“I am strongly convinced that the evil principle prevailing in this world leads the unrecognized spiritual need into perdition if it is not counteracted either by a real religious insight or by the protective wall of human community. An ordinary man, not protected by an action from above and isolated in society cannot resist the power of evil, which is called very aptly, the Devil. But the use of such words arouses so many mistakes that one can only keep aloof from them as much as possible.” Jung, C. G. (1976), Letters, Volume 2. Princeton University Press. (p 623). 

“(…) emotion is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes…. 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.” C. G. Jung, Collected Works 9i, para. 179

Freud said once to Marie Bonaparte: “The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?’”  

“I experienced this objectivity once again later on. That was after the
death of my wife. I saw her in a dream which was like a vision. She
stood at some distance from me, looking at me squarely. She was
in her prime, perhaps about thirty, and wearing the dress which had
been made for her many years before by my cousin the medium. It
was perhaps the most beautiful thing she had ever worn. Her
expression was neither joyful nor sad, but, rather, objectively wise
and understanding, without the slightest emotional reaction, as
though she were beyond the mist of affects. I knew that it was not
she, but a portrait she had made or commissioned for me. It
contained the beginning of our relationship, the events of fifty-three
years of marriage, and the end of her life also. Face to face with
such wholeness one remains speechless, for it can scarcely be
comprehended.” C G Jung, MDR p. 357

“…it is easy to see how the severe pattern imposed by a circular image of this kind compensates the disorder of the psychic state– namely through the construction of a central point to which everything is related, or by a concentric arrangement of the disordered multiplicity and of contradictory and irreconcilable elements.” C. G. Jung

“I am only too conscious that synchronicity is a highly abstract and ‘irrepresentable’ quantity. It ascribes to the moving body a certain psychoid property which, like space, time, and causality, forms a criterion of its behaviour. We must completely give up the idea of the psyche’s being somehow connected with the brain, and remember instead the ‘meaningful’ or ‘intelligent’ behaviour of the lower organisms, which are without a brain. Here we find ourselves much closer to the formal factor which, as I have said, has nothing to do with brain activity.” (Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle; from Vol. 8., p 103)

“When emotion is withheld it tends to isolate and disturb us quite as much as an unconscious secret, and is equally guilt-laden. Just as nature bears us ill- will, as it were, if we possess a secret to which man­kind has not attained, so also has she a grudge against us if we withhold our emotions from our fellow-men. Nature decidedly abhors a vacuum in this respect, in the long run nothing is more unbearable than a tepid harmony in personal relations brought about by with­holding emotion. The repressed emotions are often of a kind we wish to keep secret. But more often there is no secret worthy of the name; there are merely quite avowable emotions which, from being withheld at some important juncture, have become unconscious.” Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, p. 36

“The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interests upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance. Thus we demand that the world grant us recognition for qualities which we regard as personal possessions: our talent or our beauty. The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life. He feels limited because he has limited aims, and the result is envy and jealousy. If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change.” C.G.Jung, MDR

“There is another way in which loneliness attracts evil: if you live alone and away from a human community for a very long time, then the tribe, the other people, project their shadow onto you and there is no correcting factor. For instance, after very long holidays in which I do not see my analysands, I often find that when I come back they have slowly spun a web of the most amazing negative ideas about me. That is why the French say, “Les absents ont toujours tort” (the absent ones are always wrong). They think I do this or that, but when they see me again they say, “Why on earth did I believe that? Now that we are together again I cannot even imagine that I could think such things about you.” The actual warm human contact dissipates those clouds of projection, but if one is away for a long time and the tie of affection and feeling loosens, people begin to project.” (Marie-Louise von Franz, SHADOW AND EVIL IN FAIRY TALES, p. 187)

“To the extent that I managed to translate the emotions into
images—that is to say, to find the images which were concealed in
the emotions—I was inwardly calmed and reassured. Had I left
those images hidden in the emotions, I might have been torn to
pieces by them. There is a chance that I might have succeeded in
splitting them off; but in that case I would inexorably have fallen into
a neurosis and so been ultimately destroyed by them anyhow. As a
result of my experiment I learned how helpful it can be, from the
therapeutic point of view, to find the particular images which lie
behind emotions.” (Jung, 1965, pp. 307-308)

“ We must be able to let things happen in the psyche. For us, this is an art of which most people know nothing.” (Jung, CW 13, par. 20)

“The archetype is, so to speak, an ‘eternal’ presence, and it is only a question of whether it is perceived by the conscious mind or not.”  (Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 329)

“Life wants to create new forms, and therefore, when a dogma loses its vitality, it must perforce activate the archetype that has always helped man to express the mystery of the soul.” (Jung, CW 14, par 488)

“I can understand modern works of art only as idols from the underworld, and they become accessible to me only through a knowledge of the psychology of the unconscious. They do not affect me aesthetically. It may very well be that my attitude is that of a Philistine, but God knows I can’t find them beautiful. Perhaps other centuries will, in which case I am thankful to the Creator that man doesn’t live for 200 years, otherwise he would suddenly find himself in an age in which he would choke to death.”  (C.G. Jung’s Letter to Hans Welti 12/23/1932, Vol. 1)

“Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom I meet here for the first time, avail thyself of this happy hour and of the stillness around us, and above us, and let me tell thee something of the thought which has suddenly risen before me like a star which would fain shed down its rays upon thee and every one, as befits the nature of light. – Fellow man! Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be reversed and will ever run out again, – a long minute of time will elapse until all those conditions out of which you were evolved return in the wheel of the cosmic process. And then you will find every pain and every pleasure, every friend and every enemy, every hope and every error, every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole fabric of things which make up your life. This ring in which you are but a grain will glitter afresh forever. And in every one of these cycles of human life there will be one hour where, for the first time one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal recurrence of all things:– and for mankind this is always the hour of Noon”.

(Notes on the Eternal Recurrence – Vol. 16 of Oscar Levy Edition of Nietzsche’s Complete Works)

“The apparently unendurable conflict is proof of the rightness of your life. A life without inner contradiction is either only half a life or else a life in the Beyond, which is destined only for angels. But God loves human beings more than the angels.” (C.G. Jung Letters, vol. 1, p. 375.)

“The psychologist cannot avoid coming to grips with contemporary history, even if his soul shrinks from the political uproar, the lying propaganda and the jarring speeches of demagogues. We need not mention his duties as a citizen, which confront him with a similar task.” (C.G. Jung, 1964, p.177)

“With more foreboding than real knowledge, most people feel afraid of the menacing power that lies fettered in each of us, only waiting for the magic word to release it from the spell. This magic word, which always ends in ‘ism,’ works most successfully with those who have the least access to their interior selves and have strayed the furthest from their instinctual roots into the truly chaotic world of collective consciousness.” CW 8, par. 405, Jung

“The fact that a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing … He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering to him of new and wonderful paths … There are not a few who are called awake by the summons of the voice, whereupon they are at once set apart from the others, feeling themselves confronted with a problem about which the others know nothing. In most cases it is impossible to explain to the others what has happened, for any understanding is walled off by impenetrable prejudices. “You are no different from anybody else,” they will chorus or, “there’s no such thing,” and even if there is such a thing, it is immediately branded as “morbid”…He is at once set apart and isolated, as he has resolved to obey the law that commands him from within. “His own law!” everybody will cry. But he knows better: it is the law…The only meaningful life is a life that strives for the individual realization — absolute and unconditional— of its own particular law … To the extent that a man is untrue to the law of his being … he has failed to realize his own life’s meaning.” (Jung, MDR)

“A group experience takes place on a lower level of consciousness than the experience of an individual. This is due to the fact that, when many people gather together to share one common emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group is below the level of the individual psyche. If it is a very large group, the collective psyche will be more like the psyche of an animal, which is the reason why the ethical attitude of large organizations is always doubtful. The psychology of a large crowd inevitably sinks to the level of mob psychology. If, therefore, I have a so-called collective experience as a member of a group, it takes place on a lower level of consciousness than if I had the experience by myself alone.” C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, CW 9i.

“The spirit of evil is fear, negation, the adversary who opposes life in its struggles for eternal duration and thwarts every great deed, who infuses into the body the poison of weakness and age through the treacherous bite of the serpent; he is the spirit of regression, who threatens us with bondage to the mother and with dissolution and extinction in the unconscious. For the hero, fear is a challenge and a task because only boldness can deliver from fear. And if the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is somewhat violated, and the whole future is condemned to hopeless staleness, to a dab grey lit by will-o’-the-wisps.” Carl Jung, CW 5 (1956), para 551.

“Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the Shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” (Carl Jung, The Philosophical Tree, 1945, In CW 13: Alchemical Studies, p.335)

“Think of nearly two thousand years of Christian Idealism followed, not by the return of the Messiah and the heavenly millennium, but by the World War among Christian nations with its barbed wire and poison gas. What a catastrophe in heaven and on earth! In the face of such a picture we may well grow humble again.” Jung, CW 10, par. 154-5

“Religions are psychotherapeutic systems in the most actual meaning of the word, and in the widest measure.” Jung

“The biographies of great artists make it abundantly clear that the creative urge is often so imperious that it battens on their humanity and yokes everything to the service of the work, even at the cost of health and ordinary human happiness. The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a force of nature that achieves its end either with tyrannical might or with the subtle cunning of nature herself, quite regardless of the personal fate of the man who is its vehicle.”  Jung, The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature,1930

“In the threatening situation of the world today, when people are beginning to see that everything is at stake, the projection-creating fantasy soars beyond the realm of earthly organizations and powers into the heavens, into interstellar space, where the rulers of human fate, the gods, once had their abode in the planets…. Even people who would never have thought that a religious problem could be a serious matter that concerned them personally are beginning to ask themselves fundamental questions. Under these circumstances it would not be at all surprising if those sections of the community who ask themselves nothing were visited by visions,’ by a widespread myth seriously believed in by some and rejected as absurd by others.” Carl Jung, 1959, On UFO, p. 25.

“We have no symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul – the daily need of the soul, mind you! And because people have no such thing, they can never step out of this mill – this awful, banal, grinding life in which they are “nothing but.”…Everything is banal; everything is “nothing but,” and that is the reason why people are neurotic. They are simply sick of the whole thing, sick of that banal life, and therefore they want sensation. They even want a war, they all want a war, they are all glad when there is a war, they say, “Thank heaven, now something is going to happen – something bigger than ourselves!” These things go pretty deep, and no wonder people get neurotic. Life is too rational; there is no symbolic existence in which I am something else, in which I am fulfilling my role, my role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life.”  (C.G. Jung, CW 18, The Symbolic Life, Chapter III)

“Consciousness does not create itself – it wells up from unknown depths. In childhood it awakens gradually, and all through life it wakes each morning out of the depths of sleep from an unconscious condition. It is like a child that is born daily out of the primordial womb of the unconscious. (…) It is not only influenced by the unconscious but continually emerges out of it in the form of numberless spontaneous ideas and sudden flashes of thought.” (Jung, The Psychology of Eastern Meditation, CW 11, par. 935)

“There are two distinct ways in which consciousness arises. The one is a moment of high emotional tension, comparable to the scene in Parsifal where the hero, at the very moment of greatest temptation, suddenly realizes the meaning of Amfortas’ wound. The other is a state of contemplation, in which ideas pass before the mind like dream-images. Suddenly there is a flash of association between two apparently disconnected and widely separated ideas, and this has the effect of releasing a latent tension. Such a moment often works like a revelation. In every case it seems to be the discharge of energy-tension, whether external or internal, which produces consciousness.” (Jung, Analytical Psychology and Education, CW 17, par. 207)

“If the connection between the personal problem and the larger contemporary events is discerned and understood, it brings release from the loneliness of the purely personal, and the subjective problem is magnified into a general question of our society. In this way the personal problem acquires a dignity it lacked hitherto.” (C.G.Jung, Psychological Types, 69:911)

“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.” Carl Jung

“I should advise you to put it all down as beautifully as you can — in some beautifully bound book, It will seem as if you were making the visions banal — but then you need to do that — then you are freed from the power of them. . . . Then when these things are in some precious book you can go to the book & turn over the pages & for you it will be your church — your cathedral — the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal. If anyone tells you that it is morbid or neurotic and you listen to them — then you will lose your soul — for in that book is your soul.” Jung. 

“. . . The idea of God is an absolutely necessary psychological function of an irrational nature, which has nothing whatever to do with the question of God’s existence. The human intellect can never
answer this question, still less give any proof of God. Moreover such proof is superfluous, for the idea of an all-powerful divine Being is present everywhere, unconsciously if not consciously, because it is an
archetype. There is in the psyche some superior power, and if it is not consciously a god, it is the “belly” at least, in St. Paul’s words. I therefore consider it wiser to acknowledge the idea of God consciously; for, if we
do not, something else is made God, usually something quite inappropriate and stupid such as only an “enlightened” intellect could hatch forth. Our intellect has long known that we can form no proper idea of
God, much less picture to ourselves in what manner he really exists, if at all. The existence of God is once and for all an unanswerable question.” (Carl Jung, CW 7, par.110)

“You are quite right, the main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character.” (C. G. Jung Letters, I p. 377)

“Since psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world… it is not only possible but fairly probable…that psyche and matter are two different aspects of one and the same thing.”  (C. G. Jung CW vol VIII P. 215)

“The Anima possessed man is a spineless wimp who does not know when or how to take action in the world. He is moody and sulky and throws tantrums like a toddler. Although very passive, he totally overreacts to slights and confrontations. He is not appropriate in his actions, either he is paralyzed and can’t find the energy to do what needs to be done, or he jumps into action when he should be thinking about it first.” (Anima and Animus in Fairy Tales, 2002)

“The causalism that underlies our scientific picture of the world breaks everything down into individual processes which it punctiliously tries to isolate from all other parallel processes. This tendency is absolutely necessary if we are to gain a reliable knowledge of the world; but philosophically it has the disadvantage of breaking up, or obscuring, the universal interrelationship of events so that a recognition of the greater relationship, i.e., the unity of the world, becomes more and more difficult. Everything that happens, however, happens in the same “one world” and is part of it. For this reason events must have an a priori aspect of unity.” (Jung, CW 14, p. 464)

“It always seemed to me as if the real milestones were certain symbolic events characterized by a strong emotional tone. You are quite right, the main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character” (Jung, Letters 1973, 1:377).

“Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.” (C. G. Jung, Psychological Reflections, p. 281)

“One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil.” (Carl Jung, Letter to Sigmund Freud (quoting Zarathustra, 1912)

“Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” (Jung, 1967:265, par. 335)

“My work is not connected in any way with university institutes. Consequently we have no polyclinical material at our disposal. Also, you cannot possibly learn analytical psychology by studying its object, since it consists exclusively of what you don’t know about yourself. You can see in another person only what you yourself know. But what you yourself already know you don’t need to learn. Also it is quite impossible for two of you to conduct a real analysis of a third person. In that way you would never get at the other person at all. When I suggested that you work on your own material, I did so not because I was of the opinion that this is a treatment but because it is the sine qua non for learning analysis. You yourself must be able to fulfil everything you expect of your patient. If you expect him to hand out his intimate experiences, you must first of all be in a position to do it at least three times better. No analysis of another person will ever provide this unique experience which the analysis of your own material can give you. Only in this way do you learn to recognize the living psychic process which is not identical with consciousness. No one who has not experienced analysis in his own person has a right to practice it. This is my firm conviction and I shan’t budge from it under any circumstances. If you agree with this, then we can consider further possibilities.” (Jung, Letter to Danzer-Vanotti, 1932)

“. . . The idea of God is an absolutely necessary psychological function of an irrational nature, which has nothing whatever to do with the question of God’s existence. The human intellect can never answer this question, still less give any proof of God. Moreover such proof is superfluous, for the idea of an all-powerful divine Being is present everywhere, unconsciously if not consciously, because it is an archetype. There is in the psyche some superior power, and if it is not consciously a god, it is the “belly” at least, in St. Paul’s words. I therefore consider it wiser to acknowledge the idea of God consciously; for, if we do not, something else is made God, usually something quite inappropriate and stupid such as only an “enlightened” intellect could hatch forth. Our intellect has long known that we can form no proper idea of God, much less picture to ourselves in what manner he really exists, if at all. The existence of God is once and for all an unanswerable question. . .” Carl Jung, CW7, par.110

 

“And because we want and yet cannot think out what it is we really want, the . . .conflict is largely unconscious, and thence comes neurosis. Neurosis, therefore, is intimately bound up with the problem of our time and really represents an unsuccessful attempt on the part of the individual to solve the general problem in his own person. Neurosis is self-division.” Jung CW 7, §430

 

“We should not try to ‘get rid’ of a neurosis, but rather to experience what it means, what it has to teach, what its purpose is. We should even learn to be thankful for it, otherwise we pass it by and miss the opportunity of getting to know ourselves as we really are. A neurosis is truly removed only when it has removed the false attitude of the ego. We do not cure it – it cures us. A person is ill, but the illness is nature’s attempt to heal the person. From the illness itself we can learn so much for our recovery, and what the neurotic flings away as absolutely worthless contains the true gold we should never have found elsewhere.” (C.G. Jung, CW 10, p.179)

 

“The sight of evil kindles evil in the soul…. The victim is not the only sufferer; everybody in the vicinity of the crime, including the murderer, suffers with him. Something of the abysmal darkness of the world has broken in on us, poisoning the very air we breathe and befouling the water with the stale, nauseating taste of blood.” (Jung, 1945, After the catastrophe; CW 10, p.199)

 

“Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.” (Jung, RB, Liber Secundus, 108)

 

“…is the outcome of a definite view of life endowing the occurrence, whether great or small, with a meaning to which a certain deeper value is given than to pure actuality” (Jung, CW 6, 1921, p. 604).

 

“So far as my experience goes, these four basic functions seem to me sufficient to express and represent the various modes of conscious orientation—these four basic functions are seldom or never uniformly differentiated and equally at our disposal. As a rule one or the other function occupies the foreground, while the rest remain undifferentiated in the background.” (CW 6, par. 900, 901)

 

“I cannot prove to you that God exists, but my work has proved empirically that the pattern of God exists in every man and that this pattern in the individual has at its disposal the greatest transforming energies of which life is capable.  Find this pattern in your own individual self and life is transformed.” (Jung, Letter to Lauerence van Der Post)

 

“The unconscious no sooner touches us than we are it – we become unconscious of ourselves. That is the age-old danger, instinctively known and feared by primitive man, who himself stands so very close to this pleroma. His consciousness is still uncertain, wobbling on its feet. It is still childish, having just emerged from the primal waters. A wave of the unconscious may easily roll over it, and then he forgets who he was and does things that are strange to him.” (Jung, 1951, p.25)

 

„Sotva se nás nevědomí jen dotkne, a už jsme jím – stáváme se nevědomi sebe sama. To je ono prastaré nebezpečí, instinktivně známé a obávané primitivním člověkem, který osamocen stojí tak blízko k Plérómatu. Jeho vědomí je dosud nejisté, sotva se drží na nohou. Je doposud dětinské, sotva se vynořilo z prapůvodních vodstev. Vlna nevědomí se přes něj může kdykoli převalit a on pak rázem zapomene, kým byl, a dělá prapodivné věci. Primitivové se právě proto bojí nezvladatelných emocí, neboť se pod jejich tíhou láme vědomí, čímž je dán průchod posedlosti. Veškeré úsilí člověka se tudíž vždy zaměřovalo na konsolidaci vědomí. V tom vězel smysl rituálu a dogmat; ony byly přehradami a hradbami, které měly za úkol zadržet nebezpečí nevědomí, nástrahy duše.”  (Jung 1951a, str. 25)

 

“Naturally, a doctor must be familiar with the so-called “methods.” But he must guard against falling into any specific, routine approach. In general one must guard against theoretical assumptions. … In my analyses they play no part. I am unsystematic very much by intention. We need a different language for every patient.” (Jung, 1963, p. 153)

 

“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.” (Stages of life, p. 111, C. G. Jung)

 

“Therefore anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, 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, … he would reap richer stores of knowledge…” (Jung, CW 7, par. 409)

 

“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.  That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.”
(Jung, in Aion, CW 9ii, § 126)

 

“One without a myth is like one uprooted, having no true link either with the past, or with the ancestral life which continues within him, or even yet within contemporary human society.”
(Jung, CW 5, pp. xxvi)

 

“Důvody k přijetí konspiračních teorií můžeme hledat v „zatemnění“ vědomí spíše osobními nevědomými obsahy, kdežto u fundamentalistických náboženských postojů se jedna o hlubinné archetypální energie, jež jsou výrazně odštěpeny od já. Nezpracovaný rasismus může vést k „teorii” rasové nadřazenosti, odmítané homosexuální sklony (tzv. closet homosexual) mohou vést k nenávistnému pronásledování gayů, strach z vlastních citů a ženských aspektů může vést k ponižování nebo pokořování žen, nevědomý komplex méněcennosti zase k „teorii” všemocných iluminátů, kteří ovládají planetu. U „temného náboženství“ se ale „já“ „skrývá” za kolektivní obraz boha, náboženská posedlost, theocalypsis (výraz pro jev, jež zahrnuje všechny formy excesívního, nezdravého náboženství, tedy fundamentalismu, fanatismu i sektářství) má proto hlubší kořeny, za identifikací stojí kolektivní hlubinné obsahy, proto je posedlost velice silná a možnost korekce velice malá.”

 

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.” Jung

 

“The sight of evil kindles evil in the soul…. The victim is not the only sufferer; everybody in the vicinity of the crime, including the murderer, suffers with him. Something of the abysmal darkness of the world has broken in on us, poisoning the very air we breathe and befouling the water with the stale, nauseating taste of blood.”
Jung, 1945. After the Catastrophe. Coll. Works. 10. p. 199

 

“It is an outstanding peculiarity of unconscious impulses that, when deprived of energy by lack of conscious recognition, they take on a destructive character, and this happens as soon as they cease to be compensatory”
Psychological Types, par. 574, C. G. Jung

 

“Řádění Islámského státu, Boko Haram, aš-Šabáb ale i jiných, křesťanských, fundamentalistických skupin znova a znova otevírá otázku náboženského poblouznění; otázku, která pravidelně nabírá na intenzitě tím vice, čím vice těmto přívržencům hrabe. Projevy extrémního náboženství jsou patrně stará, jako náboženství samotné, výrazně se vsak zviditelnila na pozadí vzestupu sekulárního způsobu života a vzniku toho, čemu říkáme spiritualita neboli duchovnost. S tím jak pokračuje evoluce náboženského vědomí, otevírající cestu pro vice svobodomyslný pohled na Boha, je najednou vice viditelná i involuce tohoto procesu, charakteristická svou rigidnosti, dogmatičnosti, doslovnosti a jinými symptomy, které psychologové znají velice dobře, jelikož představují překážky, chcete-li obrany, jimiž si já (ego) bráni svou celistvost tváře v tvář změnám, jenž na něj zvnějšku i zvnitřku doléhají.” Vlado Solc, Temné náboženství, aneb, když z náboženství hrabe. Vice na psychologie.cz

 

“The development of Western philosophy during the last two centuries has succeeded in isolating the mind in its own sphere and in severing it from its primordial oneness with the universe. Man himself has ceased to be the microcosm and eidolon of the cosmos, and his “anima” is no longer the consubstantial scintilla, spark of the Anima Mundi, World Soul” (Carl Jung, CW 11, par 759)

 

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
C.G. Jung

 

“All human control comes to an end when the individual is caught up in a mass movement. Then the archetypes begin to function, as happens also in the lives of individuals when they are confronted with situations that cannot be dealt with in any of the familiar ways.” (Jung 1936/1970: 189–190)

 

“No matter what the world thinks about religious experience, the one who has it possesses a great treasure, a thing that has become for him a source of life, meaning, and beauty, and that has given a new splendor to the world and to mankind.” C. G. Jung, Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par. 167

 

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

“The archetypes are, as it were, the hidden foundations of the conscious mind. Archetypes are systems of readiness for action, and at the same time images and emotions… They represent, on the one hand, a very strong instinctive conservatism, while on the other hand they are the most effective means conceivable of instinctive adaptation.”
C.G. Jung, CW 10, “Mind and Earth” (1927), para. 53

 

“No matter what the world thinks about religious experience, the one who has it possesses a great treasure, a thing that has become for him a source of life, meaning, and beauty, and that has given a new splendor to the world and to mankind.”
C. G. Jung, Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par. 167

 

“The archetypes are, as it were, the hidden foundations of the conscious mind. Archetypes are systems of readiness for action, and at the same time images and emotions… They represent, on the one hand, a very strong instinctive conservatism, while on the other hand they are the most effective means conceivable of instinctive adaptation. ”
C.G. Jung, CW 10, “Mind and Earth” (1927)

 

“All human control comes to an end when the individual is caught up in a mass movement. Then the archetypes begin to function, as happens also in the lives of individuals when they are confronted with situations that cannot be dealt with in any of the familiar ways.” (Jung 1936/1970: 189–190)

 

“The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not?”
C. G. Jung, Memories Dreams, Reflections

 

“The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it.”
C.G. Jung

 

“Individuation is thus naturally not only psychological, but also a religious process. They are organically intertwined. The “organic unity” of psychological and religious experiences, described by Dourly (1984), elevates, on one hand, an everyday being into a process of incarnation of the holy and on the other hand approximates the divine to the human doing away with its infinite remoteness and unattainability. Only if there is a “place” where a perceptual and experiential connection is possible is a pragmatic ground of Jungian inquiry justified.
Our intentions here are equally practical: to explore various psychological processes identified as specifically religious and to reveal possible influences on human well-being if such processes reach dangerous levels of intensity. Jung (1940) famously said, “Wherever [the] unconscious reigns, there is bondage and possession” (p. 84). The absence of consciousness and the absence of unconsciousness or their mutual domination over the each-other are always obstacles for achieving happiness. It is the fine and fragile balance of both which protects us from fanatic entrapment on one hand and a feeling of spiritual desertion on the other.” (From our upcoming book)

 

“The human psyche rose out of the world that she is a part of. Psyche is “in” the world the same way the world is “in” the psyche. What we conventionally call an objective world is to a lesser or greater degree part of the psyche. The objective and the subjective are only auxiliary terms while dealing with object-subject continuum. Psyche is basically immersed, in that world and is adapted to perceive it and to interact with it. We cannot know how would this “objective” world look like without the “subject.” Would there be a sound of branch falling from the tree if there was nobody in the forest? What (and how) we are able to touch, see and to hear is determined by the innate faculties of our senses. There are temperatures that we consider cold and hot, based on the functional principles of our bodies. For example humans cannot see electromagnetic wavelength outside of the spectrum of 390 – 700 nm., we cannot detect vibrations in our ears which are lower than 20 Hz and greater than 20 KHz and the like. We know they “exist” because of technological devices that extend our senses. The same is true about a priori categories of pure reason determining how we are able to think and what we are able to think. Categories of feeling and imagination (archetypes) allow us to experience the world very determined way as what we can feel and know about the “objective” world, therefore cannot go beyond the frame of those inner structures. Emotions and feelings being functions of experience “in” the objective world would have no bearing without the objective world and are thus part “of” it, as they are part of our subjective experience. Another phenomenon complicating our experience of the world is projection, or unconscious attribution of unconscious states to the object. Everything psychic is originally projected and therefore seen on the object, only gradual conscious realization of the source makes this two worlds relatively distinct. According to the theory of Lévy-Bruhl later adapted by Jung, ancient humans, or children, naturally live in the state of participation mystique, or unconscious unity. In that state object and subject overlap and are experienced as one. Hence magical thinking or believe that external beings are directly responsible for one’s mental states. According to Jung, realizations of the unconscious contents, i.e., withdrawals of projections and transforming unconscious to consciousness creates more accurate (real) picture of the world. He termed this individuation. (See Jung, CW 6, par. 781.)”

 

From our new book:
“In Joshua 10, we find the story of Joshua praying to the Lord to stop the moon and sun to give him extra time to finish fighting the Amorites:
At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel. So Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal (Joshua 10:12, English Standard Version).
If the Earth really stopped rotating, the Earth would have to slow from 1,100 miles per hour to a complete stop in less than 24 hours. We know that everything that is not tied down, including people and waters, would continue fly in the direction of the Earth’s rotation at the speed of 1,100 miles per hour at the equator. To take this story literally and concretely, we would have to accede with a miracle of enormous complexity. We would have to accept a God who can operate outside of natural laws. Further, this God would act very arbitrarily in his choice with respect to the person for whom he will do such a favor. This would also have enormous implications for the power and efficaciousness of prayer. Religious scriptures are full of similar miraculous stories. We can take them at their face value and consider them “realities” or accept them as symbolic expressions of something equally important in the realm of psycho-spiritual reality. It can easily be argued that with respect to one’s moral obligations, the symbolic understanding has a firmer bearing because it calls upon one’s responsibility based on insight and understanding of the implications of conduct, while literalism only prescribes maxims for behavior through the reliance on blind faith in the external judger and punisher. Great philosophical questions concerning life after death, freedom of will, and the existence of God are irresolvable mysteries within one frame of reference, but they can be absolute certainties in other frames of reference. The task of consciousness is to preserve the best possible relationship between the rational and irrational, the concrete and abstract, the literal and symbolic. The price for this loss of balance is extremely high; because is real.”

 

“Just like a child’s secure attachment (which is characterized by ability to safely leave caregiver and come back to him or her for protection) allows for the development of a balanced relationship between dependence and autonomy, so the secure spiritual development is predicated upon the ability of relating objective religious ideas to inner religious persuasions inferred from inner individual experiences and thus a balance between reasonable dependence on Imago Dei and trust to autonomy of one’s own spirituality. “