The East teaches us another, broader, more profound, and higher understanding—understanding through life. “Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower” ~Carl Jung, CW 13, § 2.
Western consciousness is by no means the only kind of consciousness there is; it is historically conditioned and geographically limited, and representative of only one part of mankind. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 84
This light dwells in the "square inch" or in the "face", that is between the eyes. It is the visualization of the "creative point." ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Page 25
The self which includes me includes many others also. For the unconscious that is conceived in our minds does not belong to me and is not peculiar to me, but is everywhere. It is the quintessence of the individual and at the same time the collective. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Page 182.
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making darkness conscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Page 264.
The union of opposites on a higher level of consciousness is not a rational thing, nor is it a matter of will; it is a process of psychic development that expresses itself in symbols. Carl Jung, CW 13, Page 16.
It seems to be very hard for people to live with riddles or to let them live, although one would think that life is so full of riddles as it is that a few more things we cannot answer would make no difference. But perhaps it is just this that is so unendurable, that there are irrational things in our own psyche which upset the conscious mind in its illusory certainties by confronting it with the riddle of its existence. ~Carl Jung;, CW 13, Page 307.
Christian civilization has proved hollow to a terrifying degree: it is all veneer, but the inner man has remained untouched, and therefore unchanged. His soul is out of key with his external beliefs; in his soul the Christian has not kept pace with external developments. Yes, everything is to be found outside-in image and in word, in Church and Bible-but never inside. Inside reign the archaic gods, supreme as of old. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Page 11.
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, CW 13, Para 470.
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, CW 13, Page 335.
Nature is not matter only, she is also spirit. ~Carl Jung; CW 13; Para 229.
Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Page 335
For two personalities to meet is like mixing two chemical substances: if there is any combination at all, both are transformed. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, para 163.
Matter in alchemy is material and spiritual, and spirit spiritual and material. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Page 140.
The divine process of change manifests itself to our human understanding . . . as punishment, torment, death, and transfiguration. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, par. 139.
As I see it, the psyche is a world in which the ego is contained. Maybe there are fishes who believe that they contain the sea. We must rid ourselves of this habitual illusion of ours if we wish to consider metaphysical assertions from the standpoint of psychology. ~Carl Jung, CW 13 Para 51.
Death is psychologically as important as birth, and like it, is an integral part of life. ... As a doctor, I make every effort to strengthen the belief in immortality, especially with older patients when such questions come threateningly close. For, seen in correct psychological perspective, death is not an end but a goal, and life’s inclination towards death begins as soon as the meridian is passed. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para. 68.
One text says that the "heart" of Mercurius is at the North Pole and that he is like a fire (northern lights). He is, in fact, as another text says, "the universal and scintillating fire of the light of nature, which carries the heavenly spirit within it." ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 256.
When yang has reached its greatest strength, the dark power of yin is born within its depths, for night begins at midday when yang breaks up and begins to change into yin. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 13.
"Magic," he says, is "the preceptor and teacher of the physician," who derives his knowledge from the lumen naturae. ~Carl Jung citing Paracelsus, CW 13, Par 148.
Only by standing firmly on our own soil can we assimilate the spirit of the East. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 72
The West lays stress on the human incarnation, and even on the personality and historicity of Christ, whereas the East says: “Without beginning, without end, without past, without future.” ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 80
The Christian subordinates himself to the superior divine person in expectation of his grace; but the Oriental knows that redemption depends on the work he does on himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 80
The Tao grows out of the individual. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 80
On the contrary, when I began my career as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, I was completely ignorant of Chinese philosophy, and only later did my professional experience show me that in my technique I had been unconsciously following that secret way which for centuries had been the preoccupation of the best minds of the East. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 10
We would do well to harbour no illusions in this respect: no understanding by means of words and no imitation can replace actual experience. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 482
More than once I have had to reach for a book on my shelves, bring down an old alchemist, and show my patient his terrifying fantasy in the form in which it appeared four hundred years ago. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 325.
It was from the spirit of alchemy that Goethe wrought the figure of the “superman” Faust, and this superman led Nietzsche’s Zarathustra to declare that God was dead and to proclaim the will to give birth to the superman, to “create a god for yourself out of your seven devils.” ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 163.
Science and technology have indeed conquered the world, but whether the psyche has gained anything is another matter. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 163.
Whether his fate comes to him from without or from within, the experiences and happenings on the way remain the same. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 26.
Just as evening gives birth to morning, so from the darkness arises a new light, the stella matutina, which is at once the evening and the morning star— Lucifer, the light-bringer. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 299
Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthrals and overpowers, while at the same time he lifts the idea he is seeking to express out of the occasional and the transitory into the realm of the ever-enduring. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 129
No one can claim to be immune to the spirit of his own epoch or to possess anything like a complete knowledge of it. Regardless of our conscious convictions, we are all without exception, in so far as we are particles in the mass, gnawed at and undermined by the spirit that runs through the masses. Our freedom extends only as far as our consciousness reaches. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 153
Solicitude for the spiritual welfare of the erring sheep can explain even a Torquemada. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 391
What takes place between light and darkness, what unites the opposites, has a share in both sides and can be judged just as well from the left as from the right, without our becoming any the wiser indeed, we can only open up the opposition again. Here only the symbol helps, for, in accordance with its paradoxical nature, it represents the "tertium" that in logic does not exist, but which in reality is the living truth. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 199
In psychic matters we are dealing with processes of experience, that is, with transformations which should never be given hard and fast names if their having movement is not to petrify into something static. The protean mythologeme and the shimmering symbol express the processes of the psyche far more trenchantly and, in the end, far more clearly than the clearest concept; for the symbol not only conveys a visualization of the process but—and this is perhaps just as important—it also brings a re-experiencing of it, of that twilight which we can learn to understand only through inoffensive empathy, but which too much clarity only dispels. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 199
Nowhere and never has man controlled matter without closely observing its behaviour and paying heed to its laws, and only to the extent that he did so could he control it. The same is true of that objective spirit which today we call the unconscious it is refractory like matter, mysterious and elusive, and obeys laws which are so non-human or suprahuman that they seem to us like a crimen laesae majestatis hiimanae. If a man puts his hand to the opus, he repeats, as the alchemists say, God's work of creation. The struggle with the unformed, with the chaos of Tiamat, is in truth a primordial experience. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 286
So long as one knows nothing of psychic actuality, it will be projected, if it appears at all. Thus the first knowledge of psychic law and order was found in the stars, and was later extended by projections into unknown matter. These two realms of experience branched off into sciences astrology became astronomy, and alchemy chemistry. On the other hand, the peculiar connection between character and the astronomical determination of time has only very recently begun to turn into something approaching an empirical science. The really important psychic facts can neither be measured, weighed, nor seen in a test tube or under a microscope. They are therefore supposedly indeterminable, in other words they must be left to people who have an inner sense for them, just as colours must be shown to the seeing and not to the blind. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 285
When a dream apparently disguises something and a particular person therefore seems indicated, there is an obvious tendency at work not to allow this person to appear, because, in the sense of the dream, he represents a mistaken way of thinking or acting. When, for instance, as not infrequently happens in women's dreams, the analyst is represented as a hairdresser (because he "fixes" the head), the analyst is not being so much disguised as devalued. The patient, in her conscious life, is only too ready to acknowledge any kind of authority because she cannot or will not use her own head. The analyst (says the dream) should have no more significance than the hairdresser who puts her head right so that she can then use it herself. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 479
An ancient adept has said: "If the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way." This Chinese saying, unfortunately only too true, stands in sharp contrast to our belief in the "right" method irrespective of the man who applies it. In reality, everything depends on the man and little or nothing on the method. Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 424
Healing comes only from what leads the patient beyond himself and beyond his entanglements in the ego. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 397
The conscious side of woman corresponds to the emotional side of man, not to his "mind." Mind makes up the "soul," or better, the "animus" of woman, and just as the anima of a man consists of inferior relatedness, full of affect, so the animus of woman consists of inferior judgments, or better, opinions. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 60
The greater the tension, the greater is the potential. Great energy springs from a correspondingly great tension between opposites. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 154
Anyone who belittles the merits of Western science is undermining the foundations of the Western mind. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 2
Convictions and moral values would have no meaning if they were not believed and did not possess exclusive validity. And yet they are man-made and time-conditioned assertions or explanations which we know very well are capable of all sorts of modifications, as has happened in the past and will happen again in the future. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 230
Hysterical self-deceivers, and ordinary ones too, have at all times understood the art of misusing everything so as to avoid the demands and duties of life, and above all to shirk the duty of confronting themselves. They pretend to be seekers after God in order not to have to face the truth that they are ordinary egoists. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 142
Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 335
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, CW 13, Para 391
The new thing prepared by fate seldom or never comes up to conscious expectations. And still more remarkable though the new thing goes against deeply rooted instincts as we have known them, it is a strangely appropriate expression of the total personality, an expression which one could not imagine in a more complete form. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 19
In each of us there is a pitiless judge who makes us feel guilty even if we are not conscious of having done anything wrong. Although we do not know what it is, it is as though it were known somewhere. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 164
Death is psychologically as important as birth and, like it, is an integral part of life. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 68
There could be no greater mistake than for a Westerner to take up the direct practice of Chinese yoga, for that would merely strengthen his will and consciousness against the unconscious and bring about the very effect to be avoided. The neurosis would then simply be intensified. It cannot be emphasized enough that we are not Orientals, and that we have an entirely different point of departure in these matters. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 16
It requires no art to become stupid; the whole art lies in extracting wisdom from stupidity. Stupidity is the mother of the wise, but cleverness never. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 222
The more remote and unreal the personal mother is, the more deeply will the son's yearning for her clutch at his soul, awakening that primordial and eternal image of the mother for whose sake everything that embraces, protects, nourishes, and helps assumes maternal form, from the Alma Mater of the university to the personification of cities, countries, sciences, and ideals. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 147
All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble. They must be so, for they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 18
When a patient begins to feel the inescapable nature of his inner development, he may easily be overcome by a panic fear that he is slipping helplessly into some kind of madness he can no longer understand. More than once I have had to reach for a book on my shelves, bring down an old alchemist, and show my patient his terrifying fantasy in the form in which it appeared four hundred years ago. This has a calming effect, because the patient then sees that he is not alone in a strange world which nobody understands, but is part of the great stream of human history, which has experienced countless times the very things that he regards as a pathological proof of his craziness. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 325
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn theosophy by heart, or mechanically repeat mystic text from the literature of the whole world - all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls. Thus the soul has been turned into a Nazareth Gradually from which nothing good can come. Therefore let us fetch it from the four corners of the earth - the more far-fetched and bizarre it is the better. ~ Carl Jung, CW 13, Page 99.
The ancient world contained a large slice of nature and a number of questionable things which Christianity was bound to overlook if the security of a spiritual standpoint was not to be hopelessly compromised. No penal code and no moral code, not even the sublimest casuistry, will ever be able to codify and pronounce just judgment upon the confusions, the conflicts of duty, and the invisible tragedies of the natural man in collision with the exigencies of culture. "Spirit" is one aspect, "Nature" another. " "You may pitch Nature out with a fork, yet she'll always come back again," says the poet. Nature must not win the game, but she cannot lose. And whenever the conscious mind clings to hard and fast concepts and gets caught in its own rules and regulations—as is unavoidable and of the essence of civilized consciousness—nature pops up with her inescapable demands. Nature is not matter only, she is also spirit. Were that not so, the only source of spirit would be human reason. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 229
When I examined the course of development in patients who quietly, and as if unconsciously, outgrew themselves, I saw that their fates had something in common. The new thing came to them from obscure possibilities either outside or inside themselves; they accepted it and grew with its help. It seemed to me typical that some took the new thing from outside themselves, others from inside; or rather, that it grew into some persons from without, and into others from within. But the new thing never came exclusively either from within or from without. If it came from outside, it became a profound inner experience; if it came from inside, it became an outer happening. In no case was it conjured into existence intentionally or by conscious willing, but rather seemed to be borne along on the stream of time. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 18
Western consciousness is by no means the only kind of consciousness there is; it is historically conditioned and geographically limited, and representative of only one part of mankind. The widening of our consciousness ought not to proceed at the expense of other kinds of consciousness; it should come about through the development of those elements of our psyche which are analogous to those of the alien psyche, just as the East cannot do without our technology, science, and industry. The European invasion of the East was an act of violence on a grand scale, and it has left us with the duty —noblesse oblige—of understanding the mind of the East. This is perhaps more necessary than we realize at present. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 84
This "outgrowing" proved on further investigation to be a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the patient's horizon, and through this broadening of his outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms, but faded out when confronted with a new and stronger life urge. It was not repressed and made unconscious, but merely appeared in a different light, and so really did become different. What, on a lower level, had led to the wildest conflicts and to panicky outbursts of emotion, from the higher level of personality now looked like a storm in the valley seen from the mountain top. This does not mean that the storm is robbed of its reality, but instead of being in it one is above it. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 17
The animus is the masculine thinking in a woman. ~ Carl Jung, CW 13, Page 267.
Nowhere and never has man controlled matter without closely observing its behaviour and paying heed to its laws, and only to the extent that he did so could he control it. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 286
The protean mythologeme and the shimmering symbol express the processes of the psyche far more trenchantly and, in the end, far more clearly than the clearest concept; for the symbol not only conveys a visualization of the process but—and this is perhaps just as important—it also brings a re-experiencing of it, of that twilight which we can learn to understand only through inoffensive empathy, but which too much clarity only dispels. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 199
The struggle with the unformed, with the chaos of Tiamat, is in truth a primordial experience. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 286
Like every archetype, the animus has a Janus face. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Page 268.
Healing comes only from what leads the patient beyond himself and beyond his entanglements in the ego. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 397
The circulation is not merely movement in a circle, but means on the one hand the marking off of the sacred precinct, and on the other, the fixation and concentration. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Page 25.
Insanity is possession by an unconscious content that, as such, is not assimilatable to consciousness, nor can it be assimilated since the very existence of such contents is denied. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, para 53.
It requires no art to become stupid; the whole art lies in extracting wisdom from stupidity. Stupidity is the mother of the wise, but cleverness never. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 222
The gods have become diseases; Zeus no longer rules Olympus but rather the solar plexus and produces curious specimens for the doctor’s consulting room” ~Carl Jung; CW 13; §54.
Solicitude for the spiritual welfare of the erring sheep can explain even a Torquemada. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 391
Anyone who belittles the merits of Western science is undermining the foundations of the Western mind. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 2
In reality, everything depends on the man and little or nothing on the method. Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 424
Healing comes only from what leads the patient beyond himself and beyond his entanglements in the ego. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 397
The East teaches us another, broader, more profound, and higher understanding—understanding through life. We know this only by hearsay, as a shadowy sentiment expressing a vague religiosity, and we are fond of putting "Oriental wisdom" in quotation marks and banishing it to the dim region of faith and superstition. But that is wholly to misunderstand the realism of the East. Texts of this kind do not consist of the sentimental, overwrought mystical intuitions of pathological cranks and recluses, but are based on the practical insights of highly evolved Chinese minds, which we have not the slightest justification for undervaluing. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 2
I have no wish to depreciate the tremendous differentiation of the Western intellect; compared with it the Eastern intellect must be described as childish. (Naturally this has nothing to do with intelligence.) If we should succeed in elevating another, and possibly even a third psychic function to the dignified position accorded to the intellect, then the West might expect to surpass the East by a very great margin. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 8
A growing familiarity with the spirit of the East should be taken merely as a sign that we are beginning to relate to the alien elements within ourselves. Denial of our historical foundations would be sheer folly and would be the best way to bring about another uprooting of consciousness. Only by standing firmly on our own soil can we assimilate the spirit of the East. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 72
Medieval alchemy prepared the way for the greatest intervention in the divine world order that man has ever attempted alchemy was the dawn of the scientific age, when the daemon of the scientific spirit compelled the forces of nature to serve man to an extent that had never been known before. It was from the spirit of alchemy that Goethe wrought the figure of the "superman" Faust, and this superman led Nietzsche's Zarathustra to declare that God was dead and to proclaim the will to give birth to the superman, to "create a god for yourself out of your seven devils." Here we find the true roots, the preparatory processes deep in the psyche, which unleashed the forces at work in the world today. Science and technology have indeed conquered the world, but whether the psyche has gained anything is another matter. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 163
Not all are vouchsafed the grace of a faith that anticipates all solutions, nor is it given to all to rest content with the sun of revealed truth. The light that is lighted in the heart by the grace of the Holy Spirit, that same light of nature, however feeble it may be, is more important to them than the great light which shines in the darkness and which the darkness comprehended not. They discover that in the very darkness of nature a light is hidden, a little spark without which the darkness would not be darkness. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 197
When one unconsciously works against oneself, the result is impatience, irritability, and an impotent longing to get one's opponent down whatever the means. Generally certain symptoms appear, among them a peculiar use of language one wants to speak forcefully in order to impress one's opponent, so one employs a special, "bombastic" style full of neologisms which might be described as "power words." This symptom is observable not only in the psychiatric clinic but also among certain modern philosophers, and, above all, whenever anything unworthy of belief has to be insisted on in the teeth of inner resistance the language swells up, overreaches itself, sprouts grotesque words distinguished only by their needless complexity. The word is charged with the task of achieving what cannot be done by honest means. It is the old word magic, and sometimes it can degenerate into a regular disease. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 155
Our text is concerned with this way, and the same problem comes up with my patients also. There could be no greater mistake than for a Westerner to take up the direct practice of Chinese yoga, for that would merely strengthen his will and consciousness against the unconscious and bring about the very effect to be avoided. The neurosis would then simply be intensified. It cannot be emphasized enough that we are not Orientals, and that we have an entirely different point of departure in these matters. It would also be a great mistake to suppose that this is the path every neurotic must travel, or that it is the solution at every stage of the neurotic problem. It is appropriate only in those cases where consciousness has reached an abnormal degree of development and has diverged too far from the unconscious. This is the sine qua non of the process. Nothing would be more wrong than to open this way to neurotics who are ill on account of an excessive predominance of the unconscious. For the same reason, this way of development has scarcely any meaning before the middle of life (normally between the ages of thirty-five and forty), and if entered upon too soon can be decidedly injurious.” ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 16
The production and birth of this superior personality is what is meant when our text speaks of the “holy fruit,” the “diamond body,” or any other kind of incorruptible body. Psychologically, these expressions symbolize an attitude that is beyond the reach of emotional entanglements and violent shocks- a consciousness detached from the world. I have reasons for believing that this attitude sets in after middle life and is a natural preparation for death. Death is psychologically as important as birth and, like it, is an integral part of life. What happens to the detached consciousness in the end is a question the psychologist cannot be expected to answer. Whatever his theoretical position he would hopelessly overstep the bounds of his scientific competence. He can only point out that the views of our text in regard to the timelessness of the detached consciousness are in harmony with the religious thought of all ages and with that of the overwhelming majority of mankind. Anyone who thought differently would be standing outside the human order and would, therefore, be suffering from a disturbed psychic equilibrium. As a doctor, I make every effort to strengthen the belief in immortality, especially with older patients when such questions come threateningly close. For, seen in correct psychological perspective, death is not an end but a goal, and life’s inclination towards death begins as soon as the meridian is passed.” ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 68
Science is not indeed a perfect instrument, but it is a superb and invaluable tool that works harm only when it is taken as an end in itself. Science must serve; it errs when it usurps the throne. It must be ready to serve all its branches, for each, because of its insufficiency, has need of support from the others. Science is the tool of the Western mind, and with it one can open more doors than with bare hands. It is part and parcel of our understanding, and it obscures our insight only when it claims that the understanding it conveys is the only kind there is. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 2
