Our series of pictures illustrates the initial stages of the way of individuation.
It would be desirable to know what happens afterwards.
But, just as neither the philosophical gold nor the philosophers' stone was ever made in reality, so nobody has ever been able to tell the story of the whole way, at least not to mortal ears, for it is not the story-teller but death who speaks the final "consummatum est."
Certainly there are many things worth knowing in the later stages of the process, but, from the point of view of teaching as well as of therapy, it is important not to skip too quickly over the initial stages.
As these pictures are intuitive anticipations of future developments, it is worthwhile lingering over them for a long time, in order, with their help, to integrate so many contents of the unconscious into consciousness that the latter really does reach the stage it sees ahead.
These psychic evolutions do not as a rule keep pace with the tempo of intellectual developments.
Indeed, their very first goal is to bring a consciousness that has hurried too far ahead into contact again with the unconscious background with which it should be connected.
This was the problem in our case too.
Miss X had to turn back to her "motherland" in order to find her earth again—vestigia retro!
It is a task that today faces not only individuals but whole civilizations.
What else is the meaning of the frightful regressions of our time?
The tempo of the development of consciousness through science and technology was too rapid and left the unconscious, which could no longer
keep up with it, far behind, thereby forcing it into a defensive position which expresses itself in a universal will to destruction.
The political and social isms of our day preach every conceivable ideal, but, under this mask, they pursue the goal of lowering the level of our culture by restricting or altogether inhibiting the possibilities of individual development.
They do this partly by creating a chaos controlled by terrorism, a primitive state of affairs that affords only the barest necessities of life and surpasses in horror the worst times of the so-called "Dark" Ages.
It remains to be seen whether this experience of degradation and slavery will once more raise a cry for greater spiritual freedom. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 617
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