Jung Thought to Consider ☼

1. 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

Simply aim for adequate knowledge

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

One is to 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

2. 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]

3. 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

4. Fundamentals eke out progress

A solution may have it in it to promote progress irrespective of a single person's 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

So

Keep intimate matters private. Make sense of recurrent, impressive dreams to promote the happy resolution. Thereby we may still be on intimate terms with deeper sides to ourselves, and not all too estranged.

Living for the present will not turn out well, since the present becomes past any time. But to get greatly aware in the present can work well, while understanding of merely present issues tends to get too shallow as time goes by. There are often deeper trends to make out of. Shared urges account for much of that.