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 Knowledge tends to help us make sense of even seemingly senseless dreams, and eventually puts Jung's knowledge aside for the sake of Deep Mind
A nightly dream gives vent to rather unconscious dynamisms
The dream is specifically the utterance of the unconscious. just as the mind has a
diurnal side which we call consciousness, so also it has a nocturnal side: the unconscious
psychic activity which we apprehend as dreamlike fantasy. - "The Practical Use of Dream
Analysis" (1934). In CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy. P.317
All former good shall simply and solely be blown to pieces
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. -
Essay Included in CW 18: P. 314
An impression of absurdity can be a good, highly evocative thing, so long as it is helps
recall, says both Jung and Tony Buzan. (Bhb)
The dream is often occupied with apparently very silly details, thus producing an
impression of absurdity, or else it is on the surface so unintelligible as to leave us
thoroughly bewildered. Hence we always have to overcome a certain resistance before we can
seriously set about disentangling the intricate web through patient work. But when at last
we penetrate to its real meaning, we find ourselves deep in the dreamer's secrets and
discover with astonishment that an apparently quite senseless dream is in the highest degree
significant, and that in reality it speaks only of important and serious matters. This
discovery compels rather more respect for the so-called superstition that dreams have a
meaning, to which the rationalistic temper of our age has hitherto given short shrift. - "On
the Psychology of the Unconscious" (1953). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical
Psychology. P.24
Dream psychology can indeed open the psychologist's way
Dream psychology opens the way to a general comparative psychology from which we may
hope to gain the same understanding of the development and structure of the human mind as
comparative anatomy has given us concerning the human body. - "General Aspects of Dream
Psychology" (1916). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 476
Existing moral codes and the way they are handled or manifested, can form parts of the
reasons why they fall to sleep and do not compete better these days
It is difficult to gauge the spirit of one's own time; but, if we observe the trend
of art, of style, and of public taste, and see what people read and write, what sort of
societies they found, what "questions" are the order of the day, what the Philistines fight
against, we shall find that in the long catalogue of our present social questions by no
means the last is the so-called "sexual question." This is discussed by men and women who
challenge the existing sexual morality and who seek to throw off the burden of moral guilt
which past centuries have heaped upon Eros. One cannot simply deny the existence of these
endeavours nor condemn then as indefensible; they exist, and probably have adequate grounds
for their existence. It is more interesting and more useful to examine carefully the
underlying causes of these contemporary movements than to join in the lamentations of the
professional mourners of morality who prophesy the moral downfall of humanity. - "New Paths
in Psychology" (1912). CW 7: Two Essays in Analytical Psychology. P. 427
Future generations dare not find themselves okay unless governed over by the
bureaucracy, a stubborn church, or the "good" state
It is the duty of one who goes his own way to inform society of what he finds on his
voyage of discovery, be it cooling water for the thirsty or the sandy wastes of unfruitful
error. The one helps, the other warns. Not the criticism of individual contemporaries will
decide the truth or falsity of his discoveries, but future generations. There are things
that are not yet true today, perhaps we dare not find them true, but tomorrow they may be.
So every man whose fate it is to go his individual way must proceed with hopefulness and
watchfulness, ever conscious of his loneliness and its dangers. - "On the Psychology of the
Unconscious" (1912). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology P. 201
Give no guarantee of objective knowledge
What we do not understand in ourselves we do not understand in the other person
either. So there is plenty to ensure that his image will be for the most part subjective. As
we know, even an intimate friendship is no guarantee of objective knowledge. - "General
Aspects of Dreams Psychology" (1916). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche. P.508
Great depth often presages deep fall or darkness to come
Nobody can fall so low unless he has a great depth. If such a thing can happen to a
man, it challenges his best and highest on the other side; that is to say, this depth
corresponds to a potential height, and the blackest darkness to a hidden light. - "On the
Re-education of the Germans" (1946). In Basler Nachrichten, Nr. 486, November 16.
If the individual-hood in yourself wishes you to try a thing, do it.
If we try to extract the common and essential factors from the almost inexhaustible
variety of individual problems found in the period of youth, we meet in all cases with one
particular feature: a more or less patent clinging to the childhood level of consciousness,
a resistance to the fateful forces in and around us which would involve us in the world.
Something in us wishes to remain a child, to be unconscious or, at most, conscious only of
the ego; to reject everything strange, or else subject it to our will; to do nothing, or
else indulge our own craving for pleasure or power. In all this there is something of the
inertia of matter; it is a persistence in the previous state whose range of consciousness is
smaller, narrower, and more egoistic than that of the dualistic phase. For here the
individual is faced with the necessity of recognising and accepting what is different and
strange as a part of his own life, as a kind of "also-I." - "The Stages of Life" (1930). In
CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 764
If you bluff sure, you are much nearer to real life as it is, says Jung. Zen is a lot
similar.
The people who fancy they are sure of themselves are the ones who are truly unsure.
Our whole life is unsure, so a feeling of unsureness is much nearer to the truth than the
illusion and bluff of sureness. In the long run it is the better adapted man who triumphs,
not the wrongly self-confident, who is at the mercy of dangers from without and within. -
"Depth Psychology and Self-Knowledge" In DU III:9 September 1943. In CW 18: P.18
If you love yourself well, others may take a liking to you, they too, for then you are
truly loveable from deep inside. It could happen
We say that it is egoistic or "morbid" to be preoccupied with oneself; one's own
company is the worst, "it makes you melancholy" - such are the glowing testimonials accorded
to our human make-up. They are evidently deeply ingrained in our Western minds. Whoever
thinks in this way has obviously never asked himself what possible pleasure other people
could find in the company of such a miserable coward. - "The Relations Between the Ego and
the Unconscious" (1953) In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P.323
In the art of analysis you surely put Jung's theories well aside, admits Dr. Jung
himself. Now everybody can become a Jungian with much tedious, staunch discipline that
embodies it.
Practical medicine is and has always been an art, and the same is true of practical
analysis. True art is creation, and creation is beyond all theories. That is why I say to
any beginner: Learn your theories as well as you can, but put them aside when you touch the
miracle of the living soul. Not theories but your own creative individuality alone must
decide. - Contributions to Analytical Psychology. (1928)
In the physiological all may be regarded as psychic
Just as the "psychic infra-red," the biological instinctual mind, gradually passes
over into the physiology of the organism and thus merges with its chemical and physical
conditions, so the "psychic ultra-violet," the archetype, describes a field which exhibits
none of the peculiarities of the physiological and yet, in the last analysis, can no longer
be regarded as psychic. - "On the Nature of the Psyche" (1947). In CW 8: The
Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.420
It is a different world that meets a newcomer after growing up and more or less out of
childhood's different, small-scale adaptations and problems
The small world of the child, the family milieu, is the model for the big world. The
more intensely the family sets its stamp on the child, the more he will be emotionally
inclined, as an adult, to see in the great world his former small world. Of course this must
not be taken as a conscious intellectual process. On the contrary, the patient feels and
sees the difference between now and then, and tries as well as he can to adapt himself.
Perhaps he will even believe himself perfectly adapted, since he may be able to grasp the
situation intellectually, but that does not prevent his emotions from lagging far behind his
intellectual insight. - "The Theory of Psychoanalysis" (1913). In CW 4: Freud and
Psychoanalysis. P. 312
It may pay to be well allied with some matrix-form, as cogently and rationally as inside
quantum physics (Feynmann diagrams)
"All that is outside, also is inside," we could say with Goethe. But this "inside,"
which modern rationalism is so eager to derive from "outside," has an a priori structure of
its own that antedates all conscious experience. It is quite impossible to conceive how
"experience" in the widest sense, or, for that matter, anything psychic, could originate
exclusively in the outside world. The mind is part of the inmost mystery of life, and it has
its own peculiar structure and form like every other organism. Whether this psychic
structure and its elements, the archetypes, ever "originated" at all is a metaphysical
question and therefore unanswerable. The structure is something given, the precondition that
is found to be present in every case. And this is the mother, the matrix-the form into which
all experience is poured. - "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype" (1939.1959) In
CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. 1959. pp 187
It often helps to discriminate by much sound, common sense or side with the winners over
you at the time, as long as you lack experience and much skill
The tendency to separate the opposites as much as possible and to strive for
singleness of meaning is absolutely necessary for clarity of consciousness, since
discrimination is of its essence. But when the separation is carried so far that the
complementary opposite is lost sight of, and the blackness of the whiteness, the evil of the
good, the depth of the heights, and so on, is no longer seen, the result is one-sidedness,
which is then compensated from the unconscious without our help. - Mysterium Coniunctionis
(1955). CW 14: 470
Leading a maturing orphaned by common sense, but as alien to her, may rob and ruin her
in the unseen for some time
The woman who fights against her father still has the possibility of leading an
instinctive, feminine existence, because she rejects only what is alien to her. But when she
fights against the mother she may, at the risk of injury to her instincts, attain to greater
consciousness, because in repudiating the mother she repudiates all that is obscure,
instinctive, ambiguous, and unconscious in her own nature. - "Psychological Aspects of the
Mother Archetype" (1939). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective
Unconscious. P. 186
Man needs the opposite of his actual situation to be able to find his place in the
middle
Reason can give a man equilibrium only if his reason is already an equilibrating
organ. But for how many individuals and at what periods in history has it been that? As a
rule, a man needs the opposite of his actual situation to force him to find his place in the
middle. For the sake of mere reason he can never forgo life's riches and the sensuous appeal
of the immediate situation. Against the power and delight of the temporal he must set the
joy of the eternal, and against the passion of the sensual the ecstasy of the spiritual. The
undeniable reality of the one must be matched by the compelling power of the other. -
Psychological Types (1921). CW 6. P.386
Overcome the monster of darkness: get properly conscious and fit
The hero's main feat is to overcome the monster of darkness: it is the
long-hoped-for and expected triumph of consciousness over the unconscious. The coming of
consciousness was probably the most tremendous experience of primeval times, for with it a
world came into being whose existence no one had suspected before. "And God said, 'Let there
be light"' is the projection of that immemorial experience of the separation of
consciousness from the unconscious. - "The Psychology of the Child Archetype" (1940). In
CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P.284
Present well, bluff less. "Archetype" is in itself irrepresentable"- Dr. Jung
We must constantly bear in mind that what we mean by "archetype" is in itself
irrepresentable, but has effects which make visualisations of it possible, namely, the
archetypal images and ideas. We meet with a similar situation in physics: there the smallest
particles are themselves irrepresentable but have effects from the nature of which we can
build up a model. The archetypal image, the motif or mythologem, is a construction of this
kind. - "On the Nature of the Psyche" (1947). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics
of the Psyche. P.417
Residuary infantilism is far too demanding and may grow into a neurosis in a short
time
Infantilism, however, is something extremely ambiguous. First, it can be either
genuine or purely symptomatic; and second, it can be either residuary or embryonic. There is
an enormous difference between something that has remained infantile and something that is
in the process of growth. Both can take an infantile or embryonic form, and more often than
not it is impossible to tell at first glance whether we are dealing with a regrettably
persistent fragment of infantile life or with a vitally important creative beginning. To
deride these possibilities is to act like a dullard who does not know that the future is
more important than the past. - "The State of Psychotherapy Today" (1934). In CW
10: Civilization in Transition. P.345
Resisting the analyst is no bad thing
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. - In Man and His Symbols.(1964) Essay
retitled "Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams" In CW 18: P.61
Superiority easily falls
What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? I mean of course something
sensible, that is outside the sexual program, free of resentment, illusion, and theory.
Where is the man to be found capable of such superiority? Woman always stands just where the
man's shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to
repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in
the world. - "Women In Europe" (1927). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P. 236
The world is empty to him who does not know how to direct his libido towards things and
folks that spur us to okay efforts
It is hard to believe that this teeming world is too poor to provide an object for
human love - it offers boundless opportunities to everyone. It is rather the inability to
love which robs a person of these opportunities. The world is empty only to him who does not
know how to direct his libido towards things and people, and to render them alive and
beautiful. What compels us to create a substitute from within ourselves is not an external
lack, but our own inability to include anything outside ourselves in our love. Certainly the
difficulties and adversities of the struggle for existence may oppress us, yet even the
worst conditions need not hinder love; on the contrary, they often spur us on to greater
efforts. - Symbols of Transformation (1952). CW 5: P.253
The world of myth had suffered no loss of vitality after enlightenment
Myths are miracle tales . . . In the everyday world of consciousness such things
hardly exist; that is to say, until 1933. Only lunatics would have been found in possession
of living fragments of mythology. After this date the world of heroes and monsters spread
like a devastating fire over whole nations, proving that the strange world of myth had
suffered no loss of vitality during the centuries of reason and enlightenment. If
metaphysical ideas no longer have . . . a fascinating effect . . ., this is certainly . . . simply
and solely (due) to the fact that (some symbols) express what is now welling up from the
unconscious as the end-result of the development of Christian consciousness through the
centuries . . . a false spirit of arrogance, hysteria, . . ., criminal amorality, and . . . a
purveyor of shoddy spiritual goods, . . . philosophical stutterings, and Utopian humbug . . .
That is what the post-Christian spirit looks like. - Aion (1951) CW 9, Part II:
P.66
The young British man can have only an incomplete understanding of himself and others
. . . the first step in a very long climb
The young person of marriageable age does, of course, possess an ego-consciousness
(girls more than men, as a rule), but, since he has only recently emerged from the mists of
original unconsciousness, he is certain to have wide areas which still lie in the shadow and
which preclude to that extent the formation of psychological relationship. This means, in
practice, that the young man (or woman) can have only an incomplete understanding of himself
and others, and is therefore imperfectly informed as to his, and their, motives. As a rule
the motives he acts from are largely unconscious. Subjectively, of course, he thinks himself
very conscious and knowing, for we constantly overestimate the existing content of
consciousness, and it is a great and surprising discovery when we find that what we had
supposed to be the final peak is nothing but the first step in a very long climb. -
"Marriage as a Psychological Relationship" (1925). In CW 17: The Development of
Personality. P.327
There is no will to power where ignorance or love reigns
Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is
paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other. - "On the Psychology of
the Unconscious" (1912) In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P. 78
We have to entrench ourselves well towards the later middle part of our experienced
lives, or fall victim of conflicts brought on by newcomers
The nearer we approach to the middle of life, and the better we have succeeded in
entrenching ourselves in our personal attitudes and social positions, the more it appears as
if we had discovered the right course and the right ideals and principles of behaviour. For
this reason we suppose them to be eternally valid, and make a virtue of unchangeably
clinging to them. We overlook the essential fact that the social goal is attained only at
the cost of a diminution of personality. Many-far too many-aspects of life which should also
have been experienced lie in the lumber-room among dusty memories; but sometimes, too, they
are glowing coals under grey ashes. - "The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The
Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 771
Who stands up as the bondservant of his ideas has not attained much, has not gone
far.
Widely accepted ideas are never the personal property of their so-called author; on
the contrary, he is the bondservant of his ideas. Impressive ideas which are hailed as
truths have something peculiar about them. Although they come into being at a definite time,
they are and have always been timeless; they arise from that realm of creative psychic life
out of which the ephemeral mind of the single human being grows like a plant that blossoms,
bears fruit and seed, and then withers and dies. Ideas spring from something greater than
the personal human being. Man does not make his ideas; we could say that man's ideas make
him. - "Freud and Jung: Contrasts" (1929) In CW 4: Freud and Psychoanalysis. P.769
Who turns into officers? It can be unhealthy individuals.
The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into
torturers. - "Return to the Simple Life" In CW 18: P.56
Find a way in which conscious personality and darkened aspects deep inside can live
together ◊
We carry our past with us, to wit, the primitive and inferior man with his desires
and emotions, and it is only with an enormous effort that we can detach ourselves from this
burden. If it comes to a neurosis, we invariably have to deal with a considerably
intensified shadow. And if such a person wants to be cured it is necessary to find a way in
which his conscious personality and his shadow can live together. - "Answer to Job" (1952).
In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.12
Full of cognition we enter the real domain of woman; it is inside the great binder
The discussion of the sexual problem is only a somewhat crude prelude to a far
deeper question, and that is the question of the psychological relationship between the
sexes. In comparison with this the other pales into insignificance, and with it we enter the
real domain of woman. Woman's psychology is founded on the principle of Eros, the great
binder and loosener, whereas from ancient times the ruling principle ascribed to man is
Logos. - "Woman in Europe" (1927). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P.254
To get to grips with one opponent can be worth while
Nothing in us ever remains quite uncontradicted, and consciousness can take up no
position which will not call up, somewhere in the dark corners of the mind, a negation or a
compensatory effect, approval or resentment. This process of coming to terms with the Other
in us is well worth while, because in this way we get to know aspects of our nature which we
would not allow anybody else to show us and which we ourselves would never have admitted. -
Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955) CW 14: P. 706
We take our stand simply in the history of all epochs and all peoples - this could
eventually amount to something
We do not devalue statements that originally were intended to be metaphysical when
we demonstrate their psychic nature; on the contrary, we confirm their factual character.
But, by treating them as psychic phenomena, we remove them from the inaccessible realm of
metaphysics, about which nothing verifiable can be said, and this disposes of the impossible
question as to whether they are "true" or not. We take our stand simply and solely on the
facts, recognising that the archetypal structure of the unconscious will produce, over and
over again and irrespective of tradition, those figures which reappear in the history of all
epochs and all peoples, and will endow them with the same significance and numinosity that
have been theirs from the beginning. - Mysterium Coniuntionis (1955). CW 14: P.558
 Living for the present will not turn out well, since the present becomes past any time. But to get greatly aware in the present, may work very well. Similarly, understanding of merely present issues tends to get too shallow in time
If you role-act rather much, you may lessen within for it, and it should cause the heart
pain
Every calling or profession has its own characteristic persona. It is easy to study
these things nowadays, when the photographs of public personalities so frequently appear in
the press. A certain kind of behaviour is forced on them by the world, and professional
people endeavour to come up to these expectations. Only, the danger is that they become
identical with their personas - the professor with his text-book, the tenor with his voice.
Then the damage is done; henceforth he lives exclusively against the background of his own
biography. . . . The garment of Deianeira has grown fast to his skin, and a desperate decision
like that of Heracles is needed if he is to tear this Nessus shirt from his body and step
into the consuming fire of the flame of immortality, in order to transform himself into what
he really is. One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in
reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is. - "Concerning Rebirth"
(1940). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P.221
Individual art can be the most fit manifestation of the individual inside his mind
The world exists for us only in so far as it is consciously reflected by a mind . . .
Thus the mind is endowed with the dignity of a cosmic principle, which . . . gives it a
position co-equal with the principle of physical being. The carrier of this consciousness is
the individual, who . . . preformed by it and nourished by the gradual awakening of
consciousness during childhood. If therefore the mind is of overriding empirical importance,
so also is the individual, who is the only immediate manifestation of the mind. - "The
Undiscovered Self" (1957). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P. 528
Merely living for the present does not make us modern, but being greatly aware inside
the present,
The man we call modern, the man who is aware of the immediate present, is by no
means the average man. He is rather the man who stands upon a peak, or at the very edge of
the world, the abyss of the future before him, above him the heavens, and below him the
whole of mankind with a history that disappears in primeval mists. The modern man - or, let
us say again, the man of the immediate present-is rarely met with, for he must be conscious
to a superlative degree. Since to be wholly of the present means to be fully conscious of
one's existence as a man, it requires the most intensive and extensive consciousness, with a
minimum of unconsciousness. It must be clearly understood that the mere fact of living in
the present does not make a man modern, for in that case everyone at present alive would be
so. He alone is modern who is fully conscious of the present. - "The Spiritual Problem of
Modern Man" (1928) In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P. 149
Much disunity with oneself begets discontent and helps some conscious realisation
Since the aims of the second half of life are different from those of the first, to
linger too long in the youthful attitude produces a division of the will. Consciousness
still presses forward in obedience, as it were, to its own inertia, but the unconscious lags
behind, because the strength and inner resolve needed for further expansion have been
sapped. This disunity with oneself begets discontent, and since one is not conscious of the
real state of things one generally projects the reasons for it upon one's partner. A
critical atmosphere thus develops, the necessary prelude to conscious realisation. -
"Marriage as a Psychological Relationship" (1925). In CW 17: The Development of the
Personality. P. 331
Faking can be understood as outlets of unconscious psychic forces
Enlightenment may have destroyed the spirits of nature, but not the psychic factors
that correspond to them, such as . . . lack of criticism, . . . propensity to superstition and
prejudice - in short, all those qualities which make possession possible. . . . Psychic
conditions which breed demons are as actively at work as ever. The demons have not really
disappeared but have merely taken on another form: they have become unconscious psychic
forces. - "After the Catastrophe" (1945). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition.
P.431
Spirit can be something relative
Be prepared to accept the view that spirit is not absolute, but something relative
that needs completing and perfecting through life. - "Spirit and Life" (1926). In
CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 645
Strange dreams are fitted to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human
nature
Dreams . . . are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and are
therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our
basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations and run
into an impasse - "The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man" (1933). In CW 10:
Civilization in Transition. P.317
The persona, the anima, and the little game of illusion that gives meaning to many lives
due to getting incapacitated somehow
The persona, the ideal picture of a man as he should be, is inwardly compensated by
feminine weakness, and as the individual outwardly plays the strong man, so he becomes
inwardly a woman, i.e., the anima, for it is the anima that reacts to the persona. But
because the inner world is dark and invisible to the extroverted consciousness, and because
a man is all the less capable of conceiving his weaknesses the more he is identified with
the persona, the persona's counterpart, the anima, remains completely in the dark and is at
once projected, so that our hero comes under the heel of his wife's slipper. If this results
in a considerable increase of her power, she will acquit herself none too well. She becomes
inferior, thus providing her husband with the welcome proof that it is not he, the hero, who
is inferior in private, but his wife. In return the wife can cherish the illusion, so
attractive to many, that at least she has married a hero, unperturbed by her own
uselessness. This little game of illusion is often taken to be the whole meaning of life. -
Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, CW 7 (1957). "The Relations between the Ego
and the Unconscious" P.309
The psychic life of civilised man battles primitive man.
The psychic life of civilised man . . . is full of problems; we cannot even think of
it except in terms of problems. Our psychic processes are made up to a large extent of
reflections, doubts, experiments, all of which are almost completely foreign to the
unconscious, instinctive mind of primitive man. It is the growth of consciousness which we
must thank for the existence of problems; they are the Danaa:n gift of civilisation. - "The
Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 750
There is a risk the customary treatment evolved its sets of tact on top of old
hypocrisy
Nowadays we have no real sexual morality . . . We are not yet far enough advanced to
distinguish between moral and immoral behaviour in the realm of free sexual activity. This
is clearly expressed in the customary treatment . . . of unmarried mothers. All the repulsive
hypocrisy, the . . . prostitution and . . . venereal diseases, we owe to the barbarous . . .
inability to develop a finer moral sense for the enormous psychological differences that
exist in the domain of free sexual activity. - In CW 4: Freud and Psychoanalysis.
P.666
We delude ourselves with the thought that we know much more, and so we overestimate a
true explanation unless it seems inscrutable, purports Jung
Up till now, too much was accounted for in terms of spirit. . . . We would say: most
likely we are now making exactly the same mistake on the other side. We delude ourselves
with the thought that we know much more about matter than about a "metaphysical" mind or
spirit, and so we overestimate material causation and believe that it alone affords us a
true explanation of life. But matter is just as inscrutable as mind. As to the ultimate
things we can know nothing. - "Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology" (1931). In
CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.657
We must be willing to contradict ourselves to arrive at good understanding, thinks
Jung
The conflict between nature and spirit is itself a reflection of the paradox of
psychic life. This reveals a physical and a spiritual aspect which appear a contradiction
because, ultimately, we do not understand the nature of psychic life itself. Whenever, with
our human understanding, we want to make a statement about something which in the last
analysis we have not grasped and cannot grasp, then we must, if we are honest, be willing to
contradict ourselves, we must pull this something into its antithetical parts in order to be
able to deal with it at all. The conflict between the physical and the spiritual aspects
only shows that psychic life is in the last analysis an incomprehensible "something." -
"Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology" (1931). In CW 8: The Structure and
Dynamics of the Psyche. P.680
Call the wolf brother ◊
Modern man . . . is sorely enough beset by his own bad conscience, and wants rather to
know how he is to reconcile himself with his own nature - how he is to love the enemy in his
own heart and call the wolf his brother. - "Psychotherapists or the Clergy" (1932). In
CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.523
In the realm of blunt sex, instincts and pangs get the upper hand easier than you may
like to think of
It is undoubtedly true that instinctuality conflicts with our moral views most
frequently and most conspicuously in the realm of sex. The conflict between infantile
instinctuality and ethics can never be avoided. It is, it seems to me, the sine qua non of
psychic energy. - "On Psychic Energy" (1928). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics
of Psyche. P.105
Jung thinks there is something more, or unknown, and border wisdom can take in from the
transcendental level
Not only in the psychic man is there something unknown, but also in the physical. We
should be able to include this unknown quantity in a total picture of man, but we cannot.
Man himself is partly empirical, partly transcendental . . . Also, we do not know whether what
we on the empirical plane regard as physical may not, in the Unknown beyond our experience,
be identical with what on this side of the border we distinguish from the physical as
psychic. - Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955). CW 14: P.765
Modern, quite collective vacuum gets filled with absurd ideas marked by bleakness
Anyone who has lost the historical symbols and cannot be satisfied with substitutes
is certainly in a very difficult position today: before him there yawns the void, and he
turns away from it in horror. What is worse, the vacuum gets filled with absurd political
and social ideas, which one and all are distinguished by their spiritual bleakness. But if
he cannot get along with these pedantic dogmatisms, he sees himself forced to be serious for
once with his alleged trust in God, though it usually turns out that his fear of things
going wrong if he did so is even more persuasive. - "Archetypes of the Collective
Unconscious" (1935). In CW 9, Part I: Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious.
P.28
Riverbeds inside are archetypes
Archetypes are like riverbeds which dry up when the water deserts them, but which it
can find again at any time. An archetype is like an old watercourse along which the water of
life has flowed for centuries, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it has flowed
in this channel the more likely it is that sooner or later the water will return to its old
bed. - "Wotan" (1936). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P. 395
Something of fundamental importance might as well be some sort of trap
Love . . . is of fundamental importance in human life and . . . of far greater
significance than the individual suspects. - "On the Psychology of the Unconscious" (1912)
In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P. 14. P.218
The best possible, well articulated compilation rarely ends in ruin if it also widens
and betters the range of adjacent accomplishment
Take for comparison the daily course of the sun-but a sun that is endowed with human
feeling and man's limited consciousness. In the morning it rises from the nocturnal sea of
unconsciousness and looks upon the wide, bright world which lies before it in an expanse
that steadily widens the higher it climbs in the firmament. In this extension of its field
of action caused by its own rising, the sun will discover its significance; it will see the
attainment of the greatest possible height, and the widest possible dissemination of its
blessings, as its goal. In this conviction the sun pursues its course to the unforeseen
zenith-unforeseen, because its career is unique and individual, and the culminating point
could not be calculated in advance. At the stroke of noon the descent begins. And the
descent means the reversal of all the ideals and values that were cherished in the morning.
- "The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche.
P. 778
Only someone great as cosmos may explain cosmos, or: cosmos best explains cosmos
"The need for mythic statemes is satisfied when we frame a view of the world which
adequately explains the meaning of human existence in the cosmos, a view which springs from
our psychic wholeness. Jung, C.G. (1961). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Vintage
Books. p. 340.
The city-dweller knows a rabbit or a cow only from the illustrated paper and thinks he
knows what it is really like
The danger that faces us today is that the whole of reality will be replaced by
words. This accounts for that terrible lack of instinct in modern man, particularly the
city-dweller. He lacks all contact with life and the breath of nature. He knows a rabbit or
a cow only from the illustrated paper, the dictionary, or the movies, and thinks he knows
what it is really like-and is then amazed that cowsheds "smell," because the dictionary
didn't say so. - "Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology" (1959). In CW 10:
Civilization in Transition. P.882
To the civilised man dreams can stand up without any value; they are often found to be
deep, dramatic inspirations
The dream has for the primitive an incomparably higher value than it has for
civilised man. Not only does he talk a great deal about his dreams, he also attributes an
extraordinary importance to them, so that it often seems as though he were unable to
distinguish between them and reality. To the civilised man dreams as a rule appear
valueless, though there are some people who attach great significance to certain dreams on
account of their weird and impressive character. This peculiarity lends plausibility to the
view that dreams are inspirations. - "The Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits"
(1920). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.574
Tone down one-sidedness inside dream-series of compensation, or get an equalisation
through a stringed process (tick tack toe helps it)
If, as happens in long and difficult treatments, the analyst observes a series of
dreams often running into hundreds, there gradually forces itself upon him a phenomenon
which, in an isolated dream, would remain hidden behind the compensation of the moment. This
phenomenon is a kind of developmental process in the personality itself. At first it seems
that each compensation is a momentary adjustment of one-sidedness or an equalisation of
disturbed balance. But with deeper insight and experience, these apparently separate acts of
compensation arrange themselves into a kind of plan. They seem to hang together and in the
deepest sense to be subordinated to a common goal, so that a long dream-series no longer
appears as a senseless string of incoherent and isolated happenings, but resembles the
successive steps in a planned and orderly process of development. I have called this
unconscious process spontaneously expressing itself in the symbolism of a long dream-series
the individuation process. - "On the Nature of Dreams" (1945). In CW 8: The
Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.550 - [Possibly valid link]
 It seems that most conform persons are estranged from their own selves, and not without reason. Deep, shared urges account for that. Thus, on the right track keep intimate matters private.
A conflict of duty can force us to examine our conscience and what to do
If a man is endowed with an ethical sense and is convinced of the sanctity of
ethical values, he is on the surest road to a conflict of duty. And although this looks
desperately like a moral catastrophe, it alone makes possible a higher differentiation of
ethics and a broadening of consciousness. A conflict of duty forces us to examine our
conscience and thereby to discover the shadow. - Depth Psychology and a New Ethic. (1949).
In CW 18. P.17
About the intellect that makes history from inside
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.
- Analytical Psychology: Its Theory and Practice: The Tavistock Lectures (1935). In
CW 18: (retitled) "The Tavistock Lectures" P. 183
Becoming conscious spells being more alone inside oneself - more individuated, or
isolated, possibly estranged. Any of these things can happen, in principle
Everyone who becomes conscious of even a fraction of his unconscious gets outside
his own time and social stratum into a kind of solitude. - Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955)
CW 14: P 258
Experience is of the mind, not the neurosis
The object of therapy is not the neurosis but the man who has the neurosis. We have
long known, for instance, that a cardiac neurosis comes not from the heart, as the old
medical mythology would have it, but from the mind of the sufferer. Nor does it come from
some obscure corner of the unconscious, as many psychotherapists still struggle to believe;
it comes from the totality of a man's life and from all the experiences that have
accumulated over the years and decades, and finally, not merely from his life as an
individual but from his psychic experience within the family or even the social group. -
"The State of Psychotherapy Today" (1934). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition.
P.337
From the road to hell: Who promises everything also promises too much. (The road to hell
is paved with good intentions too)
The man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing, and everyone who promises
too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already
on the road to perdition. - "After the Catastrophe" (1945). In CW 10: Civilization
in Transition. P. 413.
Good sex can strengthen both unity and identity - it can happen
Normal sex life, as a shared experience with apparently similar aims, further
strengthens the feeling of unity and identity. This state is described as one of complete
harmony, and is extolled as a great happiness ("one heart and one soul")-not without good
reason, since the return to that original condition of unconscious oneness is like a return
to childhood. Hence the childish gestures of all lovers. Even more is it a return to the
mother's womb, into the teeming depths of an as yet unconscious creativity. It is, in truth,
a genuine and incontestable experience of the Divine, whose transcendent force obliterates
and consumes everything individual; a real communion with life and the impersonal power of
fate. - "Marriage as a Psychological Relationship" (1925). In CW 17: The
Development of Personality. P.330
Great experience needs complementary or balancing assets too
The great problems of life, including of course sex, are always related to the
primordial images of the collective unconscious. These images are balancing and compensating
factors that correspond to the problems which life confronts us with in reality. This is no
matter for astonishment, since these images are deposits of thousands of years of experience
of the struggle for existence and for adaptation. Every great experience in life, every
profound conflict, evokes the accumulated treasure of these images and brings about their
inner constellation. But they become accessible to consciousness only when the individual
possesses so much self-awareness and power of understanding that he also reflects on what he
experiences instead of just living it blindly. In the latter event he actually lives the
myth and the symbol without knowing it. - Psychological Types (1921). CW 6: P. 373
He sacrifices, he understands
The world comes into being when man discovers it. But he only discovers it when he
sacrifices his containment in the primal mother, the original state of unconsciousness. -
Symbols of Transformation. (1952). CW 5: P.652
Individual and social destiny go together like knife and fork due to deep, shared
urges
Every individual needs revolution, inner division, overthrow of the existing order,
and renewal, but not by forcing these things upon his neighbours under the hypocritical
cloak of Christian love or the sense of social responsibility or any of the other beautiful
euphemisms for unconscious urges to personal power. Individual self-reflection, return of
the individual to the ground of human nature, to his own deepest being with its individual
and social destiny here is the beginning of a cure for that blindness which reigns at the
present hour. - "On the Psychology of the Unconscious" (1912). In CW 7: Two Essays
on Analytical Psychology P. 5
It could help to display remarkable analogies because empirical reality has a
transcendental background - is rooted higher up, and can be beyond normal strongholds of
good customs.
All that is not encompassed by our knowledge, so that we are not in a position to
make any statements about its total nature. Microphysics is feeling its way into the unknown
side of matter, just as complex psychology is pushing forward into the unknown side of the
mind. Both lines of investigation have yielded findings which can be conceived only by means
of antinomies, and both have developed concepts which display remarkable analogies. If this
trend should become more pronounced in the future, the hypothesis of the unity of their
subject-matters would gain in probability. Of course there is little or no hope that the
unitary Being can ever be conceived, since our powers of thought and language permit only of
antinomian statements. But this much we do know beyond all doubt, that empirical reality has
a transcendental background. - Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955). CW 14: P.768
Judge everything and everyone, and loss ensues
There are analysts who believe that they can get along with a self-analysis. This is
Munchausen psychology, and they will certainly remain stuck. They forget that one of the
most important therapeutically effective factors is subjecting yourself to the objective
judgement of another. As regards ourselves we remain blind, despite everything and
everybody. - "The Theory of Psychoanalysis" (1913). In CW 4: Freud and
Psychoanalysis. P.449
Just education is fit for group endeavours also, to minimise loss and personal trauma
for those who stand up
In my naturally limited experience there are, among people of maturer age, very many
for whom the development of individuality is an indispensable requirement. Hence I am
privately of the opinion that it is just the mature person who, in our times, has the
greatest need of some further education in individual culture after his youthful education
in school or university has moulded him on exclusively collective lines and thoroughly
imbued him with the collective mentality. - "On Psychic Energy" (1928). In CW 8:
The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 112
Most men and dogs are erotically blind and decisive ones at that
Most men are erotically blinded - they commit the unpardonable mistake of confusing
Eros with sex. A man thinks he possesses a woman if he has her sexually. He never possesses
her less, for to a woman the Eros-relationship is the real and decisive one. For her,
marriage is a relationship with sex thrown in as an accompaniment. - "Woman in Europe"
(1927). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P.255
Motherlove, some load that enormous burden on to others, he says
The overdevelopment of the maternal instinct is identical with that well-known image
of the mother which has been glorified in all ages and all tongues. This is the motherlove
which is one of the most moving and unforgettable memories of our lives, the mysterious root
of all growth and change; the love that means homecoming, shelter, and the long silence from
which everything begins and in which everything ends. Intimately known and yet strange like
Nature, lovingly tender and yet cruel like fate, 'oyous and untiring giver of life-mater
dolorosa and mute implacable portal that closes upon the dead. Mother is motherlove, my
experience and my secret. Why risk saying too much, too much that is false and inadequate
and beside the point, about that human being who was our mother, the accidental carrier of
that great experience which includes herself and myself and all mankind, and indeed the
whole of created nature, the experience of life whose children we are? The attempt to say
these things has always been made, and probably always will be; but a sensitive person
cannot in all fairness load that enormous burden of meaning, responsibility, duty, heaven
and hell, on to the shoulders of one frail and fallible human being - so deserving of love,
indulgence, understanding, and forgiveness - who was our mother. He knows that the mother
carries for us that inborn image of the mater nature and mater spiritualis, of the totality
of life of which we are a small and helpless part. - "Psychological Aspects of the Mother
Archetype" (1939) In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
P.172
Only monkeys parade with what man drags behind him
Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man
still drags behind him. Carefully amputated, it becomes the healing serpent of the
mysteries. Only monkeys parade with it. - The Integration of the Personality. (1939).
Since the Medieval Age the European tradition for highest education has been to let a
student wander through the world and gather stores of knowledge as inmate in lunatic
asylums, prisons - whatever - in the end to enrich experimental psychology. Jung did.
Anyone who wants to know the human mind will learn next to nothing from experimental
psychology. He would be better advised to put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his
study, and wander with human heart through the world. There, in the horrors of prisons,
lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the
salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, Socialist meetings, churches, revivalist
gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in
every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot
thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with real knowledge of the
human soul. - "New Paths in Psychology" In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical
Psychology. P.409
The child is born with a differentiated brain and aptitudes. Also, archetypes in the
small ones direct nearly all great fantasy activity
It is in my view a great mistake to suppose that the mind of a new-born child is a
tabula rasa in the sense that there is absolutely nothing in it. In so far as the child is
born with a differentiated brain that is predetermined by heredity and therefore
individualised, it meets sensory stimuli coming from outside not with any aptitudes, but
with specific ones, and this necessarily results in a particular, individual choice and
pattern of apperception. These aptitudes can be shown to be inherited instincts and
preformed patterns, the latter being the a priori and formal conditions of apperception that
are based on instinct. Their presence gives the world of the child and the dreamer its
anthropomorphic stamp. They are the archetypes, which direct all fantasy activity into its
appointed paths and in this way produce, in the fantasy-images of children's dreams as well
as in the delusions of schizophrenia, astonishing mythological parallels such as can also be
found, though in lesser degree, in the dreams of normal persons and neurotics. It is not,
therefore, a question of inherited ideas but of inherited possibilities of ideas. -
"Concerning the Archetypes with Special Reference to the Anima Concept" (1936) In
CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P. 136
The demons will seek a new victim
No, the demons are not banished; that is a difficult task that still lies ahead. Now
that the angel of history has abandoned the Germans,* the demons will seek a new victim. And
that won't be difficult. Every man who loses his shadow, every nation that falls into
self-righteousness, is their prey. . .. We should not forget that exactly the same fatal
tendency to collectivisation is present in the victorious nations as in the Germans, that
they can just as suddenly become a victim of the demonic powers. - "The Post-war Psychic
Problems of the Germans" (1945) *Written I945.
The fear of becoming childish is of psychic origin and can find all sorts of vicarious
outlets, even morbid compensations
To remain a child too long is childish, but it is just as childish to move away and
then assume that childhood no longer exists because we do not see it. But if we return to
the "children's land" we succumb to the fear of becoming childish, because we do not
understand that everything of psychic origin has a double face. One face looks forward, the
other back. It is ambivalent and therefore symbolic, like all living reality. - Psychology
and Alchemy (1944). CW 12. P.74
The heartless tyrant strives to tame or destroy everybody within reach, and the mob too
- they complement each other in some cultures we do not like to talk of and deal with
The change of character brought about by the uprush of collective forces is amazing.
A gentle and reasonable being can be transformed into a maniac or a savage beast. One is
always inclined to lay the blame on external circumstances, but nothing could explode in us
if it had not been there. As a matter of fact, we are constantly living on the edge of a
volcano, and there is, so far as we know, no way of protecting ourselves from a possible
outburst that will destroy everybody within reach. It is certainly a good thing to preach
reason and common sense, but what if you have a lunatic asylum for an audience or a crowd in
a collective frenzy? There is not much difference between them because the madman and the
mob are both moved by impersonal, overwhelming forces. - "Psychology and Religion" (1938).
In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.25
The man saddled with problems and conflicts has become a serious problem to himself
If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you
get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself
with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now
unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against. He
lives in the "House of the Gathering." Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world
is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real
for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the
gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day. - "Psychology and Religion" (1938). In
CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.140
The unconscious can still dwell
The man who has attained consciousness of the present is solitary. The "modern" man
has at all times been so, for every step towards fuller consciousness removes him further
from his original, purely animal participation mystique with the herd, from submersion in a
common unconsciousness. Every step forward means tearing oneself loose from the maternal
womb of unconsciousness in which the mass of men dwells. - "The Spiritual Problems of Modern
Man" (1928). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P. 150
There is a chance the said deeper "layers" of the mind lose their individual uniqueness,
become increasingly collective until they are universalised and extinguished, unless your
character is the universal character
The symbol is a living body, corpus et anima; hence the "child" is such an apt
formula for the symbol. The uniqueness of the mind can never enter wholly into reality, it
can only be realised approximately, though it still remains the absolute basis of all
consciousness. The deeper "layers" of the mind lose their individual uniqueness as they
retreat farther and farther into darkness. "Lower down," that is to say as they approach the
autonomous functional systems, they become increasingly collective until they are
universalised and extinguished in the body's materiality, i.e., in chemical substances. The
body's carbon is simply carbon. Hence "at bottom" the mind is simply "world." In this sense
I hold Kerenyi to be absolutely right when he says that in the symbol the world itself is
speaking. The more archaic and "deeper," that is the more physiological, the symbol is, the
more collective and universal, the more "material" it is. The more abstract, differentiated,
and [specified] it is, and the more its nature approximates to conscious uniqueness and
individuality, the more it sloughs off its universal character. Having finally attained full
consciousness, it runs the risk of becoming a mere allegory which nowhere oversteps the
bounds of conscious comprehension, and is then exposed to all sorts of attempts at
rationalistic and therefore inadequate explanation. - "The Psychology of the Child
Archetype" (1940). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.
P.291
There is a chance the wildest are utterly unaware of their actual conflicts
We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in
the hearts of ordinary men and women who pass by without exciting attention, and who betray
to the world nothing of the conflicts that rage within them except possibly by a nervous
breakdown. What is so difficult for the layman to grasp is the fact that in most cases the
patients themselves have no suspicion whatever of the internecine war raging in their
unconscious. If we remember that there are many people who understand nothing at all about
themselves, we shall be less surprised at the realisation that there are also people who are
utterly unaware of their actual conflicts. - "New Paths in Psychology" (1912). In
CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P.425
Very unnatural, rationalised substitutes for mythology often do a lot of harm
Everything that man should, and yet cannot, be or do - be it in a positive or
negative sense - lives on as a mythological figure and anticipation alongside his
consciousness, either as a religious projection or - what is still more dangerous - as
unconscious contents which then project themselves spontaneously into incongruous objects,
e.g., hygienic and other "salvationist" doctrines or practices. All these are so many
rationalised substitutes for mythology, and their unnaturalness does more harm than good. -
"The Psychology of the Child Archetype" (1940). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and
the Collective Unconscious. P.287
We reach higher up if we give expression to psychological truths by fit, natural
semblances and scenery. It is often like that.
To speak of the morning and spring, of the evening and the autumn of life is not
mere sentimental jargon. We thus give expression to psychological truths, and even more to
physiological facts. - "The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and
Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 780
"Myths are first and foremost psychic phenomena that reveal the nature of the soul,"
says Dr. Jung, and insists that the sun in its course is mirroring facets of the mind, and
must represent (express symbolically) the whereabouts of some unit within man. ◊
So far mythologists have always helped themselves out with solar, lunar,
meteorological, vegetal, and other ideas of the kind. The fact that myths are first and
foremost psychic phenomena that reveal the nature of the soul is something they have
absolutely refused to see until now. Primitive man is not much interested in objective
explanations of the obvious, but he has an imperative need or rather, his unconscious mind
has an irresistible urge-to assimilate all outer sense experiences to inner, psychic events.
It is not enough for the primitive to see the sun rise and set; this external observation
must at the same time be a psychic happening: the sun in its course must represent the fate
of a god or hero who, in the last analysis, dwells nowhere except in the soul of man. All
the mythologised processes of nature, such as summer and winter, the phases of the moon, the
rainy seasons, and so forth, are in no sense allegories of these objective occurrences;
rather they are symbolic expressions of the inner, unconscious drama of the mind which
becomes accessible to man's consciousness by way of projection - that is, mirrored in the
events of nature. - "Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious" (1935). In CW 9,
Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P.7
A good slap in the face makes conscious, but many cannot judge the consequences of their
actions anyhow
There are many people who are only partially conscious. Even among absolutely
civilised Europeans there is a disproportionately high number of abnormally unconscious
individuals who spend a great part of their lives in an unconscious state. They know what
happens to them, but they do not know what they do or say. They cannot judge of the
consequences of their actions. These are people who are abnormally unconscious, that is, in
a primitive state. What then finally makes them conscious? If they get a slap in the face,
then they become conscious; something really happens, and that makes them conscious. They
meet with something fatal and then they suddenly realise what they are doing . - From the
"Basel Seminar" (1934)
A Jungian personality - a well-rounded psychic whole - can be an adult ideal
The high ideal of educating the personality is not for children: for what is usually
meant by personality - a well-rounded psychic whole that is capable of resistance and
abounding in energy - is an adult ideal. It is only in an age like ours, when the individual
is unconscious of the problems of adult life, or - what is worse - when he consciously
shirks them, that people could wish to foist this ideal on to childhood. - "The Development
of the Personality" (1934). In CW 17: The Development of the Personality. P.286
A life lived in a black spirit is worth living? Not so.
Only a life lived in a certain spirit is worth living. It is a remarkable fact that
a life lived entirely from the ego is dull not only for the person himself but for all
concerned. - "Spirit and Life" (1926). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche. P. 645
Be cogent, it pays. He who lies in wait for a better fare, can endanger much as time
goes by.
He who is rooted in the soil endures. Alienation from the unconscious and from its
historical conditions spells rootlessness. That is the danger that lies in wait for the
conqueror of foreign lands, and for every individual who, through one-sided allegiance to
any kind of -ism, loses touch with the dark, maternal, earthy ground of his being. - "Mind
and Earth" (1927). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P. 103
Big practices. Big business
Even the so-called highly scientific suggestion therapy employs the wares of the
medicine-man and the exorcising shaman. And why not? The public is not much more advanced
either and continues to expect miraculous cures from the doctor. And indeed, we must rate
those doctors wiseworldly-wise in every sense-who know how to surround themselves with the
aura of a medicine-man. They have not only the biggest practices but also get the best
results. This is because, apart from the neuroses, countless physical illnesses are tainted
and complicated with psychic material to an unsuspected degree. The medical exorcist betrays
by his whole demeanour his full appreciation of that psychic component when he gives the
patient the opportunity of fixing his faith firmly on the mysterious personality of the
doctor. In this way he wins the sick man's mind, which from then on helps him to restore his
body to health. The cure works best when the doctor himself believes in his own formulae,
otherwise he may be overcome by scientific doubt and so lose the proper convincing tone. -
In CW 4: Freud and Psychoanalysis. P.578
Both conflict and emotion can give heat and motivate
The stirring up of conflict is a Lucipherian virtue in the true sense of the word.
Conflict engenders fire, the fire of affects and emotions, and like every other fire it has
two aspects, that of combustion and that of creating light. On the one hand, emotion is the
alchemical fire whose warmth brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all
superfluities to ashes (omnes superfluitates comburit). But on the other hand, emotion is
the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief
source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light or from inertia to
movement without emotion. - "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype" (1939). In
CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P. 179
Care for the expansion and consolidate what is praiseworthy from it later. Expansion of
goodwill is one expansion to be had among more
If we wish to stay on the heights we have reached, we must struggle all the time to
consolidate our consciousness and its attitude. But we soon discover that this praiseworthy
and apparently unavoidable battle with the years leads to stagnation and desiccation of
soul. Our convictions become platitudes ground out on a barrel-organ, our ideals become
starchy habits, enthusiasm stiffens into automatic gestures. The source of the water of life
seeps away. We ourselves may not notice it, but everybody else does, and that is even more
painful. If we should risk a little introspection, coupled perhaps with an energetic attempt
to be honest for once with ourselves, we may get a dim idea of all the wants, longings, and
fears that have accumulated down there-a repulsive and sinister sight. The mind shies away,
but life wants to flow down into the depths. Fate itself seems to preserve us from this, for
each of us has a tendency to become an immovable pillar of the past. - Symbols of
Transformation (1952). CW 5: P. 553
Change in ourselves may have to go before change in the surroundings, but most often
not, I figure. For a single person is no majority, most often.
If there is anything that we wish to change in our children, we should first examine
it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. Take our
enthusiasm for pedagogics. It may be that the boot is on the other leg. It may be that we
misplace the pedagogical need because it would be an uncomfortable reminder that we
ourselves are still children in many respects and still need a vast amount of educating. -
"The Development of the Personality" (1934). In CW 17: The Development of the
Personality. P.287
Dr. Jung: "A man should live as a man and a woman as a woman."
It is a woman's outstanding characteristic that she can do anything for the love of
a man. But those women who can achieve something important for the love of a thing are most
exceptional, because this does not really agree with their nature. Love for a thing is a
man's prerogative. But since masculine and feminine elements are united in our human nature,
a man can live in the feminine part of himself, I and a woman in her masculine part. None
the less the feminine element in man is only something in the background, as is the
masculine element in woman. If one lives out the opposite sex in oneself one is living in
one's own background, and one's real individuality suffers. A man should live as a man and a
woman as a woman. - "Woman in Europe" (1927) In CW 10: Civilization in Transition.
P. 243
Emptiness (like yin) is absurdly mother
Emptiness is a great feminine secret. It is something absolutely alien to man; the
chasm, the unplumbed depths, the yin. The pitifulness of this vacuous nonentity goes to his
heart (I speak here as a man), and one is tempted to say that this constitutes the whole
"mystery" of woman. Such a female is fate itself. A man may say what he likes about it; be
for it or against it, or both at once; in the end he falls, absurdly happy, into this pit,
or, if he does not, he has missed and bungled his only chance of making a man of himself. In
the first case one cannot disprove his foolish good luck to him, and in the second one
cannot make his misfortune seem plausible. "The Mothers, the Mothers, how eerily it sounds!"
- "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype" (1939). In CW 8: The Structure
and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.183
Here is how to learn the greatest lesson from the lamentable ruin India: In the
lamplight they look if possible "more (and how beautifully!) wicked" - fond of amazing
obscenities. If you have done good work, you will have learned something.
If you want to learn the greatest lesson India can teach you, wrap yourself in the
cloak of your moral superiority, go to the Black Pagoda of Konarak, sit down in the shadow
of the mighty ruin that is still covered with the most amazing collection of obscenities,
read Murray's cunning old Handbook for India, which tells you how to be properly shocked by
this lamentable state of affairs, and how you should go into the temples in the evening,
because in the lamplight they look if possible "more (and how beautifully!) wicked"; and
then analyse carefully and with the utmost honesty all your reactions, feelings, and
thoughts. It will take you quite a while, but in the end, if you have done good work, you
will have learned something about yourself, and about the white man in general, which you
have probably never heard from anyone else. - "What India Can Teach Us" (1939). In
CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P.1013
Individuality can be both uncommon and difficult to handle till it becomes
full-fledged
To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed;
and suddenly we realise how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality in fact is.
- "The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1928). In CW 7: Two Essays
on Analytical Psychology. P. 242
Inside the boy we talk of, is an inborn feminine, definite yet unconscious image of the
great female, a sum of all the ancestral experiences of her
Every man carries within him the eternal image of woman, not the image of this or
that particular woman, but a definite feminine image. This image is fundamentally
unconscious, an hereditary factor of primordial origin engraved in the living organic system
of the man, an imprint or "archetype" of all the ancestral experiences of the female, a
deposit, as it were, of all the impressions ever made by woman-in short, an inherited system
of psychic adaptation. Even if no women existed, it would still be possible, at any given
time, to deduce from this unconscious image exactly how a woman would have to be constituted
psychically. The same is true of the woman: she too has her inborn image of man. - "Marriage
as a Psychological Relationship" (1925) In CW 17: The Development of the
Personality. P.338
It generally helps to see into the history of each "client"
The psychology of the individual can never be exhaustively explained from himself
alone: a clear recognition is needed of the way it is also conditioned by historical and
environmental circumstances. His individual psychology is not merely a physiological,
biological, or personal problem; it is also a contemporary problem. - Psychological Types
(1921). CW 6: P. 717
Man should not invest his parents with divinity, neither from some castration-complex or
divine-mother-fixation
A mother-complex is not got rid of by blindly reducing the mother to human
proportions. Besides that we run the risk of dissolving the experience "Mother" into atoms,
thus destroying something supremely valuable and throwing away the golden key which a good
fairy laid in our cradle. That is why mankind has always instinctively added the
pre-existent divine pair to the personal parents - the "god"-father and "god"-mother of the
new-born child - so that, from sheer unconsciousness or short-sighted rationalism, he should
never forget himself so far as to invest his own parents with divinity. - "Psychological
Aspects of the Mother Archetype" (1939) In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious P.172
Man's mind has its outlets in the man-formed and faceted world, so science is a function
of the mind. The greatest of all cosmic wonders is the mind of man inside.
Every science is a function of the mind, and all knowledge is rooted in it. The mind
is the greatest of all cosmic wonders. - "On the Nature of the Psyche" (1947). In
CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.357
Medicine, next redundant, all if specific moulding is out of question
Medicine in the hand of a fool was ever poison and death. just as we demand from a
surgeon, besides his technical knowledge, a skilled hand, courage, presence of mind, and
power of decision, so we must expect from an analyst a very serious and thorough
psychoanalytic training of his own personality before we are willing to entrust a patient to
him. I would even go so far as to say that the acquisition and practice of the
psychoanalytic technique presuppose not only a specific psychological gift but in the very
first place a serious concern with the moulding of one's own character. - "The Theory of
Psychoanalysis" (1913). In CW 4: Freud and Psychoanalysis. P.450
Nothing of great value demands that you monopolise its flow, methinks
A person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire. It is as though each
of us was born with a limited store of energy. In the artist, the strongest force in his
make-up, that is, his creativeness, will seize and all but monopolise this energy, leaving
so little over that nothing of value can come of it. The creative impulse can drain him of
his humanity to such a degree that the personal ego can exist only on a primitive or
inferior level and is driven to develop all sorts of defects-ruthlessness, selfishness
("autoeroticism"), vanity, and other infantile traits. These inferiorities are the only
means by which it can maintain its vitality and prevent itself from being wholly depleted. -
"Psychology and Literature" (1930). In CW 15: The Spirit in Man, Art and
Literature. P. 158
The mental field is to be looked into a group of phenomena in its own right
A psychology that treats the mind as an epiphenomenon would better call itself
brain-psychology, and remain satisfied with the meagre results that such a psycho-physiology
can yield. The mind deserves to be taken as a phenomenon in its own right; there are no
grounds at all for regarding it as a mere epiphenomenon, dependent though it may be on the
functioning of the brain. One would be as little justified in regarding life as an
epiphenomenon of the chemistry of carbon compounds. - "On Psychic Energy" (1928). In
CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. pp.10
The rigmarole expert is too good to be true if he takes part in a reciprocal web of pose
and bluff
The masculinity of the woman and the femininity of the man are inferior, and it is
regrettable that the full value of their personalities should be contaminated by something
that is less valuable. On the other hand, the shadow belongs to the wholeness of the
personality: the strong man must somewhere be weak, somewhere the clever man must be stupid,
otherwise he is too good to be true and falls back on pose and bluff. Is it not an old truth
that woman loves the weaknesses of the strong man more than his strength, and the stupidity
of the clever man more than his cleverness ? - Die Anima als Schicksalsproblem des Mannes
(1963) Foreward by C.G. Jung. In CW 18 261
The thing you fight you hardly become, no matter what Dr. Jung says.
You always become the thing you fight the most. - "Diagnosing the Dictators." In
Hearst's International Cosmopolitan, January 1939 pp.22
To act merely judgingly is hardly the best, but it helps in some cases
To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. Once one has
experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins
to understand what is meant by the self. Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light
simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle. - "Good and Evil in
Analytical Psychology" (1959). In CW 10. Civilization in Transition. P.872
To some highest experience without ado
As a doctor it is my task to help the patient to cope with life. I cannot presume to
pass judgement on his final decisions, because I know from experience that all coercion-be
it suggestion, insinuation, or any other method of persuasion-ultimately proves to be
nothing but an obstacle to the highest and most decisive experience of all, which is to be
alone with his own self, or whatever else one chooses to call the objectivity of the mind.
The patient must be alone if he is to find out what it is that supports him when he can no
longer support himself. Only this experience can give him an indestructible foundation. -
Psychology and Alchemy (1944) CW 12: P.32
Too little of a thing results in compensations. Twisted authority is a contribution to
having too little to begin with.
The mind is a self-regulating system that maintains its equilibrium just as the body
does. Every process that goes too far immediately and inevitably calls forth compensations,
and without these there would be neither a normal metabolism nor a normal mind. In this
sense we can take the theory of compensation as a basic law of psychic behaviour. Too little
on one side results in too much on the other. - "The Practical Use of Dream Analysis"
(1934). In CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy. P.330
What we call individuality is different from shared, conform adaptations and hence can
cause immense troubles
Although biological instinctive processes contribute to the formation of
personality, individuality is nevertheless essentially different from collective instincts;
indeed, it stands in the most direct opposition to them, just as the individual as a
personality is always distinct from the collective. His essence consists precisely in this
distinction. Every ego-psychology must necessarily exclude and ignore just the collective
element that is bound to a psychology of instinct, since it describes that very process by
which the ego becomes differentiated from collective drives. - Psychological Types (1921).
CW 6. P.88
When we begin to do something good, revenge lurks backstage.
We all have a great need to be good ourselves, and occasionally we like to show it
by the appropriate actions. If good can come of evil self-interest, then the two sides of
human nature have co-operated. But when in a fit of enthusiasm we begin with the good, our
deep-rooted selfishness remains in the background, unsatisfied and resentful, only waiting
for an opportunity to take its revenge in the most atrocious way. - "Return to the Simple
Life" In DU I:3 (May 1941) In CW 18: P. 56
Committed to safeguarding for good results ◊◊
No psychotherapist should lack that natural reserve which prevents people from
riding roughshod over mysteries they do not understand and trampling them flat. This reserve
will enable him to pull back in good time when he encounters the mystery of the patient's
difference from himself, and to avoid the danger-unfortunately only too real-of committing
psychic murder in the name of therapy. For the ultimate cause of a neurosis is something
positive which needs to be safeguarded for the patient; otherwise he suffers a psychic loss,
and the result of the treatment is at best a defective cure. - "The Realities of Practical
Psychotherapy" (1937). In CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy. P.564
Creative fantasies can aid in development of the character, because sound personality
development is on top of seminal life-urges (libido) and it goes on by stages (Eriksonian
and others). If fed and satisfied, these id sides - that also bake fantasies around their
essential focuses of interests (needs), in time give a true character - by id. If thwarted,
the full-fledged, possible personality has to be stunted or dwarfed from it. It can be from
unsatisfactory, public schooling as well.
Hidden in the neurosis is a bit of still undeveloped personality, a precious
fragment of the mind lacking which a man is condemned to resignation, bitterness, and
everything else that is hostile to life. A psychology of neurosis that sees only the
negative elements empties out the baby with the bath-water, since it neglects the positive
meaning and value of these "infantile' i.e., creative-fantasies. - "The State of
Psychotherapy Today" (1934). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P.355
If it helps, confess yourself fallible and human, otherwise keep intimate matters
private without end
There would appear to be a sort of conscience in mankind which severely punishes
every one who does not somehow and at some time, at whatever cost to his virtuous pride,
cease to defend and assert himself, and instead confess himself fallible and human. Until he
can do this, an impenetrable wall shuts him off from the vital feeling that he is a man
among other men. - "Problems of Modern Psychotherapy" (1929). In CW 16: The
Practice of Psychotherapy. P.132
Let the Eastern man experience the world and his own ego like a dream, and see how far
he can come by dreaming up all.
Western man is held in thrall by the "ten thousand things"; he sees only
particulars, he is ego-bound and thing-bound, and unaware of the deep root of all being.
Eastern man, on the other hand, experiences the world of particulars, and even his own ego,
like a dream; he is rooted essentially in the "Ground," which attracts him so powerfully
that his relations with the world are relativised to a degree that is often incomprehensible
to us. - Psychology and Alchemy (1944). CW 12: P.8
Suffering tends to isolate in time: stay in tune
In the case of psychological suffering, which always isolates the individual from
the herd of so-called normal people, it is of the greatest importance to understand that the
conflict is not a personal failure only, but at the same time a suffering common to all and
a problem with which the whole epoch is burdened. This general point of view lifts the
individual out of himself and connects him with humanity. - Analytical Psychology: Its
Theory and Practice: The Tavistock Lectures. (1935). In CW 18 (retitled) "The
Tavistock Lectures" P.116
To be Procrustes-averaged and hopeless "normal" is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful,
says Dr. Carl Jung.
To be "normal" is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful, for all those who are still
below the general level of adaptation. But for people of more than average ability, people
who never found it difficult to gain successes and to accomplish their share of the world's
work-for them the moral compulsion to be nothing but normal signifies the bed of
Procrustes-deadly and insupportable boredom, a hell of sterility and hopelessness. -
"Problems of Modern Psychotherapy" (1929). In CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy.
P. 161
Utterly impractical things India can teach us is there to intrude and disturb North
Americans
The true genius nearly always intrudes and disturbs. He speaks to a temporal world
out of a world eternal. He says the wrong things at the right time. Eternal truths are never
true at any given moment in history. The process of transformation has to make a halt in
order to digest and assimilate the utterly impractical things that the genius has produced
from the storehouse of eternity. Yet the genius is the healer of his time, because anything
he reveals of eternal truth is healing. - "What India Can Teach Us" (1939). In CW
10: Civilization in Transition. P. 1004
What is held to be real things interdepend on your deep mind's structural programs and
selections, how the mind that perceives them, works and is. Outer facets of the world are
interlinked with inner, dormant biases and deep twin semblances that pertain to
fantasy-formed cognitions
I know nothing of a "super-reality." Reality contains everything I can know, for
everything that acts upon me is real and actual. If it does not act upon me, then I notice
nothing and can, therefore, know nothing about it. Hence I can make statements only about
real things, but not about things that are unreal, or surreal, or subreal. Unless, of
course, it should occur to someone to limit the concept of reality in such a way that the
attribute "real" applied only to a particular segment of the world's reality. This
restriction to the so-called material or concrete reality of objects perceived by the senses
is a product of a particular way of thinking-the thinking that underlies "sound common
sense" and our ordinary use of language. It operates on the celebrated principle "Nihil est
in intellectu quod non antea fuerit in sensu," regardless of the fact that there are very
many things in the mind which did not derive from the data of the senses. According to this
view, everything is "real" which comes, or seems to come, directly or indirectly from the
world revealed by the senses. This limited picture of the world is a reflection of the
one-sidedness of Western man. - "The Real and the Surreal" (1933). In CW 8: The
Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.745
Gurus may insists that man is the sole cause of his higher development, but in sharp
opposition to the Christian West ◊◊◊
The Christian West considers man to be wholly dependent upon the grace of God, or at
least upon the Church as the exclusive and divinely sanctioned earthly instrument of man's
redemption. The East, however, insists that man is the sole cause of his higher development,
for it believes in "self- liberation." - The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation (1954).
Psychological Commentary (written in 1939) by C.G. Jung In CW 11: Psychology and
Religion: West and East. P.770
It pays to be on guard against one absolute and indomitable, soothing explanation, as it
expresses abuse of power
The genius will come through despite everything, for there is something absolute and
indomitable in his nature. The so-called "misunderstood genius" is rather a doubtful
phenomenon. Generally he turns out to be a good-for-nothing who is forever seeking a
soothing explanation of himself. - "The Gifted Child" (1943). In CW 17: The
Development of Personality. P. 248
When you identify yourself with your office or title, you behave inferiorly, also. Few
know it
The office I hold is certainly my special activity; but it is also a collective
factor that has come into existence historically through the co-operation of many people and
whose dignity rests solely on collective approval. When, therefore, I identify myself with
my office or title, I behave as though I myself were the whole complex of social factors of
which that office consists, or as though I were not only the bearer of the office, but also
and at the same time the approval of society. I have made an extraordinary extension of
myself and have usurped qualities which are not in me but outside Me. - "The Relations
Between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1953) In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical
Psychology. P.227
Inside the close circle of childhood and its brought on self-esteem, motivations
normally start by guess or hunch to begin with (9)
The middle period of life is a time of enormous psychological importance. The child
begins its psychological life within very narrow limits, inside the magic circle of the
mother and the family. With progressive maturation it widens its horizon and its own sphere
of influence; its hopes and intentions are directed to extending the scope of personal power
and possessions; desire reaches out to the world in ever-widening range; the will of the
individual becomes more and more identical with the natural goals pursued by unconscious
motivations. Thus man breathes his own life into things, until finally they begin to live of
themselves and to multiply; and imperceptibly he is overgrown by them. Mothers are overtaken
by their children, men by their own creations, and what was originally brought into being
only with labour and the greatest effort can no longer be held in check. First it was
passion, then it became duty, and finally an intolerable burden, a vampire that fattens on
the life of its creator. - "Marriage as a Psychological Relationship" (1925). In CW
17: The Development of the Personality. P. 331
Man is also the largely erring animal
Man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone
carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the
blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct
it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually
subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never
gets corrected. - "Psychology and Religion" (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and
Religion: West and East. P.131
10
This is a solution, in other words it furthers progress that can be irrespective of one
path
Every advance in culture is, psychologically, an extension of consciousness, a
coming to consciousness that can take place only through discrimination. Therefore an
advance always begins with individuation, that is to say with the individual, conscious of
his isolation, cutting a new path through hitherto untrodden territory. To do this he must
first return to the fundamental facts of his own being, irrespective of all authority and
tradition, and allow himself to become conscious of his distinctiveness. If he succeeds in
giving collective validity to his widened consciousness, he creates a tension of opposites
that provides the stimulation which culture needs for its further progress. - "On Psychic
Energy" (1928). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 111
- Knowledge tends to help us make sense of even seemingly senseless dreams, and eventually puts Jung's knowledge aside for the sake of Deep Mind.
- Living for the present will not turn out well, since the present becomes past any time. But to get greatly aware in the present, may work very well. Similarly, understanding of merely present issues tends to get too shallow in time
- It seems that most conform persons are estranged from their own selves, and not without reason. Deep, shared urges account for that. Thus, on the right track keep intimate matters private.
Make sense of recurrent, impressive dreams to promote the happy resolution. Thereby you may still be on intimatae terms with deeper sides to yourself, and not all too estranged.
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