Carl Jung on "Individuation" - Anthology

Carl Jung on “Individuation.” - Anthology

The individual is obliged by the collective demands to purchase his individuation at the cost of an equivalent work for the benefit of society. ~Carl Jung, The Symbolic Life, Page 452.

Individuation and collectivity are a pair of opposites, two divergent destinies. They are related to one another by guilt. ~Carl Jung, The Symbolic Life, Page 452.

In the last analysis every life is the realization of a whole, that is, of a self, for which reason this realization can also be called "individuation." ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 222.

You can never come to your self by building a meditation hut on top of Mount Everest; you will only be visited by your own ghosts and that is not individuation: you are all alone with yourself and the self doesn't exist. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 805.

Individuation is only possible with people, through people. You must realize that you are a link in a chain, that you are not an electron suspended somewhere in space or aimlessly drifting through the cosmos. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 103.

Individuation is not that you become an ego—you would then become an individualist. You know, an individualist is a man who did not succeed in individuating; he is a philosophically distilled egotist. ~Carl Jung, The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga, Pages 39-40.

Where one is identified with the collective unconscious, there is no recognition of the things which come from the unconscious, they cannot be distinguished from those of the self. Such a condition is a possession by the anima or animus. Possession by the animus or anima creates a certain psychological hermaphroditism. The principle of individuation demands a dissociation or differentiation of the male and the female in ourselves. We must dissociate our self from the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, Cornwall Seminar, Page 26.

Before [individuation] can be taken as a goal, the educational aim of adaptation to the necessary minimum of collective norms must first be attained. If a plant is to unfold its specific nature to the full, it must first be able to grow in the soil in which it is planted. ~Carl Jung; "Definitions," CW 6, par. 761.

The difference between the "natural" individuation process, which runs its course unconsciously, and the one that is consciously realized is tremendous. In the first case, consciousness nowhere intervenes; the end remains as dark as the beginning. In the second case, so much darkness comes to light that the personality is permeated with light and consciousness necessarily gains in scope and insight. The encounter between conscious and unconscious has to ensure that the light that shines in the darkness is not only comprehended by the darkness, but comprehends it (from "Answer to Job" in CW 11, par. 756).

Insofar as this process [of individuation], as a rule, runs its course unconsciously as it has from time immemorial, it means no more than that the acorn becomes an oak, the calf a cow, and the child an adult. But if the individuation process is made conscious, consciousness must confront the unconscious and a balance between the opposites must be found . ~Carl Jung; "Answer to Job"; CW 11, par. 755.

Alchemy has performed for me the great and invaluable service of providing material in which my experience could find sufficient room, and has thereby made it possible for me to describe the individuation process at least in its essential aspects. ~Carl Jung; Mysterium Coniunctionis; Paragraph 792.

The goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the self. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; Page 278.

Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to oneself. ~Carl Jung; "On the Nature of the Psyche," 1947.

The problem of crucifixion is the beginning of individuation; there is the secret meaning of the Christian symbolism, a path of blood and suffering. ~Carl Jung; Quoted in Aspects of Jung’s Personality and Work by Gerhard Adler

The dead who besiege us are souls who have not fulfilled the principium individuationis, or else they would have become distant stars. Insofar as we do not fulfill it, the dead have a claim on us and besiege us and we cannot escape them. ~Carl Jung; The Red Book; Appendix C; Page 370

You see as the individual is not just a single, separate being, but by his very existence presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of individuation must lead to more intense relationships and not to isolation. ~Carl Jung; CW 6; Page 448; Paragraph 758.

The mystery of the Eucharist transforms the soul of the empirical man, who is only a part of himself, into his totality, symbolically expressed by Christ. In this sense, therefore, we can speak of the Mass as the rite of the individuation process. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Religion

The God-image in man was not destroyed by the Fall but was only damaged and corrupted (‘deformed’), and can be restored through God’s grace. The scope of the integration is suggested by the descent of Christ’s soul to hell, its work of redemption embracing even the dead. The psychological equivalent of this is the integration of the collective unconscious which forms an essential part of the individuation process. ~Carl Jung; Aion; Page 39; Para 72.

The problem of crucifixion is the beginning of individuation; there is the secret meaning of the Christian symbolism, a of blood and suffering. ~Carl Jung, unpublished letter, quoted in Gerhard Adler, Aspects of Jung's Personality and Work, p. 12.

Individuation and individual existence are indispensable for the transformation of God. Human consciousness is the only seeing eye of the Deity. ~Carl Jung, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, 336, 409, Letters II, 314ff.

The individuation process is a development on the native soil of Christianity. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 395-398.

Thus the devil is a preliminary stage of individuation, in the negative it has the same goal as the divine quaternity, namely, wholeness. Although it is still
darkness, it already carries the germ of light within itself. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Page 372.

The division into four is a principium individuationis; it means to become one or a whole in the face of the many figures that carry the danger of destruction in them. It is what overcomes death and can bring about rebirth. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Page 372.

One could say that the whole world with its turmoil and misery is in an individuation process. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 442.

Individuation is by no means a rare thing or a luxury of the few, but those who know that they are in such a process are considered to be lucky. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 442.

Individuation is just ordinary life and what you are made conscious of. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 442.

In the process of individuation, too, new contents can announce themselves in this devouring form and darken consciousness; this is experienced as a depression, that is to say, as being pulled downward. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Page 373.

I cannot quite agree with your opinion about "individuation." It is not "individualization" but a conscious realization of everything the existence of an individual implies: his needs, his tasks, his duties, his responsibilities, etc. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 503-505.

Individuation does not isolate, it connects. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 503-505.

A child, too, enters into this sublimity, and there detaches himself from this world and his manifold individuations more quickly than the aged. So easily does he become what you also are that he apparently vanishes. Sooner or later all the dead become what we also are. But in this reality we know little or nothing about that mode of being, and what shall we still know of this earth after death? ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 343.

The analysis of older people provides a wealth of dream symbols that psychically prepare the dreams for impending death. It is in fact true, as Jung has emphasized, that the unconscious psyche pays very little attention to the abrupt end of bodily life and behaves as if the psychic life of the individual, that is, the individuation process, will simply continue. … The unconscious “believes” quite obviously in a life after death. ~Marie-Louise von Franz (1987), ix.

Individuation is a philosophical, spiritual and mystical experience ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 294.

Individuation is the transformational process of integrating the conscious with the personal and collective unconscious ~Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation, Page 301.

When these two aspects [physical and psychological] work together, it may easily happen that the cure takes place in the intermediate realm, in other words that it consists of a complexio oppositorum, like the lapis. In this case the illness is in the fullest sense a stage of the individuation process…. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 375.

Human beings do not stand in one world only but between two worlds and must distinguish themselves from their functions in both worlds. This is individuation. You are rejecting dreams and seeking action. Then the dreams come and thwart your actions. The dreams are a world, and the real is a world. You have to stand between the gods and men. ~Carl Jung to Sabina Spielrein January 21, 1918.

Relationship paves the way for individuation and makes it possible, but is itself no proof of wholeness. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Page 244, Footnote 15

Our age is striving to bring about a conglomeration and organization of enormous masses of people in which the individual suffocates, whereas meditation on the Process of Individuation leads in the reverse direction: to the problem of the spiritual development of the individual. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Vol. V, Page 11.

The process of individuation is founded on the instinctive urge of every living creature to reach its own totality and fulfilment. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Vol. V, Page 11.

This is the reason why such people always fall in love with those who don't love them in return. It is in order to prevent the erotic experience, because such an experience would alienate the person from her secret purpose, which, at least for the time being, is individuation. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 169-170.

Like neurosis, psychosis in its inner course is a process of individuation, but one that is usually not joined up with consciousness and therefore runs its course in the unconscious as an Ouroboros. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 371.

And this being has body, soul and spirit, and is, therefore, the principle of life itself, as well as the principle of individuation. Its nature is spiritual, it cannot be seen, and it contains an invisible image. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Page 221.

Jung gave great importance to the papal bull of the Assumptio Maria. He held that it "points to the hieros gamos in the pleroma, and this in turn implies, as we have said, the future birth of the divine child, who, in accordance with the divine trend toward incarnation, will choose as his birthplace the empirical man. This metaphysical process is known as the individuation process in the psychology of the unconscious" ~Liber Novus, Footnote 200, Page 299.

In other words, individuation, becoming conscious of the Self, is divine suffering. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 201.

Before [individuation] can be taken as a goal, the educational aim of adaptation to the necessary minimum of collective norms must first be attained. ~Carl Jung, "Definitions," CW 6, par. 761.

The first step in individuation is tragic guilt. The accumulation of guilt demands expiation" ~Carl Jung, CW I5, §I094).

Animals generally signify the instinctive forces of the unconscious, which are brought into unity within the mandala. This integration of the instincts is a prerequisite for individuation. ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Para 660.

The help which alchemy affords us in understanding the symbols of the individuation process is, in my opinion, of the utmost importance. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 219.

Individuation does not only mean that man has become truly human as distinct from animal, but that he is to become partially divine as well. That means practically that he becomes adult, responsible for his existence, knowing that he does not only depend on God but that God also depends on man. ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections, Page 408.

Individuation does not only mean that man has become truly human as distinct from animal, but that he is to become partially divine as well. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 316.
That [Individuation] means practically that he becomes adult, responsible for his existence, knowing that he does not only depend on God but that God also depends on man. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 316.

We continually pray that "this cup may pass from us" and not harm us. Even Christ did so, but without success. . . . We might. . . discover, among other things, that in every feature Christ's life is a prototype of individuation and hence cannot be imitated: one can only live one's own life totally in the same way with all the consequences this entails. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 76-77.

We have to realize the inborn divine will, which is the process of individuation. ~Carl Jung, Jung-Ostrowski, Page 9.

Individuation cannot be achieved without a mystery. ~Carl Jung, Jung-Ostrowski, Page 13.

Individuation is an expression of that biological process - simple or complicated as the case may be - by which every living thing becomes what it was destined to become from the beginning. ~Carl Jung, CW XI, Para 144.

If you succeed in remembering yourself, if you succeed in making a difference between yourself and that outburst of passion, then you discover the self; you begin to individuate. ~~Carl Jung, The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga, Pages 39-40.

P. W. Martin, author of Experiments in Depth, used to say that the really individuated partner in the Jung couple was Mrs. Jung! ~Elined Prys Kotschnig; ~C. G. Jung, Emma Jung and Toni Wolff - A Collection of Remembrances; Page 40

"Uniqueness" lies simply and solely in the relationship between individuated persons, who have no other relationships at all except individual, i.e., unique ones. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 475.

A child, too, enters into this sublimity, and there detaches himself from this world and his manifold individuations more quickly than the aged. So easily does he become what you also are that he apparently vanishes. Sooner or later all the dead become what we also are. But in this reality we know little or nothing about that mode of being, and what shall we still know of this earth after death? ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 343.

The analysis of older people provides a wealth of dream symbols that psychically prepare the dreams for impending death. It is in fact true, as Jung has emphasized, that the unconscious psyche pays very little attention to the abrupt end of bodily life and behaves as if the psychic life of the individual, that is, the individuation process, will simply continue. … The unconscious “believes” quite obviously in a life after death. ~Marie-Louise von Franz (1987), ix.

Individuation is a philosophical, spiritual and mystical experience ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 294.