Carl Jung: Then you need the message of the old tamer of chaos.

If you remain within arbitrary and artificially created boundaries, you will walk as between two high walls: you do not see the immensity of the world.

But if you break down the walls that confine your view, and if the immensity and its endless uncertainty inspire you with fear, then the ancient sleeper awakens in you, whose messenger is the white bird.

Then you need the message of the old tamer of chaos.

There in the whirl of chaos dwells eternal wonder.

Your world begins to become wonderful.

Man belongs not only to an ordered world, he also belongs in the wonder-world of his soul.

Consequently you must make your ordered world horrible, so that you are put off by being too much outside yourself.

Your soul is in great need, because drought weighs on its world.

If you look outside yourselves, you see the far-off forest and mountains, and above them your vision climbs to the realms of the stars.

And if you look into yourselves, you will see on the other hand the nearby as far-off and infinite, since the world of the inner is as infinite as the world of the outer.

Just as you become a part of the manifold essence of the world through your bodies, so you become a part of the manifold essence of the inner world through your soul.

This inner world is truly infinite, in no way poorer than the outer one. Man lives in two worlds.

A fool lives here or there, but never here and there.

Perhaps you think that a man who consecrates his life to research leads a spiritual life and that his soul lives in / larger measure than anyone else’s.

But such a life is also external, just as external as the life of a man who lives for outer things.

To be sure, such a scholar does not live for outer things but for outer thoughts-not for himself but for his object.

If you say of a man that he has totally lost himself to the outer and wasted his years in excess, you must also say the same of this old man.

He has thrown himself away in all the books and thoughts of others.

Consequently his soul is in great need, it must humiliate itself and run into every stranger’s room to beg for the recogni􀢢on that he fails to give her. Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 264.

The Book that took Dr. Jung away from "The Red Book" aka "Liber Novus

[I worked on this book [The Red Book] for 16 years. My acquaintance with alchemy in 1930 took me away from it. The beginning of the end came in 1928, when Wilhelm sent me the text of the "Golden Flower," an alchemical treatise. There the contents of this book,found their way into actuality and I could no longer continue working on it.]

The Hui Ming Ching [The Book of Consciousness and Life]

(Translation and Commentary by Richard Wilhelm)

1. Cessation of Outflowing ~

If thou wouldst complete the diamond body with no outflowing,
Diligently heat he roots of consciousness and life.
Kindle light in the blessed country ever close at hand,
And there hidden, let thy true self always dwell.

[ The illustration found here in the Chinese text shows the body of a man. In the middle of the lower half of the body is drawn a germ cell by which the gateway of life is separated from the gateway of consciousness. In between, leading to the outside world, is the canal through which the vital fluids flow out. ]

The subtlest secret of the Tao is human nature and life (hsing-ming). There is no better way of cultivating human nature and life than to bring both back to unity. The holy men o ancient times, and the great sages, set forth their thoughts about the unification of human nature and life by means of images from the external world.; they were reluctant to speak of it openly without allegories. Therefore the secret of how to cultivate both simultaneously was lost one earth. What I show through a series of images is not a frivolous giving away pf secrets. On the contrary, because I combined the notes of the Leng-yen-ching on the cessation of outflowing and the secret thoughts of Hua-yen-ching with occasional references to the other sutras, in order to summarize them in this true picture, it can be understood that consciousness and life are not anything external to the germinal vesicle. I have drawn this picture so that companions pursuing the divine workings of the dual cultivation may know that in this way the true seed matures, that in this way the cessation of outflowing is brought about, that in this way the sheli [Satira, the firm, the immortal body] is melted out, that in this way the great Tao is completed.

But the germinal vesicle is an invisible cavern; it has neither form nor image. When the vital breath stirs, the seed of this vesicle comes into being; when it cease it disappears again. It is the pace which harbors truth, the altar upon which consciousness and life are made. It is called the dragon castle at the bottom of the sea, the boundary region of the snow mountains, the primordial pass, the kingdom of greatest joy, the boundless country. All these different names mean this germinal vesicle. If a dying man does not know this germinal vesicle, he will not find the unity of consciousness and life in a thousand births, nor in ten thousand aeons.

This germinal point is soemthig great. Before this our body is born of our parents, at the time of conception, this seed is first created and human nature and life dwell therein. The two are intermingled and form a unity, inseparably mixed like the sparks in the refining furnace, a combination of primordial harmony and divine law. Therefore it is said: "In the state before the appearance there is an inexhaustible breath". Furthermore it is said: "Before the parents have begotten the child, the breath of life is complete and the embryo perfect". But when the embryo moves and the embryo vesicle is torn, it is as if a man lost his footing on a high mountain: with a cry the man plunges down to earth, and from then on human nature and life are divided. From this moment human nature can no longer see life nor life human nature. And now date takes its course: youth passes over into maturity, maturity into old age, and old age into woe.

Therefore the Julia (Buddha Tathagata), in his great compassion, let the secret making and melting be known. He teaches one to re-enter the womb and create anew the human nature and life of the ego; he shows how spirit and soul (vital breath) enter the germinal vesicle, how they must combine to become a unity in order to complete the true fruit, just as the sperm and soul of father and mother entered into this germinal vesicle and united as one being in order to complete the embryo. The principle is the same.

Within the germinal vesicle is the fire of the ruler; at the entrance of the germinal vesicle is the fire of the minister; in the whole body, the fire of the people. When the fire of the ruler expresses itself, it is received by the fire of the minister. When the fire of the minister moves, the fire of the people follows him. When the three fires express themselves in this order a man develops. But when the three fires return in reverse order the Tao develops.

This is the reason that all the sages began their work at the germinal vesicle in which outflowing had ceased. If one does not establish this path, but sets up other things, it is of no avail. Therefore all the schools and sects which do not know that the ruling principle of consciousness and life is in this germinal vesicle, and which therefore seek it in the outer world, can accomplish nothing despite all their efforts to find it outside.

2. The Six Periods of Circulation in Conformity with the Law ~

If one discerns the beginning of the Buddha’s path,
There will be the blessed city of the West.
After the circulation in conformity with the law,
There is a turn upward towards heaven when the breath is drawn in.
When the breath flows out energy is directed towards the earth.
One time-period consists of six intervals (hou).
In two intervals one gathers Moni (Sakyamuni).
The great Tao comes forth from the center.
Do not seek the primordial seed outside!

The most marvelous effect of the Tao is the circulation in conformity with the law. What makes the movement inexhaustible is the path. What best regulates the speed are the rhythms (kuei). What best determines the number of the exercises is the method of the intervals (hou).

This presentation contains the whole law, and the true features of the Buddha from the West are contained in it. The secrets contained in it show how one gets control o the process by exhaling and inhaling, how the alternation between decrease and increase expresses itself in closing and opening, how one needs true thoughts in order not to deviate from the way, how the firm delimitation of the regions makes it possible to begin and to stop at the right time.

I sacrifice myself and serve man, because I have presented fully this picture which reveals the heavenly seed completely, so that every layman and man of the world can reach it and so bring it to completion. He who lacks the right virtue may well find something in it, but heaven will not grant him his Tao. Why not? The right virtue belongs to the Tao as does one wing of a bird to the other: if one is lacking, the other is of no use. Therefore there is needed loyalty and reverence, humaneness and justice and strict adherence to the five commandments [of Buddhism: Do not kill, steal, commit adultery, lie, nor drink alcohol nor eat meat]; then only does one have the prospect of attaining something.

But all the subtleties and secrets are offered in this Book of Consciousness and Life to be pondered and weighted, so that one can attain everything in its truth.

[ *** The drawing is intended to show the circulation of the streams of energy during the movement of breathing. Inhalation is accompanied by the sinking of the abdomen and exhalation by the lifting of it, but in these exercises the point is that we have a backward-flowing movement as follows: when inhaling, one opens the lower energy-gate and allows the energy to rise upward along the rear line of energy (in the spinal cord), and this upward flow corresponds to the time-intervals indicated in the drawing. In exhaling, the upper gate is closed and the stream of energy is allowed to flow downward along the front line, likewise in the order of the time-intervals indicated. Furthermore, it is to be noted that the stations for "washing" and "bathing" do not lie exactly in the middle of the lines, but that "washing" is somewhat above and "bathing" somewhat below the middle, as the drawing shows. ]

3. The Two Energy-Paths of Function and Control ~

There appears the way of the in-breathing and out-breathing of the primordial pass.
Do not forget the white path below the circulation in conformity wit the law!
Always let the cave of eternal life be nourished through the fire!
Ah! Test the immortal place of the gleaming pearl!

[ *** In the text there is another picture here which is very similar to the first. It shows again the paths of energy: the one in front leads down and is called the function-path (jen), and the one at the back leading upwards is the control-path (tu). ]

This picture is really the same as the one that precedes it. The reason that I show it again is so that the person striving for cultivation of the Tao may know that there is in his own body a circulation with the law. I have furnished this picture in order to enlighten companions in search of the goal. When these two paths (the functioning and the controlling) can be brought into unbroken connection, then all energy-paths are joined. The deer sleeps with his nose on his tail in order to close his controlling energy-path. The crane and the tortoise close their functioning-paths. Hence these three animals become at least a thousand years old. How much further can a man go! A man who carries on the cultivation of the Tao, who sets in motion the circulation in conformity with the law, in order to let consciousness and life circulate, need not fear that he is not lengthening his life and is not completing his path.

4. The Embryo of the Tao ~

According to the law, but without exertion, one must diligently fill oneself with light.
Forgetting appearance, look within and help the true spiritual power!
Ten months them embryo is under fire.
After a year the washing and baths become warm.

This picture will be found in the original edition of the Leng-yen-ching. But the ignorant monks who did not recognize the hidden meaning and knew nothing about the embryo of the Tao have for this reason made the mistake of leaving this picture out. I only found out through the explanations of adepts that the Julai (Tathagata) knows real work on the embryo of the Tao. This embryo is nothing corporeally visible which might be completed by other beings, but is in reality the spiritual breath-energy of the ego. First the spirit must penetrate the breath-energy (the soul), then the breath-energy envelops the spirit. When spirit and breath-energy are firmly united and the thoughts quiet and immobile, this is described as the embryo. The breath-energy must crystallize; only then will the spirit become effective. Therefore it is said in the Leng-yen-ching: "Take maternal care of the awakening and the answering". The two energies nourish and strengthen one another. Therefore it is said: "Daily growth takes place". When the energy is strong enough and the embryo is round and complete it comes out on the top of the head. This is what is called: the completed appearance which comes forth as embryo and begets itself as the son of the Buddha.

5. The Birth of the Fruit ~

Outside the body there is a body called the Buddha image.
The thought which is powerful, the absence of thoughts, is Bodhi.
The thousand-petal lotus flower opens, transformed through breath-energy.
Because of the crystallization of the spirit, a hundred-fold splendor shines forth.

In the Leng-yen-chou [Suramgama mantra] it is said: "At that time the ruler of the world caused a hundredfold precious light to beam from his hair knots. In the midst of the light shone the thousand-petal, precious lotus flower. And there within the flower sat a transformed Julai. And from the top of his head went ten rays of white, precious light, which were visible everywhere. The crowd looked up to the outstreaming light and the Julai announced: 'The divine, magic mantra is the appearance of the light-spirit, therefore his name is Son of Buddha'".

If a man does not receive the teaching about consciousness and life, how could there develop out of his own body the Julai, who sits and shines forth in the lotus flower and appears in his own spirit-body! Many say that the light-spirit is a minor teaching; but how can that which a man receives from the ruler of the world be a minor teaching? Herewith I have betrayed the deepest secret of the Leng-yen in order to teach disciples. He who receives this way rises at once to the dark secret and no longer becomes submerged in the dust of everyday life.

6. Concerning the Retention of the Transformed Body ~

Every separate thought takes shape and becomes visible in color and form.
The total spiritual power unfolds its traces and transforms itself into emptiness.
Going out into being and going into non-being, one completes the miraculous Tao.
All separate shapes appear as bodies, united with a true source.

7. The Face Turned to the Wall ~

The shapes formed by the spirit-fire are only empty colors and forms.
The light of human nature [hsing] shines back on the primordial, the true.
The imprint of the heart floats in space; untarnished, the moonlight shines.
The boat of life has reached the shore; bright shines the sunlight.

8. Empty Infinity ~

Without beginning, without end,
Without past, without future.
A halo of light surrounds the world of the law.
We forget one another, quiet and pure, altogether powerful and empty.
The emptiness is irradiated by the light of the heart and of heaven.
The water of the sea is smooth and mirrors the on in its surface.
The clouds disappear in blue space; the mountains shine clear.
Consciousness reverts to contemplation; the moon disk rests alone.

Carl Jung avoided a “Psychosis” – The Red Book

The following month, on a train journey to Schaffhausen, Jung experienced a waking vision of Europe being devastated by a catastrophic flood, which was repeated two weeks later, on the same journey.

Commenting on this experience in 1925, he remarked:

"I could be taken as Switzerland fenced in by mountains and the submergence of the world could be the debris of my
former relationships."

This led him to the following diagnosis of his condition:

"I thought to mysel£ 'If this means anything, it means that I am hopelessly off"'

After this experience, Jung feared that he would go mad.

He recalled that he first thought that the images of the vision indicated a revolution, but as he could not imagine this, he concluded that he was "menaced with a psychosis." ~Introduction, The Red Book, Page 198

On July 28, Jung gave a talk on "The importance of the unconscious in psychopathology" at a meeting of the British Medical Association in Aberdeen.

He argued that in cases of neurosis and psychosis, the unconscious attempted to compensate the one-sided conscious attitude.

The unbalanced individual defends himself against this, and the opposites become more polarized.

The corrective impulses that present themselves in the language of the unconscious should be the beginning of a healing process, but the form in which they break through makes them unacceptable to consciousness. ~Introduction, The Red Book, Page 201

A month earlier, on June 28, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was assassinated, by Gavrilo Princip, a nineteen-year-old Serb student.

On August I, war broke out.

In 1925 Jung recalled, "I had the feeling that I was an over-compensated psychosis, and from this feeling I was not released till August 1st 1914." ~The Red Book Introduction, Pages 201-202

Years later, he said to Mircea Eliade:

As a psychiatrist I became worried, wondering if I was not on the way to "doing a schizophrenia," as we said in the language of those days ...

I was just preparing a lecture on schizophrenia to be delivered at a congress in Aberdeen, and I kept saying to myself:

"I'll be speaking of myself! Very likely I'll go mad after reading out this paper."

The congress was to take place in July 1914-exactly the same period when I saw myself in my three dreams voyaging on the Southern seas.

On July 31"r, immediately after my lecture, I learned from the newspapers that war had broken out.

Finally I understood.

And when I disembarked in Holland on the next day; nobody was happier than I.

Now I was sure that no schizophrenia was threatening me.

I understood that my dreams and my visions came to me from the subsoil of the collective unconscious.

What remained for me to do now was to deepen and validate this discovery.

And this is what I have been trying to do for forty years. ~Carl Jung, Combat interview , C. G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, Pages 233-34·

In 1955/56, while discussing active imagination, Jung commented that "the reason why the involvement looks very much like a psychosis is that the
patient is integrating the same fantasy-material to which the insane person falls victim because he cannot integrate it but is swallowed up by it. " ~Introduction, The Red Book, Page 202.

Liber Novus is of critical significance for grasping the emergence of Jung's new model of psychotherapy.

In 1912, in Transformation and Symbols of the Libido, he considered the presence of mythological fantasies-such as are present in Liber Novus-to be the signs of
a loosening of the phylogenetic layers of the unconscious, and indicative of schizophrenia.

Through his self-experimentation, he radically revised this position: what he now considered critical was not the presence of any particular content, but the attitude
of the individual toward it and, in particular, whether an individual could accommodate such material in their worldview.

This explains why he commented in his afterword to Liber Novus that to the superficial observer, the work would seem like madness, and could have become so, if he had failed to contain and comprehend the experiences.201

In Liber secundus, chapter 15, he presents a critique of contemporary psychiatry, highlighting its incapacity to differentiate religious experience or divine madness from
psychopathology.

If the content of visions or fantasies had no diagnostic value, he held that it was nevertheless critical to view them carefully. ~Introduction, The Red Book, Page 215.

Carl Jung on "The Mysterium"

On the night when I considered the essence of the God, I became aware of an image: I lay in a dark depth. An old man stood before me. He looked like one of the old prophets. A black serpent lay at his feet. Some distance away I saw a house with columns. A beautiful maiden steps out of the door. She walks uncertainly and I see that she is blind. The old man waves to me and I follow him to the house at the foot of the sheer wall

of rock. The serpent creeps behind us. Darkness reigns inside the house. We are in a high hall with glittering walls. A bright stone the color of water lies in the background. As I look into its reflection, the images of Eve, the tree, and the serpent appear to me. After this I catch sight of Odysseus and his journey on the high seas. Suddenly a door opens on the right, onto a garden full of bright sunshine. We step outside and the old man says to me, “Do you know where you are?”

I: “I am a stranger here and everything seems strange to me, anxious as in a dream. Who are you?”

E: “I am Elijahls7 and this is my daughter Salome.”

I: “The daughter of Herod, the bloodthirsty woman?”

E: “Why do you judge so? You see that she is blind. She is my daughter, the daughter of the prophet.”

I: “What miracle has united you?”

E: “It is no miracle, it was so from the beginning. My wisdom and my daughter are one.”

I am shocked, I am incapable of grasping it.

E: “Consider this: her blindness and my sight have made us companions through eternity.”

I: “Forgive my astonishment, am I truly in the underworld?”

S: “Do you love me?”

I: “How can I love you? How do you come to this question? I see only one thing, you are Salome, a tiger, your hands are stained with the blood of the holy one. How should I love you?”

S: “You will love me.”

I: “I? Love you? Who gives you the right to such thoughts?”
S: “I love you.”

I: “Leave me be, I dread you, you beast.”

S: “You do me wrong. Elijah is my father, and he knows the deepest mysteries. The walls of his house are made of precious stones. His wells hold healing water and his eyes see the things of the future. And what wouldn’t you give for a single look into the infinite unfolding of what is to come? Are these not worth a sin for you?”

I: “Your temptation is devilish. I long to be back in the upper world. It is dreadful here. How oppressive and heavy is the air!”

E: “What do you want? The choice is yours.”

I: “But I do not belong to the dead. I live in the light of day: Why should I torment myself here with Salome? Do I not have enough of my own life to deal with?”

E: “You heard what Salome said.”

I: “I cannot believe that you,·the prophet, can recognize her as a daughter and a companion. Is she not engendered from heinous seed? Was she not vain greed and criminal lust?”

E: “But she loved a holy man.”

I: ”And shamefully shed his precious blood.”

E: “She loved the prophet who announced the new God to the world. She loved him, do you understand that? For she is my daughter.”

I: “Do you think that because she is your daughter, she loved the prophet in John, the father?”

E: “By her love shall you know her.”

I: “But how did she love him? Do you call that love?”

E: “What else was it?”

I: “I am horrified. Who wouldn’t be horrified if Salome loved him?”

E: ”Are you cowardly? Consider this, I and my daughter have been one since eternity.”

I: “You pose dreadful riddles. How could it be that this unholy woman and you, the prophet of your God, could be one?”

E: “Why are you amazed? But you see it, we are together.”

I: “What my eyes see is exactly what I cannot grasp. You, Elijah, who are a prophet, the mouth of God, and she, a bloodthirsty horror.

You are the symbol of the most extreme contradiction.”

E: “We are real and not symbols.”

I see how the black serpent writhes up the tree, and hides in the branches. Everything becomes gloomy and doubtful. Elijah rises, I follow and we go silently back through the hall. Doubt tears me apart. It is all so unreal and yet a part of my longing remains behind. Will I come again? Salome loves me, do I love her? I hear wild music, a tambourine, a sultry moonlit night, the bloody-staring head of the holy one fear seizes me. I rush out.

I am surrounded by the dark night. It is pitch black all around me. Who murdered the hero? Is this why Salome loves me? Do I love her, and did I therefore murder the hero? She is one with the prophet, one with John, but also one with me? Woe, was she the hand of the God? I do not love her, I fear her. Then the spirit of the depths spoke to me and said: “Therein you acknowledge her divine
power.” Must I love Salome?

This play that I witnessed is my play, not your play. It is my secret, not yours. You cannot imitate me. My secret remains virginal and my mysteries are inviolable, they belong to me and cannot belong to you. You

have your own. He who enters into his own must grope through what lies at hand, he must sense his way from stone to stone.

He must embrace the worthless and the worthy with the same love. A mountain is nothing, and a grain of sand holds kingdoms, or also nothing. Judgment must fall from you, even taste, but above all pride, even when it is based on merit. Utterly poor, miserable, unknowingly humiliated, go on through the gate.

Turn your anger against yourself, since only you stop yourself from looking and from living. The mystery play is soft
like air and thin smoke, and you are raw matter that is disturbingly heavy. But let your hope, which is your highest good and highest ability, lead the way and serve you as a guide in the world of darkness) since it is of like substance with the forms of that world.

The scene of the mystery play is a deep place like the crater of a volcano. My deep interior is a volcano, that pushes out the fiery molten mass of the unformed and the undifferentiated. Thus my interior gives birth to the children of chaos, of the primordial mother.

He who enters the crater also becomes chaotic matter, he melts.

The formed in him dissolves and binds itself anew with the children of chaos, the powers of darkness, the ruling and the seducing, the compelling and the alluring, the divine and the devilish.

These powers stretch beyond my certainties and limits on all sides, and connect me with all forms and with all distant beings and things, through which inner tidings of their being and their character develop in me.

Because I have fallen into the source of chaos, into the primordial beginning, I myself become smelted anew in the connection with the primordial beginning, which at the same time is what has been and what is becoming.

At first I come to the primordial beginning in myself But because I am a part of the matter and formation of the world, I also come into the primordial beginning of the world in the first place.

I have certainly participated in life as someone formed and determined, but only through my formed and determined consciousness and through this in a formed and determined piece of the whole world, but not in the unformed and undetermined aspects of the world that likewise are given to me.

Yet it is given only to my depths, not to my surface, which is a formed and determined consciousness.

The powers of my depths are predetermination and pleasure. Predetermination or forethinking is Prometheus who, without determined thoughts, brings the chaotic to form and definition, who digs the channels and holds the object before pleasure. Forethinking also comes before thought. But pleasure is the force that desires and destroys forms without form and definition.

It loves the form in itself that it takes hold o£ and destroys the forms that it does not take. The forethinker is a seer, but pleasure is blind. It does not foresee, but desires what it touches. Forethinking is not powerful in itself and therefore does not move.

But pleasure is power, and therefore it moves. Forethinking needs pleasure to be able to come to form. Pleasure needs forethinking to come to form, which it requires.

If pleasure lacked forming, pleasure would dissolve in manifoldness and become splintered and powerless through unending division, lost to the unending. If a form does not contain and compress pleasure within itself it cannot reach the higher, since it always flows like water from above to below. All pleasure, when left alone, flows into the deep sea and ends in the deathly stillness of dispersal into unending space.

Pleasure is not older than forethinking, and forethinking is not older than pleasure.

Both are equally old and in nature intimately one. Only in man does the separate existence of both principles become apparent.

Apart from Elijah and Salome I found the serpent as a third principle.

It is a stranger to both principles although it is associated with both. The serpent taught me the unconditional difference in essence between the two principles in me.

If I look across from forethinking to pleasure, I first see the deterrent poisonous serpent.

If I feel from pleasure across to forethinking, likewise I feel first the cold cruel serpent.

The serpent is the earthly essence of man of which he is not conscious. Its character changes according to peoples and lands, since it is the mystery that flows to him from the nourishing earth-mother. The earthly (numen loci) separates forethinking and pleasure in man, but not in itself The serpent has the weight of the earth in itself but also its changeability and germination from which everything that becomes emerges.

It is always the serpent that causes man to become enslaved now to one, now to the other principle, so that it becomes error.

One cannot live with forethinking alone, or with pleasure alone. You need both.

But you cannot be in forethinking and in pleasure at the same time, you must take turns being in forethinking and pleasure, obeying the prevailing law, unfaithful to the other so to speak.

But men prefer one or the other. Some love thinking and establish the art of life on it.

They practice their thinking and their circumspection, so they lose their pleasure. Therefore they are old and have a sharp face. The others love pleasure, they practice their feeling and living. Thus they forget thinking. Therefore they are young and blind. Those who think base the world on thought, those who feel, on feeling. You find truth and error in both.

The way of life writhes like the serpent from right to left and from left to right, from thinking to pleasure and from pleasure to thinking. Thus the serpent is an adversary and a symbol of enmity, but also a wise bridge that connects right and left through longing, much needed by our life.

The place where Elijah and Salome live together is a dark space and a bright one. The dark space is the space of forethinking.

It is dark so he who lives there requires vision. This space is limited, so fore thinking does not lead into the extended distance, but into the depth of the past and the future.

The crystal is the formed thought that reflects what is to come in what has gone before. Eve and the serpent show me that my next step leads to pleasure and from there again on lengthy wanderings like Odysseus.

He went astray when he played his trick at Troy. The bright garden is the space of pleasure. He who lives there needs no vision; he feels the unending.

A thinker who descends in to his fore thinking finds his next step leading into the garden of Salome.

Therefore the thinker fears his forethought, although he lives on the foundation of fore thinking.

The visible surface is safer than the underground.

Thinking protects against the way of error, and therefore it leads to petrification.

A thinker should fear Salome, since she wants his head, especially if he is a holy man.

A thinker cannot be a holy person, otherwise he loses his head.

It does not help to hide oneself in thought.

There the solidification overtakes you.

You must turn back to motherly forethought to obtain renewal. But forethought leads to Salome.

Because I was a thinker and caught sight of the hostile principle of pleasure from forethinking, it appeared to me as Salome.

If I had been one who felt, and had groped my way toward forethinking, then it would have appeared to me as a serpent-encoiled daimon, if I had actually seen it.

But I would have been blind.

Therefore I would have felt only slippery, dead, dangerous, allegedly overcome, insipid, and mawkish things, and I would have pulled back with the same shudder I felt in turning from Salome.

The thinker’s passions are bad, therefore he has no pleasure. The thoughts of one who feels are bad, therefore he has no thoughts.

He who prefers to think than to feel, leaves his feeling to rot,in darkness. It does not grow ripe, but in moldiness produces sick tendrils that do not reach the light.

He who prefers to feel than to think leaves his thinking in darkness, where it spins its nets in gloomy places, desolate webs in which
mosquitos and gnats become enmeshed.

The thinker feels the disgust of feeling, since :the feeling in him is mainly disgusting. The one who feels thinks the disgust of thinking, since the thinking in him is mainly disgusting.

So the serpent lies between the thinker and the one who feels.

They are each other’s poison and healing.

In the garden it had to become apparent to me that I loved Salome.

This recognition struck me, since I had not thought it. What a thinker does not think he believes does not exist, and what one who feels does not feel he believes does not exist.

You begin to have a presentiment of the whole when you embrace your opposite principle, since the whole belongs to both principles, which grow from one root.

Elijah said: “You should recognize her through her love!” Not only do you venerate the object, but the object also sanctifies you. Salome loved the prophet, and this sanctified her.

The prophet loved God, and this sanctified him. But Salome did not love God, and this profaned her.

But the prophet did not love Salome, and this profaned him. And thus they were each other’s poison and death.

May the thinking person accept his pleasure, and the feeling person accept his own thought.

Such leads one along the way.

~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Pages 245-248