my memory ~Peter C. Lynn, J.E.T., Pages 41-42

Carl Jung across the web:

Blog: http: http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/102529939687199578205/posts

Facebook: Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/56536297291/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=4861719&sort=recent&trk=my_groups-tile-flipgrp

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Carl-Jung-326016020781946/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/purrington104/

Red Book: https://www.facebook.com/groups/792124710867966/

Scoop.It: http://www.scoop.it/u/maxwell-purrington

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxwellPurringt

WordPress: https://carljungdepthpsychology.wordpress.com/

Great Sites to visit:

1. Jenna Lilla's Path of the Soul http://jennalilla.org/

2. Steve Jung-Hearted Parker's Jung Currents http://jungcurrents.com/

3. Frith Luton's Jungian Dream Analysis and Psychotherapy: http://frithluton.com/articles/

4. Lance S. Owens The Gnosis Archives http://gnosis.org/welcome.html

Carl Jung on "Lao Tzu" - Anthology

The best cannot be told, anyhow, and the second best does not strike home. One mut be able to let things happen. I have learned from the East what is meant by wu-wei: "not-doing," "letting be," which is quite different from doing nothing. Some Occidentals, also, have known what this not-doing means; for instance, Meister Eckhart, who speaks of sich lassen, "letting go." The region of darkness into which one falls is not empty; it is the "lavishing mother" of Lao-tzu, the "images" and the "seed." When the surface has been cleared, things can grow out of the depths. People always suppose that they have lost their way when they come up against these depths of experience. But if they do not know how to go on, the only answer, the only advice that makes any sense is "Wait for what the unconscious has to say about the situation." A way is only the way when one finds it and follows it oneself. There is no general prescription for "how to do it." ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 31

Atman is the central thing between the opposites; they themselves are almost taken for granted. Lao-tse on the other hand, as we have seen, stresses the opposites, although he knows the way between the two, Tao, and accepts it as the essence of life. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 81

If you are a dualist like Lao-tse, and concerned chiefly with the opposites, all you will find to say about what is between might go into his words, “Tao is so still.” But if, on the other hand, you are monistic like the Brahmans, you can write whole volumes about Atman, the thing between the opposites. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 86

When Lao-tzu says: "All are clear, I alone am clouded," he is expressing what I now feel in advanced old age. Lao-tzu is the example of a man with superior insight who has seen and experienced worth and worthlessness, and who at the end of his life desires to return into his own being, into the eternal unknowable meaning. The archetype of the old man who has seen enough is eternally true. At every level of intelligence this type appears, and its lineaments are always the same, whether it be an old peasant or a great philosopher like Lao-tzu. This is old age, and a limitation. Yet there is so much that fills me: plants, animals, clouds, day and night, and the eternal in man. The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things. In fact it seems to me as if that alienation which so long separated me from the world has become transferred into my own inner world, and has revealed to me an unexpected unfamiliarity with myself. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections; Page 359.

If one could arrive at the truth by learning the words of wisdom, then the world would have been saved already in the remote times of Lao-tze. ~Carl Jung, Collected Letters Vol 1, Pages 559-560.

Jesus-Mani-Buddha-Lao-tse are for me the four pillars of the temple of the spirit. ~Carl Jung, Letters, Vol 1, Page 65.

Atman is the central thing between the opposites; they themselves are almost taken for granted. Lao-tse on the other hand, as we have seen, stresses the opposites, although he knows the way between the two, Tao, and accepts it as the essence of life. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 81

If you are a dualist like Lao-tse, and concerned chiefly with the opposites, all you will find to say about what is between might go into his words, “Tao is so still.” But if, on the other hand, you are monistic like the Brahmans, you can write whole volumes about Atman, the thing between the opposites. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 86

Some Carl Jung Quotations

Carl Jung: In all these visions there is really not much blood.

Dr. Jung:

I have received certain reactions to the last seminar.

One is from Mrs. Sigg, but I am afraid it is too extensive to deal with now.

She chiefly objects to the white placenta that apparently contains no blood.

This objection is quite justified.

But of course we are in no way capable of changing these visions, they are just what they are; there is no mistake about them, they are facts.

Naturally facts do not always satisfy us, and we wish perhaps in a very natural yet shortsighted way that they were different.

Dreams also are not always what we want them to be; they are sometimes unpleasant, unsatisfactory, yet they are what they are.

So this placenta is unfortunately white; there is nothing to be done about it.

But I understand that Mrs. Sigg misses the blood in that rebirth mystery.

In all these visions there is really not much blood.

As a matter of fact, they are thinner than ether, they are the flimsiest fabric you can imagine; when one reads them without any commentary one gets nothing out of them; it is an almost meaningless succession of images which convey practically nothing.

Yet they contain the skeleton of ideas. The forms are there, but it takes no end of trouble to make the contents visible.

They are like a book consisting of mathematical formulae which convey nothing to the layman, but give it to a mathematician and he will tell you a most interesting story.

Or like a musical composition, which to someone who cannot read the notes is just paper printed with black hieroglyphics; but let
a man with musical imagination read it and he hears the music.

So if I read these visions with attention, I hear the music, I get the meaning of the whole thing, because they have meaning. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 821

[Image courtesy of Craig Nelson]

Carl Jung: "But this concept is older than the philosophy of Lao-tzu."

The idea of a middle way between the opposites is to be found also in China, in the form of tao.

The concept of tao is usually associated with the name of the philosopher Lao-tzu, born 604 B.C.

But this concept is older than the philosophy of Lao-tzu.

It is bound up with the ancient folk religion of Taoism, the "way of Heaven," a concept corresponding to the Vedic rta.

The meanings of tao are as follows: way, method, principle, natural force or life force, the regulated processes of nature, the idea of the world, the prime cause of all phenomena, the right, the good, the moral order.

Some translators even translate it as God, not without some justification, it seems to me, since tao, like rta, has a tinge of substantiality.

I will first give a number of passages from the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu's classic:

Was Tao the child of something else? We cannot tell.
But as a substanceless image it existed before the Ancestor.
There was something formless yet complete,
That existed before heaven and earth;
Without sound, without substance,
Dependent on nothing, unchanging,
All pervading, unfailing,
One may think of it as the mother of all things under heaven.
Its true name we do not know;
"Way" is the name that we give it.

36 In order to characterize its essential quality, Lao-tzu likens it to water:

The highest good is like that of water. The goodness of water
is that it benefits the ten thousand creatures; yet itself does not
scramble, but is content with the [low] places that all men disdain.
It is this that makes water so near to the Way.

The idea of a "potential" could not be better expressed.

He that is without desire sees its essence,
He that clings to desire sees only its outward form.

The affinity with the fundamental Brahmanic ideas is unmistakable, though this does not necessarily imply direct contact.

Lao-tzu was an entirely original thinker, and the primordial image underlying rta-brahman-atman and tao is as universal as man, appearing in every age and among all peoples as a primitive
conception of energy, or "soul force," or however else it may be called.

He who knows the Always-so has room in him for everything;
He who has room in him for everything is without prejudice.
To be without prejudice is to be kingly;
To be kingly is to be of heaven;
To be of heaven is to be in Tao.
Tao is forever, and he that possesses it,
Though his body ceases, is not destroyed.

Knowledge of tao therefore has the same redeeming and uplifting effect as the knowledge of brahman.

Man becomes one with tao, with the unending duree creatrice (if we may compare this concept of Bergson's with its older congener), for tao is also the stream of time.

It is irrational, inconceivable:

Tao is a thing impalpable, incommensurable.
For though all creatures under heaven are the products
of [Tao as] Being,
Being itself is the product of [Tao as] Not-Being.
Tao is hidden and nameless.
It is obviously an irrational union of opposites, a symbol of
what is and is not.
The Valley Spirit never dies;
It is named the mysterious Female.
And the door of the mysterious Female
Is the base from which heaven and earth sprang.
363 Tao is the creative process, begetting as the father and
bringing forth as the mother. It is the beginning and end of all
creatures.

He whose actions are in harmony with Tao becomes one with Tao.

Therefore the perfected sage liberates himself from the opposites, having seen through their connection with one another and their alternation.

Therefore it is said:

When your work is done, then withdraw.
Such is heaven's way.
He [the perfected sage] cannot either be drawn into
friendship or repelled,
Cannot be benefited, cannot be harmed,
Cannot be either raised or humbled.

Being one with tao resembles the state of infancy:

Can you keep the unquiet physical soul from straying, hold fast
to the Unity, and never quit it?
Can you, when concentrating your breath, make it soft like that
of a little child?
He who knows the male, yet cleaves to what is female,
Becomes like a ravine, receiving all things under heaven;
And being such a ravine,
He knows all the time a power that he never calls upon in vain.
This is returning to the state of infancy.
The impunity of that which is fraught with this power
May be likened to that of an infant.

This psychological attitude is, as we know, an essential condition for obtaining the kingdom of heaven, and this in its turn—all rational interpretations notwithstanding—is the central,
irrational symbol whence the redeeming effect comes.

The Christian symbol merely has a more social character than the related conceptions of the East.

These are directly connected with age-old dynamistic ideas of a magical power emanating from people and things or—at a higher level of development
—
from gods or a divine principle.

According to the central concepts of Taoism, tao is divided into a fundamental pair of opposites, yang and yin.

Yang signifies warmth, light, maleness; yin is cold, darkness, femaleness.

Yang is also heaven, yin earth. From the yang force

arises shen, the celestial portion of the human soul, and from the yin force comes kwei, the earthly part.

As a microcosm, man is a reconciler of the opposites.

Heaven, man, and earth form the three chief elements of the world, the san-tsai.

The picture thus presented is an altogether primitive idea which we find in similar forms elsewhere, as for instance in the West African myth where Obatala and Odudua, the first parents
(heaven and earth), lie together in a calabash until a son, man, arises between them.

Hence man as a microcosm uniting the world opposites is the equivalent of an irrational symbol that unites the psychological opposites.

This primordial image of man is in keeping with Schiller's definition of the symbol as "living form."

The division of the psyche into a shen (or hwan) soul and a kwei (or p'o) soul is a great psychological truth.

This Chinese conception is echoed in the well-known passage from Faust:

Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast,
And each will wrestle for the mastery there.
The one has passion's craving crude for love,
And hugs a world where sweet the senses rage;
The other longs for pastures fair above,
Leaving the murk for lofty heritage.

The existence of two mutually antagonistic tendencies, both striving to drag man into extreme attitudes and entangle him in the world, whether on the material or spiritual level, sets him at variance with himself and accordingly demands the existence of a counterweight. This is the "irrational third," tao.

Hence the sage's anxious endeavour to live in harmony with tao, lest he fall into the conflict of opposites.

Since tao is irrational, it is not something that can be got by the will, as Lao-tzu repeatedly emphasizes.

This lends particular significance to another specifically Chinese concept, wu-wei. Wuwei means "not-doing" (which is not to be confused with "doing nothing"). Our rationalistic "doing," which is the greatness as well as the evil of our time, does not lead to tao.

The aim of Taoist ethics, then, is to find deliverance from the cosmic tension of opposites by a return to tao.

In this connection we must also remember the "sage of Omi," Nakae

Toju, an outstanding Japanese philosopher of the seventeenth century.

Basing himself on the teaching of the Chu-hi school, which had migrated from China, he established two principles, ri and ki. Ri is the world soul, ki is the world stuff.

Ri and ki are, however, the same because they are both attributes of God and therefore exist only in him and through him.

God is their union.

Equally, the soul embraces both ri and ki.

Toju says of God:

"As the essence of the world, God embraces the world, but at the same time he is in our midst and even in our bodies."

For him God is a universal self, while the individual self is the "heaven" within us, something supra-sensible and divine called ryochi. Ryochi is "God within us" and dwells in every individual.

It is the true self.

Toju distinguishes a true from a false self. The false self is an acquired personality compounded of perverted beliefs.

We might define this false self as the persona, that general idea of ourselves which we have built up from experiencing our effect upon the world around us and its effect upon us.

The persona is, in Schopenhauer's words, how one appears to oneself and the world, but not what one is.

What one is, is one's individual self, Toju's "true self" or ryochi. Ryochi is also called "being alone" or "knowing alone," clearly because it is a condition related to the essence of the self, beyond all personal judgments conditioned by external experience.

Toju conceives ryochi as the summum bonum, as "bliss" (brahman is bliss, ananda).

It is the light which pervades the world—a further parallel with brahman, according to Inouye.

It is love for mankind, immortal, all-knowing, good.

Evil comes from the will (shades of Schopenhauer!).

Ryochi is the self-regulating function, the mediator and uniter of the opposites, ri and ki; it is in fullest accord with the Indian idea of the "wise old man who dwells in the heart."

Or as Wang Yang-ming, the Chinese father of Japanese philosophy, says: "In every heart there dwells a sejin (sage).

Only, we do not believe it firmly enough, and therefore the whole has remained buried." ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 214-218

Just as conscious as well as unconscious phenomena are to be met with in practice, the self as psychic totality also has a conscious as well as an unconscious aspect.

Empirically, the self appears in dreams, myths, and fairytales in the figure of the "supraordinate personality" (v. ego), such as a king, hero, prophet, saviour, etc., or in the form of a totality symbol, such as the circle, square, quadratura circuli, cross, etc.

When it represents a complexio oppositorum, a union of opposites, it can also appear as a united duality, in the form, for instance, of tao as the interplay of yang and yin, or of the hostile brothers, or of the hero and his adversary (arch-enemy, dragon), Faust and Mephistopheles, etc.

Empirically, therefore, the self appears as a play of light and shadow, although conceived as a totality and unity in which the opposites are united.

Since such a concept is irrepresentable
—
tertium non datnr—it is transcendental on this account also. It would, logically considered, be a vain speculation were it not for the fact that it designates symbols of unity that are found to occur empirically. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 790

The brahman concept also contains the co~ncept of rta, right order, the orderly course of t ered, be a vain speculation were it not for the fact that it designates symbols of unity that are found to occur empirically.he world.

In brahman, the creative universal essence and universal Ground, all things come upon the right way, for in it they are eternally dissolved and recreated; all development in an orderly way proceeds from brahman.

The concept of rta is a stepping-stone to the concept of tao in Lao-tzu.

Tao is the right way, the reign of law, the middle road between the opposites, freed from them and yet uniting them in itself.

The purpose of life is to travel this middle road and never to deviate towards the opposites.

The ecstatic element is entirely absent in Lao-tzu; its place is taken by sublime philosophic lucidity, an intellectual and intuitive wisdom obscured by no mystical haze—a wisdom that represents what is probably the highest attainable degree of spiritual superiority, as far removed from chaos as the stars from the disorder of the actual world.

It tames all that is wild, without denaturing it and turning it into something higher. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 192

Carl Jung: In men, Eros, the function of relationship, is usually less developed than Logos.

Woman is compensated by a masculine element and therefore her unconscious has, so to speak, a masculine imprint.

This results in a considerable psychological difference between men and women, and accordingly I have called the projection-making factor in women the animus, which means mind or spirit.

The animus corresponds to the paternal Logos just as the anima corresponds to the maternal Eros.

But I do not wish or intend to give these two intuitive concepts too specific a definition.

I use Eros and Logos merely as conceptual aids to describe the fact that woman's consciousness is characterized more by the connective quality of Eros than by the discrimination and cognition associated with Logos.

In men, Eros, the function of relationship, is usually less developed than Logos.

In women, on the other hand, Eros is an expression of their true nature, while their Logos is often only a regrettable accident.

It gives rise to misunderstandings and annoying interpretations in the family circle and among friends.

This is because it consists of opinions instead of reflections, and by opinions I mean a priori assumptions that lay claim to absolute truth.

Such assumptions, as everyone knows, can be extremely irritating.

As the animus is partial to argument, he can best be seen at work in disputes where both parties know they are right.

Men can argue in a very womanish way, too, when they are anima-possessed and have thus been transformed into the animus of their own anima.

With them the question becomes one of personal vanity and touchiness (as if they were females); with women it is a question of power, whether of truth or justice or some other "ism"—for the dressmaker and hairdresser have already taken care of their vanity.

The "Father" (i.e., the sum of conventional opinions) always plays a great role in female argumentation.

No matter how friendly and obliging a woman's Eros may be, no logic on earth can shake her if she is ridden by the animus.

Often the man has the feeling—and he is not altogether wrong—that only seduction or a beating or rape would have the necessary power of persuasion.

He is unaware that this highly dramatic situation would instantly come to a banal and unexciting end if he were to quit the field and let a second woman carry on the battle (his wife, for instance, if she herself is not the fiery war horse).

This sound idea seldom or never occurs to him, because 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, cliches 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 the languages of the world and always remains essentially the same.

This singular fact is due to the following circumstance: when animus and anima meet, the animus draws his sword of power and the anima ejects her poison of illusion and seduction.

The outcome need not always be negative, since the two are equally likely to fall in love (a special instance of love at first sight).

The language of love is of astonishing uniformity, using the well-worn formulas with the utmost devotion and fidelity so that once again the two partners find themselves in a banal collective situation.

Yet they live in the illusion that they are related to one another in a most individual way.

In both its positive and its negative aspects the anima/animus relationship is always full of "animosity," i.e., it is emotional, and hence collective.

Affects lower the level of the relationship and bring it closer to the common instinctual basis, which no
longer has anything individual about it.

Very often the relationship runs its course heedless of its human performers, who afterwards do not know what happened to them. ~Carl Jung, Aion, Page 15-16

Carl Jung across the web:

Blog: http: http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.com/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/102529939687199578205/posts

Facebook: Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/56536297291/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=4861719&sort=recent&trk=my_groups-tile-flipgrp

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Carl Jung: Indeed, I have devoted a book, Paracelsica to the most important of his [Paracelsus] ideas.

To Charles Lichtenthaeler

Dear Colleague, 7 November 1950

Although the curious personality of Paracelsus is certainly not without interest for the psychologist, it is his ideas that interest psychology especially.

Indeed, I have devoted a book, Paracelsica (Rascher, Zurich, 1942) to the most important of his ideas.

Among them, the idea of the theorica is particularly interesting to psychology.

Through his theorica Paracelsus gave the patient some idea of his malady, and so enabled him to assimilate it psychologically.

In addition, a good acquaintance with the fundamental facts of the unconscious is to be found in Paracelsus' esoteric doctrine, and it is very important, particularly for the treatment of neuroses, to be acquainted with the symbolic forms that are expressive of pathogenic contents.

These ideas were developed symbolically by Paracelsus in his Vita Longa. (See my Paracelsica.)

Paracelsus passed on his knowledge of the fundamental facts of the unconscious to his pupils (and especially to Gerard Dorn) but they were lost later, thanks to the rise of rationalism and scientific materialism.

Not until just recently have unconscious pathogenic causes been rediscovered.

It is in this connection that the work of Paracelsus is of great interest to psychologists.

But obviously his ideas are extremely difficult to elucidate, and I realize that for a doctor, whose experience has not familiarized him with the large part that is played by the unconscious background of neuroses and psychoses, Paracelsus' ideas are almost incomprehensible.

Hoping that you will find this a sufficient answer to your question,

I am, ·

Very sincerely yours,

C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 565

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Great Sites to visit:
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3. Frith Luton's Jungian Dream Analysis and Psychotherapy: http://frithluton.com/articles/

Carl Jung: It is always a naked figure because it shows man as he is without any veils, the true man.

Dr. Bertine: Is that not connected also with the myth of Ishtar, who went to the underworld seeking her lover Tammuz and had to shed her seven veils one after another until she stood naked?

Dr. Jung: Yes, it is a very similar motif.

You see, this is not exactly a persona, because it is not a question here of what her relation to the
world would be, it is an inner problem, the question of what her relation to herself would be.

For you can have a sort of persona toward yourself.

You have illusions about yourself, you want to appear to yourself in a certain way, and that can be expressed as garments, sort of illusory veils, behind which you try to hide from your own view.

These veils are between herself and her own eyes or consciousness; it is an unwillingness
to face the real truth about herself, for inside she would naturally be quite naked.

Therefore if people put a figure in the center of a mandala, it is usually a naked figure, because you are there exactly what you are.

For instance, you have seen perhaps a so-called melothesia of the MiddleAges, which means a certain position of the limbs.

There are such figures in the famous Lucca manuscript of Hildegard von Bingen, for instance;
an Englishman has published a book about it, but one finds them in other books too.

It is often painted in this form as a five-rayed star, the star of man, the pentagram.

This figure serves the purpose of showing the microcosm within the macrocosm, and therefore it is usually surrounded by the phases of the zodiac, or the phases of the moon, showing how man is placed in the cosmos, his relation to the stars or the elementary powers.

It is always a naked figure because it shows man as he is without any veils, the true man.

But our patient still has garments or illusions about herself, as if she had been playing a role before herself.
~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Pages 819-821

Note: The Image appears on Page 820

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