Carl Jung: "Death has laid its hand upon our friend."

MEMORIAL TO J. S. [Jerome Schloss, of New York]

Death has laid its hand upon our friend.

The darkness out of which his soul had risen has come again and has undone the life of his earthly body, and has left us alone in pain and sorrow.


To many death seems to be a brutal and meaningless end to a short and meaningless existence.

So it looks, if seen from the surface and from the darkness.

But when we penetrate the depths of the soul and when we try to understand its mysterious life, we shall discern that death is not a meaningless end, the mere vanishing into nothingness—it is an accomplishment, a ripe fruit on the tree of life.

Nor is death an abrupt extinction, but a goal that has been unconsciously lived and worked for during half a lifetime.

In the youthful expansion of our life we think of it as an ever-increasing river, and this conviction accompanies us often far beyond the noonday of our existence.

But if we listen to the quieter voices of our deeper nature we become aware of the fact that soon after the middle of our life the soil begins its secret work, getting ready for the departure.

Out of the turmoil and terror of our life the one precious flower of the spirit begins to unfold, the four-petaled flower of the immortal light, and even if our mortal consciousness should not be aware of its secret operation, it nevertheless does its secret work of purification.

When I met J. S. for the first time I found in him a man of rare clarity and purity of character and personality.

I was deeply impressed with the honesty and sincerity of his purpose.

And when I worked with him, helping him to understand the intricacies of the human psyche, I could not but admire the kindness of his feeling and the absolute truthfulness of his mind.

But though it was a privilege to teach a man of such rare human qualities, it was not the thing that touched me most.

Yes, I did teach him, but he taught me too.

He spoke to me in the eternal language of symbols, which I did not grasp until the awe-inspiring conclusion, the culmination

in death, became manifest.

I shall never forget how he liberated his mind from the turmoil of modern business life, and how, gradually working back, he freed himself from the bonds that held him fast to his earthly parents and to his youth; and how the eternal image of the soul appeared to him, first dimly, then slowly taking shape in the vision of his dreams, and how finally, three weeks before his death, he beheld the vision of his own sarcophagus from which his living soul arose.

Who am I that I should dare say one word beyond this vision?

Is there a human word that could stand against the revelation given to the chosen one?

There is none.

Let us return, therefore, to the external language and let us hear the words of the sacred text. And as the ancient words which give truth to us, we will give life to them. (I Corinthians 13; l 5 : 37-55-) ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 757-758

Carl Jung: What are religions? Religions are psychotherapeutic systems.

What are religions? Religions are psychotherapeutic systems.

What are we doing, we psychotherapists?

We are trying to heal the suffering of the human mind, of the human psyche or the human soul, and religions deal with the same problem.

Therefore our Lord himself is a healer; he is a doctor; he heals the sick and he deals with the troubles of the soul; and that is exactly what we call psychotherapy.

It is not a play on words when I call religion a psychotherapeutic system. It is the most elaborate system, and there is a great practical truth behind it.

I have a clientele which is pretty large and extends over a number of continents, and where I live we are practically surrounded by Catholics; but during the last thirty years I have not had more than about six practising Catholics among my patients.

The vast majority were Protestants and Jews.

I once sent round a questionnaire to people whom I did not know, asking: "If you were in psychological trouble what would you do?

Would you go to the doctor or would you go to the priest or parson?"

I cannot remember the actual figures; but I remember that about twenty per cent of the Protestants said they would go to the parson.

All the rest were most emphatically against the parson and for the doctor, and the most emphatic were the relatives and children of parsons.

There was one Chinese who replied, and he put it very nicely. He remarked: "When I am young I go to the doctor, and when I am old I go to the philosopher."

But about fifty-eight or sixty per cent of the Catholics answered that they would certainly go to the priest.

That proves that the Catholic Church in particular, with its rigorous system of confession and its director of conscience,
is a therapeutic institution.

I have had some patients who, after having had analysis with me, even joined the Catholic Church, just as I have had some patients who now go to the so-called Oxford Group Movement—with my blessing!

I think it is perfectly correct to make use of these psychotherapeutic institutions which history has given to us, and I wish I were still a medieval man who could join such a creed.

Unfortunately it needs a somewhat medieval psychology to do it, and I am not sufficiently medieval.

But you see from this that I take the archetypal images and a suitable form for their projection seriously, because the collective unconscious is really a serious factor in the human psyche. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 370

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Carl Jung: Human Nature Doe Not Yield Easily To Idealistic Advice

There is little to criticize in Mr. Roberts' article since its author is obviously a man of good will and optimistic enthusiasm.

Moreover, he points in the right direction, and he gives proper value to man's mental and moral attitude.

He hopes and believes, it seems to me, that saying the right and good thing will be enough to produce the desired effect.

Unfortunately, human nature is a bit more complicated and does not yield to a well-meaning hint or to idealistic advice.

It always has been and still is the great question how to get the ordinary human to the point where he can make up his mind to draw the right conclusion and to do the right thing, or how to make him listen at all.

His moral and mental inertia and his notorious prejudices are the most serious obstacle to any moral or spiritual renaissance.

If he had been inclined to resist the overwhelming impact of his emotional entanglements, passions, and desires, and to put a stop to the haste and rush of his daily activities, and to try at least to get out of his lamentable yet cherished unconsciousness about himself, the world and its sad history of intrigue, violence,
and cruelty would have reached a state of peace and humanity long before Christ-—in the time of Buddha or Socrates.

But to get him there, that's just the trouble.

It is perhaps a good idea to liberate man from all inhibitions and prejudices that hamper, torment, and disfigure him.

But the question is less to liberate from something, than rather, as Nietzsche asked, to which end?

In certain cases it looks as if in getting rid of one's inhibitions and burdens, one had "thrown away one's best."

Liberation can be a good or a very bad solution.

It largely depends upon the choice of one's further goal whether the liberation has been a boon or a fatal mistake.

I don't want to go further into the complexities of this problem, and moreover it would be unfair to criticize the author for something he obviously is not aware of, viz., the fact that this formulation of the problem dates from about forty years ago.

Since that time, a voluminous literature thoroughly dealing with the point in question has come into existence.

I don't know which circumstances have prevented the author from informing himself about the more modern developments in the discussion between religion and psychology.

In view of Freud's notorious inability to understand religion, the reader would have welcomed, if not expected, a summary at least of the main work done along this line during the past four decades. \\Goodwill and enthusiasm are not to be underrated, but ignorance is regrettable.
~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 634-635

Foreword to Froboese-Thiele: "Dreams—a Source of Religious Experience?"

This book has the merit of being the first to investigate how the unconscious of Protestants behaves when it has to compensate an intensely religious attitude.

The author examines this question with the help of case material she has collected in her practical work.

She has evidently had the good fortune to come upon some very instructive cases who, moreover, did not object to the publication of their material.

Since we owe our knowledge of unconscious processes primarily to dreams, the author is mainly concerned with the dreams of her patients.

Even for one familiar with this material, the dreams and symbols reported here are remarkable.

As a therapist, she handles the dreams in a very felicitous manner, from the practical side chiefly, so that a reciprocal understanding of the meaning of the dream is gradually built up between her and the patient.

This puts the reader in the advantageous position of listening in on a dialogue, so to speak.

The method is as instructive as it is satisfying, since it is possible to present in this way several fairly long sequences of dreams.

A detailed scientific commentary would take up a disproportionate amount of space without making the dream interpretation any more impressive.

If the interpretation is at times uncertain, or disregards various details, this in no way affects the therapeutic intention to bring the meaning of the dream nearer to consciousness.

In actual practice one can often do full justice to a dream if one simply puts its general tendency, its emotional atmosphere, and its approximate meaning in the right light,
'having first, of course, assured oneself of the spontaneous approval of the dreamer.

With intelligent persons, this thoughtful feeling of one's way into the meaning of the dream can soon be left to the patient himself.

The author has been entirely successful in bringing out the religious meaning of the dreams and so demonstrating her thesis.

A religious attitude does in fact offer a direct challenge to the unconscious, and the more inimical the conscious attitude is to life, the more forceful and drastic will be this unconscious reaction.

It serves the purpose, firstly, of compensating the extremism of the conscious attitude and, secondly, of individuation, since it re-establishes the approximate wholeness of the personality.

The material which Dr. Froboese-Thiele has made available in her book is of considerable importance for doctors and theologians alike, since both of them have here an opportunity to assure themselves that the unconscious possesses a religious aspect against which no cogent arguments can be mustered.

One is left with a feeling of shame that so little of the empirical case material which would give the layman an adequate idea of these religious processes has been published.

The author deserves our special thanks for having taken the trouble to write up these exacting cases in extenso.

I hope her book will come into the hands of many thoughtful persons whose minds are not stopped up with needless prejudices, and who would be in a position to find a satisfactory answer to religious questions, or at least to come by those experiences which ought to underlie any authentic religious convictions. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 700-701

Carl Jung: Foreword to Abeg: “Ostasien Ddenkt Anders”

The author of this book, the entire text of which unfortunately I have not seen, has talked to me about her project and about her ideas with regard to the difference between Eastern and Western psychology.

Thus I was able to note many points of agreement between us, and also a competence on her part to make judgments which is possible only to one who is a European and at the same time possesses the invaluable advantage of having spent more than half a lifetime in the Far East, in close contact with the mind of Asia.

Without such first-hand experience it would be a hopeless task to approach the problem of Eastern psychology.

One must be deeply and directly jrnoj/e^^ almost say by the incomprehensibility, of the Eastern psyche.

Decisive experiences of this kind cannot be transmitted through books; they come only from living in immediate, daily relationship with the people.

Having had unusual advantages in this respect, the author is in a position to discuss what is perhaps the basic, and is in any case an extremely important, question of the difference between Eastern and Western psychology.

I have often found myself in situations where I had to take account of this difference, as in the study of Chinese and East Indian literary texts and in the psychological treatment of Asiatics.

Among my patients, I am sorry to say, I have never had a Chinese or a Japanese, nor have I had the privilege of visiting either China or Japan.

But at least I have had the opportunity to experience with painful clarity the insufficiency of my knowledge.

In this field we still have everything to learn, and whatever we learn will be to our immense advantage.

Knowledge of Eastern psychology provides the indispensable basis for a critique of Western psychology, as indeed for any objective understanding of it.

And in view of the truly lamentable psychic situation of the West, the importance of a deeper understanding of our Occidental prejudices can hardly be overestimated.

Long experience with the products of the unconscious has taught me that there is a very remarkable parallelism between the specific character of the Western unconscious psyche and the "manifest" psyche of the East.

Since our experience shows that the biological role which the unconscious plays in the psychic economy is compensatory to consciousness, one can venture the hypothesis that the mind of the Far East is related to our Western consciousness as the unconscious is, that is, as the left hand to the right.

Our unconscious has, fundamentally, a tendency toward wholeness, as I believe I have been able to prove.

One would be quite justified in saying the same thing about the Eastern psyche, but with this difference : that in the East it is consciousness that is characterized by an apperception of totality, while the West has developed a differentiated and therefore necessarily one-sided attention or awareness.

With it goes the Western concept of causality, a principle of cognition irreconcilably opposed to the principle of synchronicity which forms the basis and the source of Eastern "incomprehensibility," and explains as well the "strangeness" of the unconscious with which we in the West are confronted.

The understanding of synchronicity is the key which unlocks the door to the Eastern apperception of totality that-we find so mysterious.

The author seems to have devoted particular attention to just this point.

I do not hesitate to say that I look forward to the publication of her book with the greatest interest. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 654-655

Carl Jung: On the Discourses of the Buddha

It was neither the history of religion nor the study of philosophy that first drew me to the world of Buddhist thought, but my professional interests as a doctor.

My task was the treatment of psychic suffering, and it was this that impelled me to become acquainted with the views and methods of that great teacher of humanity whose principal theme was the "chain of suffering, old age, sickness, and death."

For although the healing of the sick naturally lies closest to the doctor's heart, he is bound to recognize that there are many diseases and states of suffering which, not being susceptible of a direct cure, demand from both patient and doctor some kind of attitude to their irremediable nature.

Even though it may not amount to actual incurability, in all such cases there are inevitably phases of stagnation and hopelessness which seem unendurable and require treatment just as much as a direct symptom of illness.

They call for a kind of moral attitude such as is provided by religious faith or a philosophical belief.

In this respect the study of Buddhist literature was of great help to me, since it trains one to observe suffering objectively and to take a universal view of its causes.

According to tradition, it was by objectively observing the chain of causes that_the Buddha was^aElHjxi-ejctricjteJhis consciousness from the snares pi _the^_len_ thousand things, -and -to rescue his feelings from the entanglements of emotion and illusion.

So also in our sphere ' oFcuTEure the suffering and the sick can derive considerable benefit from this prototype of the Buddhist mentality, however strange it may appear.

The discourses of the Buddha, here presented in K. E. Neumann's new translation, have an importance that should not be underestimated.

Quite apart from their profound meaning, their solemn, almost ritual form emits a penetrating radiance which has an exhilarating and exalting effect and cannot fail to work directly upon one's feelings.

Against this use of the spiritual treasures of the East it might be—and indeed, often has been—objected from the Christian point of view that the faith of the West offers consolations that are at least as significant, and that there is no need to invoke the spirit of Buddhism with its markedly rational attitude.

Aside from the fact that in most cases the Christian faith of which people speak simply isn't there, and no one can tell how it might be obtained (except by the special providence of God) , it is a truism that anything known becomes so familiar and hackneyed by frequent use that it gradually loses its meaning and hence its effect;
whereas anything strange and unknown, and so completely different in its nature, can open doors hitherto locked and new possibilities of understanding.

If a Christian insists so much on his faith when it does not even help him to ward off a neurosis, then his faith is vain, and it is better to accept humbly what he needs no matter where he finds it, if only it helps.

There is no need for him to deny his religion convictions if he acknowledges his debt to Buddhism, for he is only following the Pauline injunction: "Prove all things;, hold fast that which is good" ( I Thess. 5:21).

To this good which should be held fast one must reckon the discourses of the Buddha, which have much to offer even to those who cannot boast of any Christian convictions.

They offer Western man ways and means of disciplining his inner psychic life, thus remedying an often regrettable defect in the various brands of Christianity.

The teachings of the Buddha can give him a helpful training when either the Christian ritual has lost its meaning or the authority of religious ideas has collapsed, as all too frequently happens in psychogenic disorders.

People have often accused me of regarding religion as "mental hygiene."

Perhaps one may pardon a doctor his professional humility in not undertaking to prove the truth of metaphysical assertions and in shunning confessions of faith.

I am content to emphasize the importance of having a Weltanschauung and the therapeutic necessity of adopting some kind of attitude to the problem of psychic
! suffering. Suffering that is not understood is hard to bear, while on the other hand it is often astounding to see how much a person can endure when he understands the why and the wherefore.

A philosophical or religious view of the world enables him to do this, and such views prove to be, at the very least, psychic methods of healing if not of salvation.

Even Christ and his disciples did not scorn to heal the sick, thereby demonstrating the therapeutic power of their mission.

The doctor has to cope with actual suffering for better or worse, and ultimately has nothing to rely on except the mystery of divine Providence.

It is no wonder, then, that he values religious ideas and attitudes, so far as they prove helpful, as therapeutic systems, and singles out the Buddha in particular, the essence of whose teaching is deliverance from suffering through the maximum development of consciousness, as one of the supreme helpers on the road to salvation.

From ancient times physicians have sought a panacea, a medicina catholica, and their persistent efforts have unconsciously brought them nearer to the central ideas of the religion and philosophy of the East.

Anyone who is familiar with methods of suggestion under hypnosis knows that plausible suggestions work better than those which run counter to the patient's own nature.

Consequently, whether he liked it or not, the doctor was obliged to develop conceptions which corresponded as closely as possible with the actual psychological conditions.

Thus, there grew up a realm of theory which not only drew upon traditional thought but took account of the unconscious products that compensated its inevitable one-sidedness—that is to say, all those psychic factors which Christian philosophy left unsatisfied.

Among these were not a few aspects which, unknown to the West, had been developed in Eastern philosophy from very early times.

So if, as a doctor, I acknowledge the immense help and stimulation I have received from the Buddhist teachings, I am following a line which can be traced back some two thousand years in the history of human thought. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 697-699

Carl Jung: Answers to “Mishmar” on Adolf Hitler

Carl Jung: Answers to “Mishmar” on Adolf Hitler

[Eugen Kolb, Geneva correspondent of Mishmar (The Daily Guardian) of Tel Aviv, wrote to Jung on 4 September 1945 for his answers to the following questions. Jung replied on 14 September.]

How do you, as a psychiatrist, judge Hitler as a "patient"?

Hitler was in my view primarily an hysteric. (Already in the first World War he had been officially diagnosed as such.)

More particularly he was characterized by a subform of hysteria : pseudologia phantastica.

In other words he was a "pathological liar."

If these people do not start out directly as deceivers, they are the sort of idealists who are always in love with their own ideas and who anticipate their aims by presenting their wish-fantasies partly as easily attainable and partly as having been attained, and who believe these obvious lies themselves.

(Quisling, as his trial showed, was a similar case.)

In order to realize their wish-fantasies no means is too bad for them, just because they believe they can thereby attain their beloved aim.

They "believe" they are doing it for the benefit of humanity, or at least of the nation or their party, and cannot under any circumstances see that their aim is invariably
egoistic.

Since this is a common failing, it is difficult for the layman to recognize such cases as psychopathic.

Because only a convinced person is immediately convincing (by psychic contagion), he exercises as a rule a devastating influence on his contemporaries.

Almost everybody is taken in by him.

How could this "psychopath" influence whole nations to such an extent?

If his maniacal wish-system is a socio-political one, and if it corresponds to the pet ideas of a majority, it produces a psychic epidemic that swells like an avalanche.

The majority of the German

people were discontented and hugged feelings of revenge and resentment born of their national inferiority complex and identified themselves with the underdogs.

(Hence their special hatred and envy of the Jews, who had anticipated them in their idea of a "chosen people"!)

Do you consider his contemporaries, who executed his plans, equally "psychopathic"?

Suggestion works only when there is a secret wish to fulfil it.

Thus Hitler was able to work on all those who compensated their inferiority complex with social aspirations and secret dreams of power.

As a result he collected an army of social misfits, psychopaths, and criminals around him, to which he also belonged.

But at the same time he gripped the unconscious of normal people, who are always naive and fancy themselves utterly innocent and right.

The majority of normal people (quite apart from the 10 per cent or so who are inferior) are ridiculously unconscious and naive and are open to any passing suggestion.

So far as lack of adaptation is a disease, one can call a whole nation diseased.

But this is normal mass psychology; it is a herd phenomenon, like panic.

The more people live together in heaps, the stupider and more suggestible the individual becomes.

If that is so, how can they be cured?

Education for fuller consciousness!

Prevention of social herd formations, of proletarianization and mass-mindedness!

No one party system! No dictatorship! Communal autonomy ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 604-605

Carl Jung: The Effect of Technology on the Human Psyche

The question you ask me, concerning the effect of technology on the human psyche, is not at all easy to answer, as you may well imagine.

The problem is a very complicated one.

Since technology consists of certain procedures invented by man, it is not something that somehow lies outside the human sphere.

One may therefore conjecture that certain modes of human adaptation also exist which would meet the requirements of technology.

Technological activities mostly consist in the identical repetition of rhythmical procedures.

This corresponds to the basic pattern of primitive labour, which is never performed without rhythm and an accompanying chant.

The primitive, that is, the man who is relatively instinctive, can put up with an extraordinary amount of monotony.

There is even something fascinating about it for him.

When the work is accompanied by drumming, he is able to heat himself up into an ecstasy, or else the monotony of the action makes him fall into a semi-unconscious condition, which is not so unpleasant either.

The question naturally is: What is the effect of these primitive techniques on modern man, who no longer has the capacity to transport himself into semi-unconscious or ecstatic states for any length of time?

In general it can be said that for modern man technology is an imbalance that begets dissatisfaction with work or with life.

It estranges man from his natural versatility of action and thus allows many of his instincts to lie fallow.

The result is an increased resistance to work in general.

The remedy would presumably be to move industry out of the towns, a four-hour day, and the rest of the time spent in agricultural work on one's own property—if such a thing could be realized.

In Switzerland it might be, given time.

Naturally it is different with the slum mentality of huge worker populations, but that is a problem in itself.

Considered on its own merits, as a legitimate human activity, technology is neither good nor bad, neither harmful nor harmless.

Whether it be used for good or ill depends entirely on man's own attitude, which in turn depends on technology.

The technologist has something of the same problem as the factory worker.

Since he has to do mainly with mechanical factors, there is a danger of his other mental capacities atrophying.

Just as an unbalanced diet is injurious to the body, any psychic imbalances have injurious effects in the long run and need compensating.

In my practice I have observed how engineers, in particular, very often developed philosophical interests, and this is an uncommonly sound reaction and mode of compensation.

For this reason I have always recommended the institution of Humanistic Faculties at the Federal Polytechnic, to remind students that at least such things exist, so that they can come back to them if ever they should feel a need for them in later life.

Technology harbours no more dangers than any other trend in the development of human consciousness.

The danger lies not in technology but in the possibilities awaiting discovery.

Undoubtedly a new discovery will never be used only for the good, but will certainly be used for ill as well.

Man, therefore, always runs the risk of discovering something that will destroy him if evilly used.

We have come very close to this with the atom bomb.

Faced with such menacing developments, one must ask oneself whether man is sufficiently equipped with reason to be able to resist the temptation to use them for destructive purposes, or whether his constitution will allow him to be swept into catastrophe.

This is a question which experience alone can answer. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 614-615

Carl Jung and "The Rules of Life"

The Rules of Life

In reply to your kind enquiry about "rules of life,"

I would like to remark that I have had so much to do with people that I have always endeavoured to live by no rules as far as possible.

Non-observance of rules requires, of course, far less effort, for usually one makes a rule in order to repress the tendency in oneself not to follow it.

In psychology, above all, rules are valid only when they can be reversed.

Also, they are not without their dangers, since they consist of words and our civilization is largely founded on a superstitious belief in words.

One of the supreme religious assumptions is actually the "Word."

Words can take the place of men and things.

This has its advantages but it is also a menace.

One can then spare oneself the trouble of thinking for oneself or making any effort, to one's own advantage or disadvantage and that of one's fellows.

I have, for instance, a tendency to make a principle of doing what I want to do or should do as soon as possible.

This can be very unwise and even stupid.

The same applies to practically all adages and "rules of life."

Take, for example, the saying, "Quidquid id est, prudenter agas et respice finem" (Whatever it be, act prudently and consider the end).

But in this way, however praiseworthy the principle is, you can let a vitally important decision of the moment slip through your fingers.

No rules can cope with the paradoxes of life.

Moral law, like natural law, represents only one aspect of reality.

It does not prevent one from following certain "regular" habits unconsciously—habits which one does not notice oneself but can only discover by making careful inquiries among one's fellows.

But people seldom enjoy having what they don't know about themselves pointed out to them by others, and so they prefer to lay down rules which are the exact opposite of what they are doing in reality. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 625

Foreword to Perry: “The Self in Psychotic Process”

Foreword to Perry: “The Self in Psychotic Process”

As I studied Dr. Perry's manuscript, I could not help recalling the time when I was a young alienist searching vainly for a point of view which would enable me to understand the workings of the diseased mind.

Merely clinical observations—and the subsequent post mortem when one used to stare at a brain which ought to have been out of order yet showed no sign of abnormality—were not particularly enlightening. "Mental diseases are diseases of the brain" was the axiom, and told one just nothing at all.

Within my first months at the Clinic, I realized that the thing I lacked was a real psychopathology, a science which showed what was happening in the mind during a psychosis.

I could never be satisfied with the idea that all that the patients produced, especially the schizophrenics, was nonsense and chaotic gibberish.

On the contrary, I soon convinced myself that their productions meant something which could be understood, if only one were able to find out what it was.

In 1901, I started my association experiments with normal test persons in order to create a normal basis for comparison.

I found then that the experiments were almost regularly disturbed by psychic factors beyond the control of consciousness.

I called them complexes.

No sooner had I established this fact than I applied my discovery to cases of hysteria and schizophrenia.

In both I found an inordinate amount of disturbance, which meant that the unconscious in these conditions is not only opposed to consciousness
but also has an extraordinary energic charge.

While with neurotics the complexes consist of split-off contents, which are systematically arranged, and for this reason are easily understandable,
with schizophrenics the unconscious proves to be not only unmanageable and autonomous, but highly unsystematic, disordered, and even chaotic.

Moreover, it has a peculiar dreamlike quality, with associations and bizarre ideas such as are found in dreams.

In my attempts to understand the contents of schizophrenic psychoses, I was considerably helped by Freud's book on dream interpretation, which had just appeared (1900).

By 1905, I had acquired so much reliable knowledge about the psychology of schizophrenia (then called "dementia praecox") that I was able to write two papers3 about it.

The Psychology of Dementia Praecox (1906) had practically no influence at all, since nobody was interested in pathological psychology except Freud, with whom I had the honour of collaborating for the next seven years.

Dr. Perry, in this book, gives an excellent picture of the psychic contents with which I found myself confronted.

At the beginning, I felt completely at a loss in understanding the association of ideas which I could observe daily with my patients.

I did not know then that all the time I had the key to the mystery in my pocket, inasmuch as I could not help seeing the often striking parallelism between
the patients' delusions and mythological motifs.

But for a long time I did not dare to assume any relationship between mythological formations and individual morbid delusions.

Moreover, my knowledge of folklore, mythology, and primitive psychology was regrettably deficient, so that I was slow in discovering how common
these parallels were.

Our clinical approach to the human mind was only medical, which was about as helpful as the approach of the mineralogist to Chartres Cathedral.

Our training as alienists was much concerned with the anatomy of the brain but not at all with the human psyche.

One could not expect very much more in those days, when even neuroses, with their overflow of psychological material, were a psychological terra incognita.

The main art the students of psychiatry had to learn in those days was how not to listen to their patients.

Well, I had begun to listen, and so had Freud.

He was impressed with certain facts of neurotic psychology, which he even named after a famous mythological model, but I was overwhelmed with "historical" material while studying the psychotic mind.

From 1906 until 1912 I acquired as much knowledge of mythology, primitive psychology, and comparative religion as possible.

This study gave me the key to an understanding of the deeper layers of the psyche and I was thus enabled to write my book with the English title Psychology of the Unconscious.

This title is slightly misleading, for the book represents the analysis of a prodromal schizophrenic condition.

It appeared forty years ago, and last year I published a fourth, revised edition under the title Symbols of Transformation.

One could not say that it had any noticeable influence on psychiatry.

The alienist's lack of psychological interest is by no means peculiar to him.

He shares it with a number of other schools of thought, such as theology, philosophy, political economy, history, and medicine, which all stand in need of psychological understanding and yet allow themselves to be prejudiced against it and remain ignorant of it.

It is only within the last years, for instance, that medicine has recognized "psychosomatics."

Psychiatry has entirely neglected the study of the psychotic mind, in spite of the fact that an investigation of this kind is important not only from a scientific and theoretical standpoint but also from that of practical therapy.

Therefore I welcome Dr. Perry's book as a messenger of a time when the psyche of the mental patient will receive the interest it deserves.

The author gives a fair representation of an average case of schizophrenia, with its peculiar mental structure, and, at the same time, he shows the reader what he should know about general human psychology if he wishes to understand the apparently chaotic distortions and the grotesque "bizarrerie" of the diseased mind.

An adequate understanding often has a remarkable therapeutic effect in milder cases which, of course, do not appear in mental hospitals, but all the more in the consultation hours of the private specialist.

One should not underrate the disastrous shock which patients undergo when they find themselves assailed by the intrusion of strange contents which they are unable to integrate.

The mere fact that they have such ideas isolates them from their fellow men and exposes them to an irresistible panic, which often marks the outbreak of the manifest psychosis.

If, on the other hand, they meet with adequate understanding from their physician, they do not fall into a panic, because they are still understood by a human being and thus preserved from the disastrous shock of complete isolation.

The strange contents which invade consciousness are rarely met with in neurotic cases, least not directly, which is the reason why so many psychotherapists are unfamiliar with the deeper strata of the human psyche.

The alienist, on the other hand, rarely has the time or the necessary scientific equipment to deal with, or even to bother with, his patients' psychology.

In this respect, the author's book fills a yawning gap.

The reader should not be misled by the current prejudice that I produce nothing but theories.

My so-called theories are not figments but facts that can be verified, if one only takes the trouble, as the author has done with so much success, to listen to the patient, to give him the credit—that is humanly so important—of meaning something by what he says, and to encourage him to express himself as much as he possibly can.

As the author has shown, drawing, painting and other methods are sometimes of inestimable value, inasmuch as they complement and amplify verbal expression.

It is of paramount importance that the investigator should be sufficiently acquainted with the history and phenomenology of the mind.

Without such knowledge, he could not understand the symbolic language of the unconscious and so would be unable to help his patient assimilate the irrational ideas that bewilder and confuse his consciousness.

It is not a "peculiar historical interest," a sort of hobby of mine to collect historical curiosities, as has been suggested, but an earnest endeavour to help
the understanding of the diseased mind.

The psyche, like the body, is an extremely historical structure.

I hope that Dr. Perry's book will arouse the psychiatrist's interest in the psychological aspect of his cases.

Psychology belongs as much to his training as anatomy and physiology to that of the surgeon. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 353-356

Carl Jung: ...we have simply forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions.

1 know that the Buddhists would say, as indeed they do: if only people would follow the noble eightfold path of the Dharma (doctrine, law) and had true insight into the Self; or the Christians: if only people had the right faith in the Lord; or the rationalist: if people could only be intelligent and reasonable—then all problems would be manageable and solvable.

The trouble is that none of them manages to solve these problems himself.

Christians often ask why God does not speak to them, as he is believed to have done in former days.

When I hear such ^questions, it always makes me think of the Rabbi who was asked: how it could be that God often showed himself to people in the
olden days but that nowadays one no longer saw him.

The | Rabbi replied: "Nor is there anyone nowadays who could stoop so low."

This answer hits the nail on the head. We are so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousness that we have simply forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions.

The Buddhist discards the world of unconscious fantasies as “distractions” and useless illusions; the Christian puts his Church and his Bible between himself and his unconscious; and the rationalist intellectual does not yet know that his consciousness is not his total psyche, in spite of the fact that for more than seventy years the unconscious has been a basic scientific concept that is indispensable to any serious student of psychology ~Carl Jung, CW18, Paras 600-601

Carl Jung: CW 18 "The Symbolic Life" - Quotations

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, CW 18, Page 452.

Individuation and collectivity are a pair of opposites, two divergent destinies. They are related to one another by guilt. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 452.

Ideas are not just counters used by the calculating mind; they are also golden vessels full of living feeling. "Freedom" is not a mere abstraction, it is also an emotion. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Pages 310-311.

The unconscious is, as the collective psyche, the psychological representative of society. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 453.

It is normal to think about immortality, and abnormal not to do so or not to bother about it. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 310.

No rules can cope with the paradoxes of life. Moral law, like natural law, represents only one aspect of reality. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 625.

In reply to your kind enquiry about "rules of life," I would like to remark that I have had so much to do with people that I have always endeavored to live by no rules as far as possible. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 625.

The "Invisibles" further assert that our world of consciousness and the "Beyond" together form a single cosmos, with the result that the dead are not in a different place from the living. ~CW 18, Page 315.

The communications of "spirits" are statements about the unconscious psyche, provided that they are really spontaneous and are not cooked up by the conscious mind. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 313.

The Christian-my Christian-knows no curse formulas; indeed he does not even sanction the cursing of the innocent fig-tree by the rabbi Jesus" ~Carl Jung, CW 18, §1468.

Our psychology is a science . . . Plenty of unqualified persons are sure to push their way in and commit the greatest follies . . . Our aim is simply and solely scientific knowledge . . . If religion and morality are blown to pieces in the process, so much the worse for them . . . Knowledge is a force of nature that goes its way irresistibly from inner necessity. ~Carl Jung; CW 18; Page 314.

Nobody is immune to a nationwide evil unless he is unshakably convinced of the danger of his own character being tainted by the same evil. Carl Jung, CW 18, para 1400.

One has to remind oneself again and again that in therapy it is more important for the patient to understand than for the analyst's theoretical expectations to be satisfied. The patient's resistance to the analyst is not necessarily wrong; it is rather a sign that something does not "click." Either the patient is not yet at a point where he would be able to understand, or the interpretation does not fit. ~Carl Jung. CW 18, Page 61

Lack of conscious understanding does not mean that the dream has no effect at all. Even civilized man can occasionally observe that a dream which he cannot remember can slightly alter his mood for better or worse. Dreams can be "understood" to a certain extent in a subliminal way, and that is mostly how they work. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 52.

Dreams are as simple or as complicated as the dreamer is himself, only they are always a little bit ahead of the dreamer's consciousness. I do not understand my own dreams any better than any of you, for they are always somewhat beyond my grasp and I have the same trouble with them as anyone who knows nothing about dream interpretation. Knowledge is no advantage when it is a matter of one's own dreams. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 122

Never apply any theory, but always ask the patient how he feels about his dream images. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 123.

Because the European does not know his own unconscious, he does not understand the East and projects into it everything he fears and despises in himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1253.

[There is a] . . . continued and progressive divine incarnation. Thus man is received and integrated into the divine drama. He seems destined to play a decisive part in it; that is why he must receive the Holy Spirit. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para, 1551.

We cannot receive the Holy Spirit unless we have accepted our own individual life as Christ accepted his. Thus we become the "sons of god" fated to experience the conflict of the divine opposites, represented by the crucifixion. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para, 1551.

Man’s suffering does not derive from his sins but from the maker of his imperfections, the paradoxical God. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1681

I consider my contribution to psychology to be my subjective confession. It is my personal psychology, my prejudice that I see psychological facts as I do. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 275.

Never forget that in psychology the means by which you judge and observe the psyche is the psyche itself. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 277.

The individual must now consolidate himself by cutting himself off from God and becoming wholly himself Thereby and at the same time he also separates himself from society: Outwardly he plunges into solitude, but inwardly into Hell, distance from God" ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1103.

The serpent in the cave is an image which often occurs in antiquity. It is important to realize that in classical antiquity, as in other civilizations, the serpent not only was an animal that aroused fear and represented danger, but also signified healing. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 116.

Reason becomes unreason when separated from the heart, and a psychic life void of universal ideas sickens from undernourishment. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 311.

The righteous man is the instrument into which God enters in order to attain self-reflection and thus consciousness and rebirth as a divine child trusted to the care of adult man. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 739.

The serpent owes his existence to God and by no means to man. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 690.

Then our era will be a near replica of the first centuries a.d., when Caesar was the State and a god, and divine sacrifices were made to Caesar while the temples of the gods crumbled away. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 581.

Since history repeats itself and the spiral of evolution seemingly returns to the point where it took off, there is a possibility that mankind is approaching an epoch when enough will be said about things which are never what we wish them to be, and when the question will be raised why we were ever interested in a bad comedy. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 581.

Our concept of consciousness supposes thought to be in our most dignified head. But the Pueblo Indians derive consciousness from the intensity of feeling. Abstract thought does not exist for them. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 16.

These "centres" are the so-called chakras? and you not only find them in the teachings of yoga but can discover the same idea in old German alchemical books, which surely do not derive from a knowledge of yoga. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 16.

For modern psychology, ideas are entities, like animals and plants. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 742.

Sooner or later it will be found that nothing really new happens in history. There could be talk of something really novel only if the unimaginable happened : if reason, humanity and love won a lasting victory. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1356.

The essence of culture is continuity and conservation of the past; craving for novelty produces only anti-culture and ends in barbarism. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1344.

Human reality is made up of a thousand vulgarities. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1354.

A life of ease and security has convinced everyone of all the material joys, and has even compelled the spirit to devise new and better ways to material welfare, but it has never produced spirit. Probably only suffering, disillusion, and self-denial do that. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1346.

Most people need someone to confess to otherwise the basis of experience is not sufficiently real. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1811.

"Facts first and theories later is the keynote of Jung's work. He is an empiricist first and last." This view meets with my approval. ~Carl Jung, citing British Medical Journal (9 February 1952), CW 18, Page 664

When a man is in the wilderness, it is the darkness that brings the dreams ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 674

And you can be sure that the dream is your nearest friend; the dream is the friend of those who are not guided any more by the traditional truth and in consequence are isolated. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 674

We must never forget that Christ was an innovator and revolutionary, executed with criminals. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1539

The reformers and great religious geniuses were heretics. It is there that you find the footprints of the Holy Spirit, and no one asks for him or receives him without having to pay a high price. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1539

Why was that cruel immolation of the Son necessary if the anger of the "deus ultionum" is not hard to appease? One doesn't notice much of the Father's goodness and love during the tragic end of his Son. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1539

Suffering that is not understood is hard to bear, while on the other hand it is often astounding to see how much a person can endure when he understands the why and the wherefore. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1578

It is quite understandable that we should seek to hold the truth at arm's length, because it seems impossible to give oneself up to a God who doesn't even respect his own laws when he falls victim to one of his fits of rage or forgets his solemn oath. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1539

We take flight into the Christian collectivity where we can forget even the will of God, for in society we lose the feeling of personal responsibility and can swim with the current. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1539

His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 82

We find numberless images of God, but we cannot produce the original. There is no doubt in my mind that there is an original behind our images, but it is inaccessible. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1589

The important fact about consciousness is that nothing can be conscious without an ego to which it refers. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 18.

There is no reason whatsoever why you should or should not call the beyond-self Christ or Buddha or Purusha or Tao or Khidr or Tifereth. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1672

That gives peace, when people feel that they are living the symbolic life, that they are actors in the divine drama. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 630

A career, producing of children, are all maya compared with that one thing, that your life is meaningful. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 630

My intuition consisted in a sudden and most unexpected insight into the fact that my dream meant myself, my life and my world, my whole reality as against a theoretical structure erected by another, alien mind for reasons and purposes of its own. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 490

An analyst who cannot risk his authority will be sure to lose it. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1172

You can’t wrest people away from their fate, just as in medicine you cannot cure a patient if nature means him to die. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 291

Therefore our Lord himself is a healer; he is a doctor; he heals the sick and he deals with the troubles of the soul; and that is exactly what we call psychotherapy. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 370

The doctor has to cope with actual suffering for better or worse, and ultimately has nothing to rely on except the mystery of divine Providence. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1578

It seems to me to be the Holy Spirit’s task and charge to reconcile and unite the opposites in the human individual through a special development of the human soul. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1553

He who can risk himself wholly to it finds himself directly in the hands of God, and is there confronted with a situation which makes “simple faith” a vital necessity; in other words, the situation becomes so full of risk or overtly dangerous that the deepest instincts are aroused. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1539

The alchemists thought of their opus as a continuation and perfection of creation. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1631

The utterances of the heart— unlike those of the discriminating intellect—always relate to the whole. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1719

The heartstrings sing like an Aeolian harp only under the gentle breath of a mood, an intuition, which does not drown the song but listens. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1719

What the heart hears are the great, all-embracing things of life, the experiences which we do not arrange ourselves but which happen to us. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1719

What sets one man free is another man’s prison. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 163

But when we penetrate the depths of the soul and when we try to understand its mysterious life, we shall discern that death is not a meaningless end, the mere vanishing into nothingness—it is an accomplishment, a ripe fruit on the tree of life. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1705-7

Nor is death an abrupt extinction, but a goal that has been unconsciously lived and worked for during half a lifetime. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1705-7

But if we listen to the quieter voices of our deeper nature we become aware of the fact that soon after the middle of our life the soul begins its secret work, getting ready for the departure. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1705-7

Out of the turmoil and error of our life the one precious flower of the spirit begins to unfold, the four-petaled flower of the immortal light, and even if our mortal consciousness should not be aware of its secret operation, it nevertheless does its secret work of purification. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1705-7

It is my practical experience that psychological understanding immediately revivifies the essential Christian ideas and fills them with the breath of life. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1666

Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpole to happlness. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 179

It is always possible that what lies in the darkness beyond our consciousness is totally different from anything the most daring speculation could imagine. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 617

The very numbers you use in counting are more than you take them for. They are at the same time mythological entities (for the Pythagoreans they were even divine), but you are certainly unaware of this when you use numbers for a practical purpose. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 461

It is the face of our own shadow that glowers at us across the iron curtain. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 85

This general point of view lifts the individual out of himself and connects him with humanity. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 116

If a man is capable of leading a responsible life himself, then he is also conscious of his duties to the community. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 56

Childlike faith, when it comes naturally, is certainly a charisma. But when "joyful faith" and "childlike trust" are instilled by religious education, they are no charisma but a gift of the ambiguous gods, because they can be manipulated only too easily and with greater effect by other "saviours" as well. ~Carl Jung, CW 18

What is the use of technological improvements when mankind must still tremble before those infantile tyrants, ridiculous yet terrible, in the style of Hitler? Figures like these owe their power only to the frightening immaturity of the man of today, and to his barbarous unconsciousness. Truly we can no longer afford to underestimate the importance of the psychic factor in world affairs. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 11

Suffering that is not understood is hard to bear, while on the other hand it is often astounding to see how much a person can endure when he understands the why and the wherefore. A philosophical or religious view of the world enables him to do this, and such views prove to be, at the very least, psychic methods of healing if not of salvation. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 692

The archetypes are the great decisive forces, they bring about the real events, and not our personal reasoning and practical intellect . . . The archetypal images decide the fate of man. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 183

It is a great mistake in practice to treat an archetype as if it were a mere name, word, or concept. It is far more than that it is a piece of life, an image connected with the living individual by the bridge of emotion. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 96

Just as conscious contents can vanish into the unconscious, other contents can also arise from it. Besides a majority of mere recollections, really new thoughts and creative ideas can appear which have never been conscious before. They grow up from the dark depths like a lotus. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 37.

Rationalism and superstition are complementary. It is a psychological rule that the brighter the light, the blacker the shadow; in other words, the more rationalistic we are in our conscious minds, the more alive becomes the spectral world of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 18 Para 10

Nature commits no errors. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 95

The interpretation of dreams enriches consciousness to such an extent that it relearns the forgotten language of the instincts. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 52

Most people need someone to confess to, otherwise the basis of experience is not sufficiently real. They do not "hear" themselves, cannot contrast themselves with something different, and so they have no outside "control." Everything flows inwards and is answered only by oneself, not by another. It makes an enormous difference whether I confess my guilt only to myself or to another person. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 17

There is no admonition to repentance unless the patient does it himself, no penance unless—as is almost the rule he has got himself in a thorough mess, and no absolution unless God has mercy on him. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 17

We cannot demand of our patients a faith which they reject because they do not understand it, or which does not suit them even though we may hold it ourselves. We have to rely on the curative powers inherent in the patient's own nature, regardless of whether the ideas that emerge agree with any known creed or philosophy. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 664

In psychology it is very important that the doctor should not strive to heal at all costs. One has to be exceedingly careful not to impose one's own will and conviction on the patient. You have to give him a certain amount of freedom. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 147

Rightness is not a category that can be applied to religion anyway. Religion consists of psychic realities which one cannot say are right or wrong. Are lice or elephants right or wrong? It is enough that they exist. ~Carl Jung, Letters Volume 1, Page 327.

…the fact is that free will only exists within the limits of consciousness. Beyond those limits there is mere compulsion. ~Carl Jung; Letters Volume 1, Page 227

You can't wrest people away from their fate, just as in medicine you cannot cure a patient if nature means him to die. Sometimes it is really a question whether you are allowed to rescue a man from the fate he must undergo for the sake of his further development. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 147

What are religions? Religions are psychotherapeutic systems. What are we doing, we psychotherapists? We are trying to heal the suffering of the human mind, of the human psyche or the human soul, and religions deal with the same problem. Therefore our Lord himself is a healer; he is a doctor; he heals the sick and he deals with the troubles of the soul; and that is exactly what we call psychotherapy. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 181

We have stripped all things of their mystery and numinosity: nothing is holy any longer. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 94

Only through our feebleness and incapacity are we linked up with the unconscious, with the lower world of the instincts and with our fellow beings. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 109

Brooding is a sterile activity which runs round in a circle, never reaching a sensible goal. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 16

Contradictory views are necessary for the evolution of any science, only they must not be set up in rigid opposition to each other but should strive for the earliest possible synthesis. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 639

Ultimate truth, if there be such a thing, demands the concert of many voices. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page xiv

The idea of an unconscious psyche has not yet gained undisputed currency, despite the existence of an overwhelming mass of empirical material which proves beyond all doubt that there can be no psychology of consciousness without a recognition of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para ix

Fantasy is not a sickness but a natural and vital activity which helps the seeds of psychic development to grow. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para viii

It makes an enormous difference whether I confess my guilt only to myself or to another person. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 17

He is the man who plants a field and before the crop is ripe is off again to a new field. He has ploughed fields behind him and new hopes ahead all the time, and nothing comes off. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 33.

The people would never have been Deutsch taken in and carried away so completely if this figure had not been a reflected image of the collective hysteria Deutsch. Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1400 .

The immunity of the nation depends entirely upon the existence of a leading minority immune to the evil and capable of combating the powerful suggestive effect. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1400

When you are in the darkness you take the next thing, and that is a dream. And you can be sure that the dream is your nearest friend; the dream is the friend of those who are not guided any more by the traditional truth and in consequence are isolated. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 674.

The serpent in the cave is an image which often occurs in antiquity. It is important to realize that in classical antiquity, as in other civilizations, the serpent not only was an animal that aroused fear and represented danger, but also signified healing. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 116.

The serpent owes his existence to God and by no means to man. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 690.

Since we are psychic beings and not entirely dependent upon space and time, we can easily understand the central importance of the resurrection idea: we are not completely subjected to the powers of annihilation because our psychic totality reaches beyond the barrier of space and time. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1572.

We do not know what an archetype is (i.e., consists of), since the nature of the psyche is inaccessible to us, but we know that archetypes exist and work. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 694.

The better we understand the archetype, the more we participate in its life and the more we realize its eternity or timelessness. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 695.

The utterances of the heart—unlike those of the discriminating intellect—always relate to the whole. The heartstrings sing like an Aeolian harp only to the gentle breath of a premonitory mood, which does not drown the song but listens. What the heart hears are the great things that span our whole lives, the experiences which we do nothing to arrange but which we ourselves suffer. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 9

We have stripped all things of their mystery and numinosity nothing is holy any longer. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 94

To find happiness in the spirit one must be possessed of a "spirit" to find happiness in. A life of ease and security has convinced everyone of all the material joys, and has even compelled the spirit to devise new and better ways to material welfare, but it has never produced spirit. Probably only suffering, disillusion, and self-denial do that. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 6

Because the European does not know his own unconscious, he does not understand the East and projects into it everything he fears and despises in himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 8

Without wishing it, we human beings are placed in situations in which the great "principles" entangle us in something, and God leaves it to us to find a way out. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 869

Besides a majority of mere recollections, really new thoughts and creative ideas can appear which have never been conscious before. They grow up from the dark depths like a lotus. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 37.

Our personal psychology is just a thin skin, a ripple on the ocean of collective psychology. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 183

The archetypes are the great decisive forces, they bring about the real events, and not our personal reasoning and practical intellect . . . The archetypal images decide the fate of man. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 183

Much may be said for Freud's view as a scientific explanation of dream psychology. But I must dispute its completeness, for the psyche cannot be conceived merely in causal terms but requires also a final view. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 473

I am a neutral Swiss and even in my own country I am uninterested in politics, because I am convinced that 99 per cent of politics are mere symptoms and anything but a cure for social evils. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 564.

About 50 per cent of politics is definitely obnoxious inasmuch as it poisons the utterly incompetent mind of the masses. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 564.

The healthy man does not torture others-generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1354.

Whatever we fight about in the outside world is also a battle in our inner selves. For we must finally admit that mankind is not just an accumulation of individuals utterly different from one another, but possesses such a high degree of psychological collectivity that in comparison the individual appears merely as a slight variant. How shall we judge of this matter fairly if we cannot admit that it is also our own problem? Anyone who can admit this will first seek the solution in himself, and this in fact is the way all the great solutions begin. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 313
Modern psychology can affirm that for many people this problem arises in the second half of life, when the unconscious often makes itself felt in a very insistent way. The unconscious is the land of dreams, and according to the primitive view the land of dreams is also the land of the dead and of the ancestors. From all we know about it, the unconscious does in fact seem to be relatively independent of space and time, nor is there anything objectionable in the idea that consciousness is surrounded by the sea of the unconscious, just as this world is contained in “Orthos.” The unconscious is of unknown extent and is possibly of greater importance than consciousness. At any rate, the role which consciousness plays in the life of primitives and primates is insignificant compared with that of the unconscious. The events in our modern world, as we see humanity blindly staggering from one catastrophe to the next, are not calculated to strengthen anyone’s belief in the value of consciousness and the freedom of the will. Consciousness should of course be of supreme importance, for it is the only guarantee of freedom and alone makes it possible for us to avoid disaster. But this, it seems, must remain for the present a pious hope. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 754

At a time when all available energy is spent in the investigation of nature, very little attention is paid to the essence of man, which is his psyche, although many researches are made into its conscious functions. But the really unknown part, which produces symbols, is still virtually unexplored. We receive signals from it every night, yet deciphering these communications seems to be such an odious task that very few people in the whole civilized world can be bothered with it. Man's greatest instrument, his psyche, is little thought of, if not actually mistrusted and despised. "It's only psychological" too often means: it is nothing. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 102

Dogmas are spiritual structures of supreme beauty, and they possess a wonderful meaning which I have sought to fathom in my fashion. Compared with them our scientific endeavours to devise models of the objective psyche are unsightly in the extreme. They are bound to earth and reality, full of contradictions, logically and aesthetically unsatisfying. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 663

The activity of the collective unconscious manifests itself not only in compensatory effects in the lives of individuals, but also in the mutation of dominant ideas in the course of the centuries. This can be seen most clearly in religion, and, to a lesser extent, in the various philosophical, social, and political ideologies. It appears in most dangerous form in the sudden rise and spread of psychic epidemics, as for instance in the witch hunts in Germany at the end of the fourteenth century, or in the social and political utopias of the twentieth century. How far the collective unconscious may be considered the efficient cause of such movements, or merely their material cause, is a question for ethnologists and psychologists to decide; but certain experiences in the field of individual psychology indicate the possibility of a spontaneous activity of archetypes. These experiences usually concern individuals in the second half of life, when it not infrequently happens that drastic changes of outlook are thrust upon them by the unconscious as a result of some defect in their conscious attitude. While the activity of the personal unconscious is confined to compensatory changes in the personal sphere, the changes effected by the collective unconscious have a collective aspect: they alter our view of the world, and, like a contagion, infect our fellow men. (Hence the astonishing effects of certain psychopaths on society!) ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1161

The great events of world history are, at bottom, profoundly unimportant. In the last analysis, the essential thing is the life of the individual. This alone makes history, here alone do the great transformations first take place, and the whole future, the whole history of the world, ultimately spring as a gigantic summation from these hidden sources in individuals .In our most private and most subjective lives, we are not only the passive witnesses of our age, and its sufferers, but also its makers. We make our own epoch. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1400.

One's contemporaries are always dense and never understand that what appears to them unseemly ebullience comes less from personal temperament than from the still unknown wellsprings of a new age. How people looked askance at Nietzsche's volcanic emotion, and how long he will be spoken of in times to come! Even Paracelsus has now been gratefully disinterred after four hundred years in an attempt to resuscitate him in modern dress. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 4

We must be able to let things happen in the psyche. For us, this is an art of which most people know nothing. Consciousness is forever interfering, helping, correcting, and negating, never leaving the psychic processes to grow in peace. It would be simple enough, if only simplicity were not the most difficult of all things. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 20

The fundamental error persists in the public that there are definite answers, "solutions," or views which need only be uttered in order to spread the necessary light. But the most beautiful truth—as history has shown a thousand times over—is no use at all unless it has become the innermost experience and possession of the individual. Every unequivocal, so-called "clear" answer always remains stuck in the head, but only very rarely does it penetrate to the heart. The needful thing is not to know the truth but to experience it. Not to have an intellectual conception of things, but to find our way to the inner, and perhaps wordless, irrational experience—that is the great problem. Nothing is more fruitless than talking of how things must or should be, and nothing is more important than finding the way to these far-off goals. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 7

If you take a typical intellectual who is terribly afraid of falling in love, you will think his fear very foolish. But he is most probably right, because he will very likely make foolish nonsense when he falls in love. He will be caught most certainly, because his feeling only reacts to an archaic or to a dangerous type of woman. This is why many intellectuals are inclined to marry beneath them. They are caught by the landlady perhaps, or by the cook, because they are unaware of their archaic feeling through which they get caught. But they are right to be afraid, because their undoing will be in their feeling. Nobody can attack them in their intellect. There they are strong and can stand alone, but in their feelings they can be influenced, they can be caught, they can be cheated, and they know it. Therefore never force a man into his feeling when he is an intellectual. He controls it with an iron hand because it is very dangerous. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 20


Although we are still far from having overcome our primitive mentality, which enjoys its most signal triumphs just in the sphere of sex where man is made most vividly aware of his mammalian nature, certain ethical refinements have nevertheless crept in which permit anyone with ten to fifteen centuries of Christian education behind him to progress towards a slightly higher level. On this level the spirit—from the biological an incomprehensible psychic phenomenon—plays a not unimportant role psychologically. It had a weighty word to say on the subject of Christian marriage and it still participates vigorously in the discussion whenever marriage is doubted and depreciated. It appears in a negative capacity as counsel for the instincts, and in a positive one as the defender of human dignity. Small wonder, then, that a wild and confusing conflict breaks out between man as an instinctual creature of nature and man as a spiritual and cultural being. The worst thing about it is that the one is forever trying violently to suppress the other in order to bring about a so-called harmonious solution of the conflict. Unfortunately, too many people still believe in this procedure, which is all-powerful in politics; there are only a few here and there who condemn it as barbaric and would like to set up in its place a just compromise whereby each side of man's nature is given a hearing. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para xii

Why is it that we are especially interested in psychology just now? The answer is that everyone is in desperate need of it. Humanity seems to have reached a point where the concepts of the past are no longer adequate, and we begin to realize that our nearest and dearest are actually strangers to us, whose language we no longer understand. It is beginning to dawn on us that the people living on the other side of the mountain are not made up exclusively of red-headed devils who are responsible for all the evil on this side of the mountain. A little of this uneasy suspicion has filtered through into the relations between the sexes; not everyone is utterly convinced that everything good is in "me" and everything evil in "you." Already we can find super-moderns who ask themselves in all seriousness whether there may not be something wrong with us, whether perhaps we are too unconscious, too antiquated, and whether this may not be the reason why when confronted with difficulties in sexual relationships we still continue to employ with disastrous results the methods of the Middle Ages if not those of the caveman. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para xi

Our personal psychology is just a thin skin, a ripple on the ocean of collective psychology. The powerful factor, the factor which changes our whole life, which changes the surface of our known world, which makes history, is collective psychology, and collective psychology moves according to laws entirely different from those of our consciousness. The archetypes are the great decisive forces, they bring about the real events, and not our personal reasoning and practical intellect . . . The archetypal images decide the fate of man. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 183

I make a general distinction between "religion" and a "creed" for the sake of the layman, since it is chiefly he who reads my books and not the academic scholar. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1637

Carl Jung on "Active Imagination"

I was treating a young artist, and he had the greatest trouble in understanding what I meant by active imagination. He tried all sorts of things but he could not get at it. The difficulty with him was that he could not think. Musicians, painters, artists of all kinds, often can't think at all, because they never intentionally use their brain. This man's brain too was always working for itself; it had its artistic imaginations and he couldn't use it psychologically, so he couldn't understand. I gave him every chance to try, and he tried all sorts of stunts. I cannot tell you all the things he did, but I will tell you how he finally succeeded in using his imagination psychologically: CW 18, Para 392.

I live outside the town, and he had to take the train to get to my place. It starts from a small station, and on the wall of that station was a poster. Each time he waited for his train he looked at that poster. The poster was an advertisement for Mürren in the Bernese Alps, a colourful picture of the waterfalls, of a green meadow and a hill in the centre, and on that hill were several cows. So he sat there staring at that poster and thinking that he could not find out what I meant by active imagination. And then one day he thought: “Perhaps I could start by having a fantasy about that poster. I might for instance imagine that I am myself in the poster, that the scenery is real and that I could walk up the hill among the cows and then look down on the other side, and then I might see what there is behind that hill” CW18 ¶ 393

So he went to the station for that purpose and imagined that he was in the poster. He saw the meadow and the road and walked up the hill among the cows, and then he came up to the top and looked down, and there was the meadow again, sloping down, and below was a hedge with a stile. So he walked down and over the stile, and there was a little footpath that ran round a ravine, and a rock, and when he came round that rock, there was a small chapel, with its door standing a little ajar. He thought he would like to enter, and so he pushed the door open and went in, and there upon an altar decorated with pretty flowers stood a wooden figure of the Mother of God. He looked up at her face, and in that exact moment something with pointed ears disappeared behind the altar. He thought, “Well, that's all nonsense,” and instantly the whole fantasy was gone CW18 ¶ 394

He went away and said, “Now again I haven't understood what active imagination is.” And then, suddenly, the thought struck him: “Well, perhaps that really was there; perhaps that thing behind the Mother of God, with the pointed ears, that disappeared like a flash, really happened.” Therefore he said to himself: “I will just try it all over as a test.” So he imagined that he was back in the station looking at the poster, and again he fantasied that he was walking up the hill. And when he came to the top of the hill, he wondered what he would see on the other side. And there was the hedge and the stile and the hill sloping down. He said, “Well, so far so good. Things haven't moved since, apparently.” And he went round the rock, and there was the chapel. He said: “There is the chapel, that at least is no illusion. It is all quite in order.” The door stood ajar and he was quite pleased He hesitated a moment and said: “Now, when I push that door open and I see the Madonna on the altar, then that thing with the pointed ears should jump down behind the Madonna, and if it doesn't, then the whole thing is bunk!” And so he pushed the door open and lookedand there it all was and the thing jumped down, as before, and then he was convinced. From then on he had the key and knew he could rely on his imagination, and so he learned to use it CW18 ¶ 395

There is no time to tell you about the development of his images, nor how other patients arrive at the method. For of course everybody gets at it in his own way. I can only mention that it might also be a dream or an impression of a hypnagogic nature from which active imagination can start. I really prefer the term “imagination” to “fantasy,” because there is a difference between the two which the old doctors had in mind when they said that “opus nostrum,” our work, ought to be done “per veram imaginationem et non phantastica”by true imagination and not by a fantastical one. In other words, if you take the correct meaning of this definition, fantasy is mere nonsense, a phantasm, a fleeting impression; but imagination is active, purposeful creation. And this is exactly the distinction I make too CW18 ¶ 396

A fantasy is more or less your own invention, and remains on the surface of personal things and conscious expectations. But active imagination, as the term denotes, means that the images have a life of their own and that the symbolic events develop according to their own logicthat is, of course, if your conscious reason does not interfere CW18 ¶ 397

You begin by concentrating upon a starting point. I will give you an example from my own experience. When I was a little boy, I had a spinster aunt who lived in a nice old-fashioned house. It was full of beautiful old coloured engravings. Among them was a picture of my grandfather on my mother's side. He was a sort of bishop, and he was represented as coming out of his house and standing on a little terrace. There were handrails and stairs coming down from the terrace, and a footpath leading to the cathedral. He was in full regalia, standing there at the top of the terrace. Every Sunday morning I was allowed to pay a call on my aunt, and then I knelt on a chair and looked at that picture until grandfather came down the steps. And each time my aunt would say, “But, my dear, he doesn't walk, he is standing there.” But I knew I had seen him walking down

You see how it happened that the picture began to move. And in the same way, when you concentrate on a mental picture, it begins to stir, the image becomes enriched by details, it moves and develops. Each time, naturally, you mistrust it and have the idea that you have just made it up, that it is merely your own invention. But you have to overcome that doubt, because it is not true. We can really produce precious little by our conscious mind. All the time we are dependent upon the things that literally fall into our consciousness; therefore in German we call them Einfälle CW18 ¶ 398

For instance, if my unconscious should prefer not to give me ideas, I could not proceed with my lecture, because I could not invent the next step. You all know the experience when you want to mention a name or a word which you know quite well, and it simply does not present itself; but some time later it drops into your memory. We depend entirely upon the benevolent co-operation of our unconscious. If it does not co-operate, we are completely lost. Therefore I am convinced that we cannot do much in the way of conscious invention; we over-estimate the power of intention and will. And so when we concentrate on an inner picture and when we are careful not to interrupt the natural flow of events, our unconscious will produce a series of images which make a complete story

I have tried that method with many patients and for many years, and I possess a large collection of such “opera.” It is most interesting to watch the process. Of course I don't use active imagination as a panacea; there have to be definite indications that the method is suitable for the individual, and there are a number of patients with whom it would be wrong to force it upon them. But often in the later stage of analysis, the objectivation of images replaces the dreams. The images anticipate the dreams, and so the dream-material begins to peter out. The unconscious becomes deflated in so far as the conscious mind relates to it. Then you get all the material in a creative form and this has great advantages over dream-material. It quickens the process of maturation, for analysis is a process of quickened maturation. This definition is not my own invention; the old professor Stanley Hall invented the term CW18 ¶ 399

Since by active imagination all the material is produced in a conscious state of mind, the material is far more rounded out than the dreams with their precarious language. And it contains much more than dreams do; for instance, the feeling-values are in it, and one can judge it by feeling CW18 ¶ 400

Quite often, the patient themselves feel that certain material contains a tendency to visibility. They say, for instance: “That dream was so impressive, if I only could paint I would try to express its atmosphere.” Or they feel that a certain idea should be expressed not rationally but in symbols. Or they are gripped by an emotion which, if given form, would be explainable, and so on. And so they begin to draw, to paint, or to shape their images plastically, and women sometimes do weaving. I have even had one or two women who danced their unconscious figures. Of course they can also be expressed in writing

I have many complete series of such pictures. They yield an enormous amount of archetypal material. Just now I am about to work out the historical parallels of some of them. I compare them with the pictorial material produced in similar attempts in past centuries, particularly in the early Middle Ages. Certain elements of the symbolism go back to Egypt. In the East we find many interesting parallels to our unconscious material, even down lo the last details. This comparative work gives us a most valuable insight into the structure of the unconscious. You have to hand the necessary parallels to the patients too, not of course in such an elaborate way as you would present it in a scientific study, but as much as each individual needs in order to understand his archetypal images. For he can see their real meaning only when they are not just a queer subjective experience with no external connections, but a typical, ever-recurring expression of the objective facts and processes of the human psyche. By objectifying his impersonal images, and understanding their inherent ideas, the patient is able to work out all the values of his archetypal material. Then he can really see it, and the unconscious becomes understandable to him. Moreover, this work has a definite effect upon him. Whatever he has put into it works back on him and produces a change of attitude which I tried to define by mentioning the non-ego centre CW18 ¶ 401