“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.”
“. . . 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
Vlado Šolc