Carl Jung: What would have happened if Paul had allowed himself to be talked out of his journey to Damascus?

Caution has its place, no doubt, but we cannot refuse our support to a serious venture which challenges the whole of the personality.

If we oppose it, we are trying to suppress what is best in man—his daring and his aspirations.

And should we succeed, we should only have stood in the way of that invaluable experience which might have given a meaning to life.

What would have happened if Paul had allowed himself to be talked out of his journey to Damascus? ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 529

We are now reaping the fruit of nineteenth-century education.

Throughout that period the Church preached to young people the merit of blind faith, while the universities inculcated an intellectual rationalism, with the result that today we plead in vain whether for faith or reason.

Tired of this warfare of opinions, the modern man wishes to find out for himself how things are.

And though this desire opens the door to the most dangerous possibilities, we cannot help seeing it as a courageous enterprise and giving it some measure of sympathy.

It is no reckless adventure, but an effort inspired by deep spiritual distress to bring meaning once more into life on the basis of fresh and unprejudiced experience. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 529