Carl Jung: Words ought not become Gods

In principio erat verbum, Latin for At the beginning there was the Word, from the Clementine Vulgate, Gospel of John, 1:1–18

[A conversation between Carl Jung “I” and the Anchorite “A” in the Desert of the Soul.

I: “But Philo Judeaus, if this is who you mean, was a serious and a great thinker. Even John the Evangelist included some of Philo’s thoughts in the gospe!.”

A: “You are right. It is to Philo’s credit that he furnished language like so many other philosophers. He belongs to the language artists.

But words should not become Gods.”

I: “I fail to understand you here. Does it not say in the gospel according to John: God was the Word. It appears to make quite explicit the point which you have just now rejected.”

A: “Guard against being a slave to words. Here is the gospel:read from that passage where it says: In him was the life. “
What does John say there?”

I: “And life was the light of men and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not understood it. But it became a person sent from God, by the name of John, who came as a witness and to be a witness of the light. The genuine light, which illuminates each person, came into the world: He was in the world, and the world became through him, and the world did not recognize him.” -That is what I read here. But what do you make of this?”

A: “I ask you, was this [Logos] a concept, a word? It was a light, indeed a man, and lived among men. You see, Philo only lent John the word so that John would have at his disposal the word alongside the word ‘light’ to describe the son of man. John gave to living men the meaning of the, but Philo gave as the dead concept that usurped life, even the divine life. Through this the dead does not gain life, and the living is killed. And this was also my atrocious error.”

I: “I see what you mean. This thought is new to me and seems worth consideration. Until now it always seemed to me / as if it were exactly that which was meaningful in John, namely that the son of man is the,Logos in that he thus elevates the lower to the higher spirit, to the world of the Logos. But you lead me to see the matter conversely; namely that John brings the meaning of the Logos down to man.”

A: “I learned to see that John has in fact even done the great service of having brought the meaning of the Logos up to man.”

I: “You have peculiar insights that stretch my curiosity to the utmost. How is that? Do you think that the human stands higher than the Logos?”

A: “I want to answer this question within the scope of your understanding: if the human God had not become important above everything, he would not have appeared as the son in the flesh, but in the Logos.”

I: “That makes sense to me, but I confess that this view is surprising to me. It is especially astonishing to me that you, a Christian anchorite, have come to such views. I would not have expected this of you.”

A: “As I have already noticed, you have a completely false idea of me and my essence. Let me give you a small example of my preoccupation. I’ve spent many years alone with the process of unlearning. Have you ever unlearned anything? Well, then you should know how long it takes. And I was a successful teacher. As you know, for such people to unlearn is difficult or even impossible. But I see that the sun has gone down. Soon it will be completely dark. Night is the time of silence. I want to show you your place for the night. I need the morning for my work, but after midday you can come to me again if you like. Then we will continue our conversation.” ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Pages 268-269

Carl Jung on “Words” – Anthology

I must learn that the dregs of my thought, my dreams, are the speech of my soul. I must carry them in my heart, and go back and forth over them in my mind, like the words of the person dearest to me. Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 232.

The God of words is cold and dead and shines from afar like the moon, mysteriously and inaccessibly: Let the word return to its creator, to man, and thus the word will be heightened in man. Man should be light, limits, measure. Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 271.

My speech is imperfect. Not because I want to shine with words, but out of the impossibility of finding those words, I speak in images. With nothing else can I express the words from the depths. Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 230.

Notice what the ancients said in images: the word is a creative act. The ancients said: in the beginning was the Word. Consider this and think upon it. The words that oscillate between nonsense and supreme meaning are the oldest and truest. Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 236.

There are hellish webs of words, only words, but what are words? Be tentative with words, value them well, take safe words, words without catches, do not spin them with one another so that no webs arise, for you are the first who is ensnared in them. Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 300.

He who breaks the wall of words overthrows Gods and defiles temples. The solitary is a murderer. He mur- ders the people, because he thus thinks and thereby breaks down ancient sacred walls. He calls up the daimons of the boundless. Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 270.

With words you pull up the underworld. Word, the paltriest and the mightiest. In words the emptiness and the fullness flow together. Hence the word is an image of God. The word is the greatest and the smallest that man created, just as what is created through man is the greatest and the smallest. Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 299.

For our spirit has become an impertinent whore, a slave to words created by men and no longer the divine word itself. Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 300.

Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 233.

If one could arrive at the truth by learning the words of wisdom, then the world would have been saved al- ready in the remote times of Lao-tze. Carl Jung, Letters Volume 1, Pages 559-560.

If one could arrive at the truth by learning the words of wisdom, then the world would have been saved al- ready in the remote times of Lao-tze. Carl Jung, Letters Volume 1, Pages 559-560.

When someone says, in the words of the "Our Father, " "Thy will be done," we must find out, if he is capable of taking both the inside and the outside, the ego and the world, into account. Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 36.

When we say "Our Father," the Father also symbolizes that self which is hidden in Heaven, in the unconscious. The Son (Christ) is the consciously achieved self. The Holy Spirit is the Paraclete promised by Christ in the Words "Ye are as gods," or "Greater things will be done by you." Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 35.

The primordial experience is the source of [creativity]. ... In itself it offers no words or images, for it is a vi- sion seen "as in a glass, darkly." It is merely a deep presentiment that strives to find expression. It is like a whirlwind that seizes everything within reach and, by carrying it aloft, assume a visible shape. Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul

Love "bears all things" and "endures all things’* (i Cor. 13:7). These words say all there is to be said; nothing can be added to them. For we are in the deepest sense the victims and the instruments of cosmogonic "love." Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections; Page 354

Words are animals alive with a will of their own. Carl Jung. [Citation needed to prove Dr. Jung said this[

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

Please give X. my best greetings and tell him-because his love is all too easily injured-he should meditate on Paul’s words in the Epistle to the Corinthians: "Love endureth all things." Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 120-121.

The "Aurora Consurgens" asks the question: "What is the science? It is the gift and sanctuary of the Deity, it is a divine thing, and is hidden by the Wise in symbolical words and in many ways." Cited in ETH Lectures, Page 175.

We get, it is true, a foggy idea of such terms as Dhyana and Samadhi, the words sound wonderful to us, but such words are no mere concepts, and they mean nothing unless one has oneself experienced the states they denote. Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 9Dec38, Page 41.

These words belonged to the autonomous complex. When excited by an external stimulus, complexes can produce sudden confusions, or violent affects, depressions, anxiety-states, etc., or they may express themselves in hallucinations. Carl Jung, CW 8, Page 313.

Consider, for example, the word "Unconscious." I have just finished reading a book by a Chinese Zen Buddhist. And it seemed to me that we were talking about the same thing, and that the only difference between us was that we gave different words to the same reality. Carl Jung, Two Friendships, Page 100.

The hidden mystery of life is always hidden between Two, and it is the true mystery which cannot be betrayed by words or depleted by arguments. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 581.

When someone says, in the words of the "Our Father, " "Thy will be done," we must find out, if he is capable of taking both the inside and the outside, the ego and the world, into account. Carl Jung, Jung-Ostrowski, Page 39.

The words of the Bible and the sayings of Christ are paradox. We too must be paradox, for only then do we live our lives, only then do we reach completeness and integration of our personalities. Carl Jung, Jung-Ostrowski, Page 40.

That is one of the reasons why the Church attracts quite a number of intelligent and responsible men in the secret (or unconscious?) hope that they will be strong enough to carry its meaning and not its words into the future. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 163-174

All statements about and beyond the "ultimate" are anthropomorphisms and, if anyone should think that when he says "God" he has also predicated God, he is endowing his words with magical power. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 257-264.

The unconscious itself characterizes this "Man" with the same symbols it applies to God, from which we can conclude that this figure corresponds to the Anthropos, in other words God’s son, or God represented in the form of a man. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 341-343.

To deal with the coniunctio in human words is a disconcerting task, since you are forced to express and formu- late a process taking place "in Mercurio" and not on the level of human thought and human language, i.e., not within the sphere of discriminating consciousness. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396

Your attempts to formulate it are not vain or futile; on the contrary, our labours are witnesses to the living Mystery, honest attempts to find words for the Ineffable. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396

While I am writing this I observe a little demon trying to abscond my words and even my thoughts and turn- ing them over into the rapidly flowing river of images, surging from the mists of the past, portraits of a little boy, bewildered and wondering at an incomprehensibly beautiful and hideously profane and deceitful world. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 408

This ancient psychological insight expresses the fact that what is enclosed in the mother is a germinating seed that will one day burst through, as you have shown with other words and convincing examples. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 418-420

This can be expressed in other words by saying that there is a relativity of the psychic and physical categories- a relativity of being and of the seemingly axiomatic existence of time and space. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 445-449

You will surely have noticed in reading my writings that I do not mince my words and clearly and expressly point out that the regard for mythological parallels is conducive to a religious attitude. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 468

Words have become much too cheap. Being is more difficult and is therefore fondly replaced by verbalizing. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 502-503

With existentialism our words come to an end in complete meaninglessness and our art in total inexpressivity, and our world has acquired the means to blast us into cosmic dust. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 531-533

The living mystery of life is always hidden between Two, and it is the true mystery which cannot be betrayed by words and depleted by arguments. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 581

He felt the need to represent his innermost thoughts in stone and to build a completely primitive dwelling:

“Bollingen was a great matter for me, because words and paper were not real enough. I had to put down a confession in stone.” Sonu Shamdasani, Introduction 1925 Seminar, Page xiii

In words the emptiness and the fullness flow together. Hence the word is an image of God. Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 299

We would do well to harbour no illusions in this respect: no understanding by means of words and no imita- tion can replace actual experience. Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 482

Switch off your noisy consciousness and listen quietly inwards and look at the images that appear before your inner eye, or hearken to the words which the muscles of your speech apparatus are trying to form. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 82

Your honest words will be a thorn in the flesh for many. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 235