Marie Louise Von Franz Quotes

It's easy to be a naive idealist. It's easy to be a cynical realist. It's quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame.

People who have a creative side and do not live it out are most disagreeable clients. They make a mountain out of a molehill, fuss about unnecessary things, are too passionately in love with somebody who is not worth so much attention, and so on. There is a kind of floating charge of energy in them which is not attached to its right object and therefore tends to apply exaggerated dynamism to the wrong situation.

If we can stay with the tension of opposites long enough —sustain it, be true to it—we can sometimes become vessels within which the divine opposites come together and give birth to a new reality.

My God, these Feeling types! ... Sensitive people are just tyrannical people - everybody else has to adapt to them.

There are people who cannot risk loneliness with the experience. They always have to be in a flock and have human contact.

When people try to evade problems you first have to ask if it is not just laziness. Jung once said, "Laziness is the greatest passion of mankind, even greater than power or sex or anything." (p. 77)

The healing hero, therefore, is the one who finds some creative way out, a way not already known, and does not follow a pattern. Ordinary sick people follow ordinary patterns, but the shaman cannot be cured by the usual methods of healing. He has to find the unique way, the only way that applies to him. The creative personality who can do that then becomes a healer and is recognized as such by his colleagues.

The little open door of each individual’s inferior function is what contributes to the sum of collective evil in the world.

Following your own star means isolation, not knowing where to go, having to find out a completely new way for yourself instead of just going on the trodden path everybody else runs along. That's why there's always been a tendency in humans to project the uniqueness and the greatness of their own inner self onto outer personalities and become the servants, the devoted servants, admirers, and imitators of outer personalities. It is much easier to admire a great personality and become a pupil or follower of a guru or a religious prophet, or an admirer of a big, official personality - a President of the United States - or live your life for some military general whom you admire. That is much easier than following your own star. (p. 71)

One has to consider what effect it would have on one to have to accept the fact that God was not the friendly guardian of kindergarten!

Depressions and melancholy are often a cover for tremendous greed. At the beginning of an analysis there is often a depressed state of resignation-life has no meaning, there is no feeling of being in life. An exaggerated state can develop into complete lameness. Quite young people give the impression of having the resignation of a bitter old man or woman. When you dig into such a black mood you find that behind it there is overwhelming greed-for being loved, for being very rich, for having the right partner, for being the top dog, etc. Behind such a melancholic resignation you will often discover in the darkness a recurring theme which makes things very difficult, namely if you give such people one bit of hope, the lion opens its mouth and you have to withdraw, and then they put the lid on again, and so it goes on, back and forth.

When not used as an instrument, the intellect becomes autonomous and dynamic and one can be sure that a man with such attitude is driven by his anima, otherwise he would discuss in a quiet, detached way.

A human being in a neurotic state might very well be compared to a bewitched person, for people caught in a neurosis are apt to behave in a manner uncongenial and destructive towards themselves as well as others.

Jung said that to be in a situation where there is no way out or to be in a conflict where there is no solution is the classical beginning of the process of individuation. It is meant to be a situation without solution; the unconscious wants the hopeless conflict in order to put ego consciousness up against the wall, so that the man has to realize that whatever he does is wrong, whichever way he decides will be wrong. This is meant to knock out the superiority of the ego, which always acts from the illusion that it has the responsibility of decision. . . If he is ethical enough to suffer to the core of his personality, then generally, because of the insolubility of the conscious situation, the Self manifests. In religious language you could say that the situation without issue is meant to force the man to rely on an act of God.

If you think the anima as being "nothing but" what you know about her, you have not the receptiveness of a listening attitude, and so she becomes "nothing but" a load of brutal emotions; you have never given her a chance of expressing herself, and therefore she has become inhuman and brutal.

Many people discover relatively soon in life that the realm of their inferior function is where they are emotional, touchy and unadapted, and they therefore acquire the habit of covering up this part of their personality with a surrogate pseudo-reaction. For instance, a thinking type often cannot express his feelings normally and in the appropriate manner at the right time. It can happen that when he hears that the husband of a friend has died he cries, but when he meets the widow not a word of pity will come out. They not only look very cold, but they really do not feel anything! They had all the feeling before, when at home, but now in the appropriate situation they cannot pull it out. Thinking types are very often looked on by other people as having no feeling; this is absolutely not true. It is not that they have no feeling, but that they cannot express it at the appropriate moment. They have the feeling somehow and somewhere, but not just when they ought to produce it.

One has to be wounded in order to become a healer. This is the local image of a universal mythological motif, which is described in Eliade's book about the initiation of medicine men and shamans. Nobody becomes either one or the other without first having been wounded, either cut open by the initiator and having certain magical stones inserted into his body, or a spear thrown at his neck, or some such thing. Generally, the experiences are ecstatic – stars or ghost-like demons – hit them or cut them open, but always they have to be pierced or cut apart before they become healers, for that is how they acquire the capacity for healing others.

Numbers, furthermore as archetypal structural constants of the collective unconscious, possess a dynamic, active aspect which is especially important to keep in mind. It is not what we can do with numbers but what they do to our consciousness that is essential.

Number ... should not be understood solely as a construction of consciousness, but also as an archetype and thus as a constituent of nature both without and within.

It's easy to be a naive idealist. It's easy to be a cynical realist. It's quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame.” --

The philosophical system with which we try to interpret contents of the unconscious is open to still more, and that is the way in which an interpretation will not have a destructive effect. One should keep to what is possible and infer at the same time that there is a lot more to it so that there is room for growth.

We always tend to keep within ourselves threshold reactions such as a little doubt, or a little impulse not to do something. If the impulses are not very strong we are inclined to put them aside in a one-sided way and by this we have hurt an animal or a spirit within us.

Jung has said that to be in a situation where there is no way out, or to be in a conflict where there is no solution, is the classical beginning of the process of individuation. It is meant to be a situation without solution: the unconscious wants the hopeless conflict in order to put ego-consciousness up against the wall, so that the man has to realise that whatever he does is wrong, whichever way he decides will be wrong. This is meant to knock out the superiority of the ego, which always acts from the illusion that it has the responsibility of decision. Naturally, if a man says, "Oh well, then I shall just let everything go and make no decision, but just protract and wriggle out of [it]," the whole thing is equally wrong, for then naturally nothing happens. But if he is ethical enough to suffer to the core of his personality, then generally because of the insolubility of the conscious situation, the Self manifests. In religious language you could say that the situation without issue is meant to force the man to rely on an act of God. In psychological language the situation without issue, which the anima arranges with great skill in a man's life, is meant to drive him into a condition in which he is capable of experiencing the Self. When thinking of the anima as the soul guide, we are apt to think of Beatrice leading Dante up to Paradise, but we should not forget that he experienced that only after he had gone through Hell. Normally, the anima does not take a man by the hand and lead him right up to Paradise; she puts him first into a hot cauldron where he is nicely roasted for a while.

The fourth function is always life’s great problem:

There is a strange attitude and feeling that one is not yet in real life. For the time being one is doing this or that, but whether it is a woman or a job, it is not yet what is really wanted, and there is always the fantasy that sometime in the future the real thing will come about. If this attitude is prolonged, it means a constant inner refusal to commit oneself to the moment. With this there is often, to a smaller or greater extent, a savior complex, with the secret thought that one day one will be able to save the world; the last word in philosophy, or religion, or politics, or art, or something else, will be found.

Only by sacrificing what we have can we know what we have. Real sacrifice is made with the same definiteness and lack of bargaining that is involved in throwing something away We can do this only if we are forced by a greater power in us - a power stronger than the ego - that gives us the necessary strength. We experience this power as an inner imperative that tells us that we "must." In Jungian psychology we understand that as a message from the Self, the regulating center of the pysche. The sacrificer and what is sacrificed are one and the same: it is always the Self.

It is a fact that if an impulse from one or the other sphere comes up and is not lived out, then it goes back down and tends to develop anti-human qualities. What should have been a human impulse becomes a tiger-like impulse. For instance, a man has a feeling impulse to say something positive to someone and he blocks it off through some inhibition. He might then dream that he had a spontaneous feeling impulse on the level of a child and his conscious purpose had smashed it. The human is still there, but as a hurt child. Should he do that habitually for five years, he would no longer dream of a child who had been hurt but of a zoo full of raging wild animals in a cage. An impulse which is driven back loads up with energy and becomes inhuman. This fact, according to Dr. Jung, demonstrates the independent existence of unconscious.

One might well ask at this point why it should be necessary for a person to be in contact with his or her historical-spiritual roots. In Zurich we have the opportunity to analyze many Americans who come to the Jung Institute and thus to observe the symptoms and results of a hiatus in culture (emigration of their forebears) and a loss of roots. In that case we are dealing with people whose consciousness is structured similarly to ours; but when we bore into the depths, we find something that resembles a gap in the steps—no continuity! A cultivated white man—and beneath that a primitive shadow, of which the

If you observe a content which then disappears for a short time into the unconscious, it is not altered when it comes up again, but if you forget something for a long time, it does not return in the same form; it autonomously evolves or regresses in the other sphere, and therefore one can speak of unconscious as being a sphere, or entity in itself.

A nő jobban benn él az élet folyásában, olyannak veszi az életet, amilyen.

Practically, it is most helpful when one wants to find out the type to ask, what is the greatest cross for the person? Where is his greatest suffering? Where does he feel that he always knocks his head against the obstacle and suffers hell? That generally points to the inferior function. Many people, moreover, develop two superior functions so well that it is very difficult to say whether the person is a thinking intuitive type or an intuitive type with good thinking, for the two seem equally good. Sometimes sensation and feeling are so well developed in an individual that you would have difficulty in ascertaining which is the first. But does the intuitive thinking person suffer more from knocking his head on sensation facts or from feeling problems? Here you can decide which is the first, and which the well-developed second, function.

Any lack of balance in this respect, either too far below or too far above the mark, has an irritating effect upon the surroundings. To know if one has an inflation, a person has only to see if he or she gets on other people's nerves. If so, one is probably a bit overestimating one-self, or underestimating oneself for with an inflation a person may have feelings of either superiority or inferiority. Feelings of inferiority are just a veiled inflation. If one feels inferior, that's really ambition; a person wants to be more than one is. One wants to be a great person and knows one isn't. Inferiority is also inflation and, therefore, gets on people's nerves. Sometimes people come in and say, "Oh well, you know, I can't do it. How do you think I can do this? You know, I'm not capable, I'm so stupid, I can't think," and so on. Then I say, "Now stop that nonsense. Get on with your job." They are really making a conceited dance out of calling themselves inferior and incapable. (p. 73)

A person caught in a neurotic state, in some respects may well be compared to a man bewitched. Forced to a very low level of behavior, people suffering from a neurosis is capable of acting jarring and so destructive to themselves and to others, with basic or instinctive motivations.

Question: Couldn't one say that whenever there is a real spiritual experience it should become manifest? Dr. von Franz: There is no 'should' about it. I think a real spiritual experience I don't know exactly what you have in mind when you say that does become manifest. Mythos means communication. If you are overwhelmed by a spiritual experience it itself wants you to communicate it, i.e., manifest it; that is the meaning of the word mythos. There is no religious experience where there is not the need to tell of it; that is natural, but one need not add the word 'should.' If it is true, it will become real, its natural flow will be into reality.

Jung writes that women with a negative mother complex often miss the first half of life; they walk past it in a dream. Life to them is a constant source of annoyance and irritation. But if they can overcome this negative mother complex, they have a good chance in the second half of rediscovering life with the youthful spontaneity missed in the first half. For though, as Jung says in the last paragraph, a part of life has been lost, its meaning has been saved. That is the tragedy of such women, but they can get to the turning point, and in the second half of life have their hands healed and can stretch them out for what they want — not from the animus or from the ego, but, according to nature, simply stretch out their hands toward something they love. Though it is infinitely simple, it is extremely difficult, for it is the one thing the woman with a negative mother complex cannot do; it needs God's help. Even the analyst cannot help her — it must one day just happen, and this is generally when there has been sufficient suffering. One cannot escape one's fate; the whole pain of it must be accepted, and one day the infinitely simple solution comes.

Vannak például vastag bőrű emberek, akik sok úgynevezett bűnt tudnak megengedni maguknak. Képesek boldogan átgázolni mások vetésén anélkül, hogy ez rájuk a legcsekélyebb hatást tenné. Mások azonban a legkisebb bűnre sem tudják elszánni magukat, hiszen amint csak egy kicsit is eltérnek belső törvényüktől, a legszörnyűbb álmok és belső reakciók gyötrik őket.

Accettare di non essere come gli altri, e così continuare la propria strada come si sente che sia giusto, esige in realtà una grande rettitudine e molto coraggio.

One can only discover the mystery of the unconscious as a reality when one is naively curious, not when one wants to harness its power for the furtherance of some conscious design.

What people really seek, even if they project it sometimes onto outer objects, is the feeling of being alive.

Gyermeknek lenni éppenséggel nem azt jelenti, hogy megmaradjunk az óvodában, hanem először is ki kell nőnünk belőle, a világban uralkodó rossznak teljes tudatában felnőtté kell válnunk, és azután vissza kell szereznünk a saját belső integritásunkat, vagy újra meg kell találnunk a belső lényeghez vezető utat, és nem szabad nagy gyermekként tovább üldögélnünk az erdőben és azt hinnünk, ez a valódi élet!

Touchy people are proud of their sensitiveness, by which they tyrannize others. An unkind word provides tragedy for months. You cannot open your mouth because you might hurt the other person. They get into tempers over everything and sulk and are hurt in their wonderful delicate feelings; it is just plain tyranny. Such people usually have a very vulgar hidden power complex which comes out in the shadow—an infantile attitude toward life through which those around are tyrannized. What should be a receptive, loving attitude becomes a thorny hedge, where every man who tries to penetrate gets so torn that he just retires.

Marie-Louise von Franz says that Western civilization has put a little gnomish man on the shoulder of every woman and that this gnome does nothing but tell the woman that she’s wrong, wrong, wrong. Thus a kind of artificial, oppressive Watcher has been installed. When I mention this image to women (especially writer women) they enthusiastically agree with von Franz: that’s their experience, an almost literal voice buzzing in their ear saying, “No, no, your work’s no good, it’s worthless, you’re wrong.” In von Franz’s construct (though she’d use different terms), women have to learn to ignore that gnome and recognize their real Watcher, whom civilization did not put there and whom civilization cannot take away.

One alchemist observed that in the prima materia there is a certain intractable amount of terra damnata (accursed earth) that defies all efforts at transformation and must be rejected. Not all dark impulses lend themselves to redemption; certain ones, soaked in evil, cannot be allowed to break loose and must be severely repressed. What is against nature, against the instincts, has to be stopped by main force and eradicated. The expression "assimilation of the shadow" is meant to apply to childish, primitive, undeveloped sides of one's nature, depicted in the image of the child or the dog or the stranger. But there are deadly germs that can destroy the human being and must be resisted, and their presence means that one must be hard from time to time and not accept everything that comes up from the unconscious.

„A lelkiismeretről” szóló fejtegetésében említ egy asszonyt, aki tiszta szentnek tartotta magát, és minden éjjel a legmocskosabb kicsapongásokról álmodott. Durva példa ez arra, amit kompenzációnak nevezünk. Azt is tudjuk, hogy olyan emberek, akik a legsötétebb oldalukat élik ki, a jobbik énjüket pedig elfojtják, néha Krisztusról, az emberiség megváltójáról stb. látnak különféle álmokat.

Az óriások emócióval és affektussal való összekapcsolása a gyakorlatban abból a tényből látható, hogy akin elhatalmasodnak az érzelmek, az mindig túlozni kezd: ilyenkor „a bolhából is elefántot csinálunk”. A másik ember apró megjegyzése, egy kicsiny részlet hatalmas tragédiává válik, amint az érzelem elsodor bennünket. Az emóció maga az a hatalom, amely mindent felnagyít a környezetünkben.

The fact that someone understands is enough, even though one cannot understand oneself then the temperature drops and a certain quietness comes, and then perhaps the patient may also understand. Archetypal contents are sometimes far away and if the patient is not drawn to them in these terms you cannot get the meaning across, but the feeling that somebody else understands has a calming effect.

The animus awakens passion in a woman. His plans, purposes and whims stir up self-doubt within her and caused her to drag her feminine, passive nature out into the world and to expose herself to the resistance of the outer world. Then, when a woman has been successful in a man's world, it means acute suffering to narrow down the scope of her activities, or to give them up altogether, in order to become more feminine again.

Csak érzelmileg túlfűtött emberek tudnak jéghidegen viselkedni. A jég egy érzelmi állapot csúcspontját jellemzi, amikor az hidegbe vagy merevségbe csap át. Valószínűleg valamennyien tapasztaltuk már, hogy hirtelen dühbe gurulunk. Egy ponton azonban már semmit sem érzünk, az érzelem alábbhagy. Jéggé dermedünk dühünkben. A heves érzelmi kitörés helyett belekövülünk haragunkba, a hirtelen csapásba vagy másfajta alapvető reakcióba.

Unfortunately, possession brings the conviction that one is right. Just as the Russians are convinced that the Western world is the destructive element, in the same way if the animus catches us, we can be sure that things are like that. The most important thing is to know this. Like most of my brothers and sisters, when I let myself be possessed by the animus, I do not realize; I am convinced that is my opinion and not my animus.

In the clutches of the animus, no woman is able to give up whatever power she may have, or her conviction that it is right and necessary and valuable. The convictions a woman has lived by spring from inferior masculine thinking; the less she herself is able to evaluate them, the more passionately she clings to them. This is a reason for the persistence of the animus possession. Unfortunately such a woman never thinks that anything could be wrong with herself and is convinced that the fault lies with others.

A legtöbb primitív kultúrában az emberek sohasem kerülnek komoly konfliktusba az árnyékkal, ugyanis különösebb megfontolás nélkül, zökkenők nélkül lépnek át az egyik meggyőződésből a másikba, miközben a jobb kéz tulajdonképpen sohasem tudja egészen pontosan, mit csinál a bal. Ez világosan kitetszik néhány misszionárius beszámolójából. Tesznek valamit a törzsért, amiért is a törzs megkedveli őket. De aztán egyszer csak járvány üti fel a fejét, mire a törzs tagjai azt hiszik, ennek a misszionárius az oka, és megölik. Mozgalom indult a misszionárius ellen. Utóbb megbánják, de nem haragosak vagy bánatosak a történtek miatt, és az élet megy tovább. Ez végletes példa arra, ami velünk is oly sokszor megtörténik. Az árnyék okozta konfliktus ily módon nem válik égetővé, ugyanis a dolgokat egy kissé más megvilágításba helyezzük, hogy élni tudjunk. Jók akarunk lenni, és anélkül, hogy észrevennénk, mindenféle rosszat követünk el, ha pedig rájövünk, kéznél a mentegetőzés: fájt a fejünk, avagy más követte el a hibát, avagy megfeledkezünk róla – általában így oldjuk meg az árnyékkal kapcsolatos problémáinkat. Néhány dolgot figyelmen kívül kell hagynunk, hogy képesek legyünk megbirkózni az élettel.

As you know, there was a famous quarrel between Max Planck and Einstein, in which Einstein claimed that, on paper, the human mind was capable of inventing mathematical models of reality. In this he generalized his own experience because that is what he did. Einstein conceived his theories more or less completely on paper, and experimental developments in physics proved that his models explained phenomena very well. So Einstein says that the fact that a model constructed by the human mind in an introverted situation fits with outer facts is just a miracle and must be taken as such. Planck does not agree, but thinks that we conceive a model which we check by experiment, after which we revise our model, so that there is a kind of dialectic friction between experiment and model by which we slowly arrive at an explanatory fact compounded of the two. Plato-Aristotle in a new form! But both have forgotten something- the unconscious. We know something more than those two men, namely that when Einstein makes a new model of reality he is helped by his unconscious, without which he would not have arrived at his theories...But what role DOES the unconscious play?...either the unconscious knows about other realities, or what we call the unconscious is a part of the same thing as outer reality, for we do not know how the unconscious is linked with matter.

This lowly activity is also a kind of compensation to persuade the woman to become feminine again. The effect of animus pressure can lead a woman to deeper femininity, providing she accepts the fact that she is animus-possessed and does something to bring her animus into reality. If she gives him a field of action- that is, if she takes up some special study or does some masculine work- this can occupy the animus, and at the same time her feeling will be vivified and she will come back to feminine activities. The worst condition comes about when a woman has a powerful animus, and does not even live it; then she is straightjacketed by animus opinions, and while she may avoid any sort of work that seems in the least masculine, she is much less feminine.

…a kihasználatlan alkotó erő az egyik legsötétebb romboló erő. Ha valakinek alkotó tehetsége van, de lustaságból vagy hasonló okból nem használja ki, akkor ez a pszichikai erő méreggé válik. Ezért van az, hogy neurózisokat és pszichózisokat ki nem élt magasabb lehetőségként diagnosztizálunk. A neurózis gyakran többlet, nem pedig mínusz, hanem meg nem élt plusz, magasabb lehetőség a tudatosabbá vagy alkotóbbá válásra, amitől viszont az adott ember buta kifogással visszakozik. A magasabb tudatosság felé fejlődés elutasítása tapasztalatunk szerint a lehető legrombolóbb dolog. Többek között arra indítja az illető személyt, hogy mindenki mást is akadályozzon, aki meg akarja próbálni. Akinek ki nem élt alkotóereje van, más emberek kreativitását is igyekszik tönkretenni, és aki a tudatosulás meg nem élt lehetőségét hordja magában, az mindig azon van, hogy mások ilyen irányú kísérleteit is elbizonytalanítsa.

If you feel an overwhelming rage coming up in you when a friend reproaches you about fault, you can be fairly sure that at this point you will find a part of your shadow, of which you are unconscious. It is, of course, natural to become annoyed when others who are "no better" criticize you because of shadow faults. But what can you say if your own dreams —an inner judge in your own being— reproach you? That is the moment when the ego gets caught, and the result is usually embarrassed silence. Afterward the pain and lengthy work, of self-education begins— a work, we might say, that is the psychological equivalent of the labors of Hercules. This unfortunate hero's first task, you will remember, was to clean up in one day the Augean Stables, in which hundreds of cattle had dropped their dung for many decades — a task so enormous that the ordinary mortal would be overcome by discouragement at the mere thought of it.

Nincs értelme annak, hogy nyíltan harcoljunk a másik emóciói ellen. Ha le akarunk beszélni valakit a haragjáról, akkor csak még jobban felbőszítjük. De ha elkapjuk a mögötte megbújó titkos „szívet”, az alapmotívumot, amit az érintett többnyire maga sem ismer, akkor eljuthatunk valahová. Saját magunkkal is ugyanez a helyzet. Ha túlságosan emocionálisan reagálunk valamire, akkor rendszerint ez azért történik, mert a tudattalan vitalitás és energia nem abba az irányba és arra a helyre áramlik, ahová tartozna. Éppen ezért nagyon kellemetlen ügyfelek az olyan kreatív tehetséggel megáldott emberek, akik alkotókészségüket nem élik ki. Bolhából is elefántot csinálnak, haszontalan dolgok miatt idegesítik fel magukat, túlságosan beleszerelmesednek valakibe, aki nem méltó akkora figyelemre stb. Szabad energia van bennük, ami nem kötődik megfelelő tárgyhoz, és ezért hajlamosak rá, hogy a hamis helyzetbe túlzott lendületet vigyenek. Megkérdezhetjük tőlük, miért túloznak ennyire, miért olyan fontos ez, de a túlhangsúlyozás nem tudatosul bennük. Abban a pillanatban, amikor az ilyen ember valóban fontos dolognak szenteli magát, az egész energiatöbblet helyes irányba indul, és nem fúj fel olyasmit, ami nem méltó ekkora emocionális figyelemre.

Domnul von Spat urăște somnul. Cum interpretați asta? El spune că, după ce-și va fi înfrânt complet dușmanii, nu o să mai existe somn, iar modalitatea de a-i înfrânge pe băieți ar fi aceea de a-i izola de sursa somnului. Răspuns: instinctul de putere nu există în somn. Da, în somn instinctul de putere e la podea. Suntem complet neajutorați și pasivi, deschiși pentru întreaga lume, goi în ceea ce ne înconjoară. Este o stare în care puterea e la podea și instinctul iese la suprafață, deci primul gând ar fi că von Spat trebuie să reprezinte conștiința, iar Fo, principiul inconștienței. Dar la o privire mai atentă, lucrurile arată puțin diferit. Domnul von Spat este și inconștiență, și anume aspectul inconștient, demonic, al conștiinței. Conștiența constă din ceva ce credem că știm, este o conștiință imediată. Deși nu prea știm ce este, avem sentimentul subiectiv că ceea ce este conștiența ne este bine cunoscut. Dar în spatele acestei conștiențe știute stă o inconștiență, cu alte cuvinte, în spatele eului și al întregului fenomen al conștiinței stă umbra, instinctul de putere și ceva demonic. Nu trebuie să uităm niciodată aspectul demonic al conștiinței, el există. Începem acum să fim conștienți că realizările conștiinței noastre - realizările noastre tehnice - au aspecte distructive. Ne mișcăm spre constatarea că poate fi un dezavantaj conștiința și că se bazează pe inconștiență. Ceea ce mă face să-mi doresc cu pasiune dominația conștiinței asupra vieții este ceva inconștient. Nevoia, impulsul sau pasiunea pentru conștiință este ceva inconștient, precum ceea ce numim tradiție conștientă. De exemplu, pentru un trib primitiv, propria tradiție este conștiință. Un novice dintr-un trib african - după ce a fost torturat, i s-au scos dinții etc. - este instruit privitor la crearea lumii, apariția răului, semnificația bolii, căsătoria cu femei dintr-un anumit clan, din anumite motive, iar asta este, pentru el, conștiință. Africanii spun că bărbatul este un animal înainte de a trece prin inițiere, asimilând astfel tradiția tribală. Neițiații sunt numiți animale, ceea ce demonstrează credința lor că obținerea unei atari cunoașteri este pasul de la inconștiența animală la conștiința umană. Cu toate acestea, pentru noi, care avem o tradiție diferită, învățăturile mitologice pe care le asimilează un tânăr primitiv par pură inconștiență. Mai mult, interpretăm respectivele învățături așa cum interpretăm visele; faptul că acest lucru este posibil ne arată că ceea ce înseamnă conștiință colectivă pentru un trib conține, în realitate, mult simbolism inconștient. Mă refer la alte civilizații pentru a-mi ilustra punctul de vedere, pentru că poți observa o altă societate sine ira et studio, adică imparțial. Se întâmplă același lucru și în tradiția noastră religioasă. Putem spune că învățătura creștină conține conștiința noastră colectivă. Dar, la o privire mai atentă, vedem că ea e bazată pe simboluri ca zeul crucificat, Fecioara Maria etc. Dacă ne gândim la ele, la înțelesul lor și încercăm să le legăm de viața noastră reală, descoperim că nu știm cum, fiindcă sunt pline de inconștiență. Aflăm că exact acele aspecte cunoscute ale tradiției noastre spirituale rămân pentru noi un complet mister, din mai multe puncte de vedere, că nu putem spune nimic despre ele. Conștiința conține, așadar, un revers secret, care este inconștiența. Chiar asta e demonic la von Spat, și anume faptul că vederile conștiente se comportă ca și cum ele ar fi întregul răspuns. S-ar putea spune, probabil, că psihologia are acum sarcina de a releva acest aspect secret, distructiv al conștiinței și de a lupta împotriva lui. Sper să ajungem cândva la punctul în care conștiința poate funcționa fără pretenția de a ști totul și de a avea ultimul cuvânt. Dacă ar putea fi redusă la o funcție, o funcție descriptivă, atunci oamenii ar înceta să facă afirmații definitive.

It's easy to be a naive idealist. It's easy to be a cynical realist. It's quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame.

Everybody,” he said, “who goes to church gets ill. You must listen to the plants and stones because God is in them, and all the rest is junk.

Therefore, it is not off the point if, along with the forgotten feminine principles, there are no longer good carpets at the kings court and they need one, for they have again to find the pattern in of life. In this way the story tells us that the subtlety of the inventions of the unconscious and the secret design woven into a human life are infinitely more intelligent than human consciousness and more subtle and superior than man could invent. One is again and again overwhelmed by the genius of that unknown mysterious something in our psyche which is the inventor of our dreams, It picks elements from day impressions, from something the dreamer has read the evening before in the paper, or from a childhood memory, and makes a nice kind of potpourri out of it, and only when you have interpreted its meaning do you see the subtlety and the genius of each dream composition. Every night we have that carpet weaver at work within us, who makes those fantastically subtle patterns, so subtle that, unfortunately often after an hour's attempt to interpret them, we are unable to find out the meaning. We are just too clumsy and stupid to follow up the genius of that unknown spirit of the unconscious which invents dreams. But we can understand that this carpet is more subtly woven than any human could ever achieve.

Adesea, în timpul dezvoltării animei, probabil că tinerii au, în perioada școlară, o prietenă pe care o admiră, însă din cauza vârstei nu se pot căsători cu ea. Se căsătoresc apoi cu un alt tip, pentru ca mai târziu în viață - să zicem între patruzeci și cincizeci de ani - această imagine-anima admirată să revină, jucând, de obicei, rolul interior al celei care conduce la Sine. Acest aspect al animei preia rolul lui Beatrice a lui Dante, și anume cel al călăuzitorului spre secretul interior. Cealaltă parte a animei, proiectată asupra unei femei reale, este cea care îl atrage pe bărbat în căsătorie și viață. Așadar, se poate spune că există un aspect al imaginii-mamă a animei care conduce la căsătoria exogamă și, odată cu asta, de regulă, la angajarea în viața exterioară, și un aspect endogam al aceleiași imagini, care rămâne în interior, devenind mai târziu ghidul spre realizarea vieții interioare.

The Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz once observed that a person cutting vegetables while preparing to cook food is full of daydreams and fantasies that nurture the life of the soul. Contemplation can be an absorption in work that is free of self-consciousness and yet rich with imagination. Serious

[T]he shadow is exposed to collective infections to a much greater extent than is the conscious personality. When a man is alone, for instance, he feels relatively all right; but as soon as "the others" do dark, primitive things he begins to fear that if he doesn't join in, he will be considered a fool. Thus he gives way to impulses that do not really belong to him at all. It is particularly in contacts with people of the same sex that one stumbles over both one's own shadow and those of other people. Although we do see the shadow in a person of the opposite sex, we are usually much less annoyed by it and can more easily pardon it.

Ou bien prendre son essor et jouer un rôle déterminant dans la vie du monde, ou bien faire retraite et cultiver sa personnalité dans la quiétude ; la voie du héros ou celle du saint caché.

For if collective material is completely contradictory, if our basic ethical disposition is completely contradictory, only then is it possible for us to have an individual, responsible, free conscious superstructure over those basic opposites.

For if collective material is completely contradictory, if our basic ethical disposition is completely contradictory, only then is it possible for us to have an individual, responsible, free conscious superstructure over those basic opposites.

Women to a great extent – and the less they knew about it, the worse it is - rule even life and death in their surroundings. If the husband dies, or the children die, very often, the woman in that family has something to do with it.

To what end does one liberate one's country if afterward there is no meaningful goal in life, no goal for which it is worthwhile to be free? If a person no longer finds any meaning in their life, it makes no difference whether they waste away under a communist or a capitalist regime. Only if they can use their freedom to create something meaningful is it relevant that they should be free. That is why finding the inner meaning of life is more important to the individual than anything else, and why the process of individuation must be given priority.

Un rituale chiede una sincerità totale e un completo distacco da ogni desiderio. Occorre sacrificare l'ego che vuole vincere, perchè esso ti induce a barare. [...] Occorre essere completamene e appassionatamente coinvolti e nelle stesso tempo sacrificare ogni tempo di desiderio egoico. Questo atteggiamento è identico a quello che chiamerei un atteggiamento fondamentalmente religioso: del tutto coinvolto nella vita e nello stesso tempo pronto a perdere tutto in un gioco totale.

The encounter with evil may elicit one of four typical responses: fight, flight, freezing, or fragmentation. ... It is the context and dimensions of evil that determine the human response to it. ... [Marie-Louise] von Franz points out that not all evil contains creative, transformative potential. She warns of being contaminated by evil. Archetypal evil has the power to make us fall into a complex-ridden state of possession, in which the ego's strength is overcome. She warns that many dark powers must be kept at a distance, and sometimes the only appropriate response is flight.

Będąc nauczycielem, często walczyłam z dziećmi, błagając je, aby napisały coś, co naprawdę myślą, a nie to, co im powiedziałam, i widziałam, jaką sprawiało im to trudność, bo celem szkoły i tendencją, która dominowała w tamtych latach było rozwijanie zbiorowej świadomości. Ponieważ szkoła jest ukierunkowana na asymilacje zbiorowej świadomości, oryginalność indywidualnej osoby zazwyczaj blednie, i gdy weźmie się dwadzieścia osób, dostaje się jedynie zestaw zbiorowej wiedzy. Gdy zada im się pytanie na jakikolwiek tematy, będą jedynie powtarzać to, co powiedzieli im ich rodzice czy przyjaciele, albo co przeczytali w gazecie, a przywrócenie im wyjątkowych osobowych świadomych reakcji będzie niesłychanie trudne.

Pamiętam historię człowieka, który miał poważną operację. Obudził się z narkozy i ponieważ czuł się dobrze, wybrał się na spacer po szpitalu. Bez większego zdziwienia zauważył, że może przechodzić przez zamknięte drzwi. Nie przejął się tym bardzo, nie dotarło to do jego świadomości. Wyszedł ze szpitala na ulicę i wtedy nagle ktoś powiedział do niego: "Jeżeli chcesz wrócić, masz ostatnią szansę, szybko!". Ogarnięty paniką pospieszył z powrotem do szpitala i w tym momencie naprawdę obudził się ze znieczulenia i usłyszał głos lekarza: "O mój Boże, prawie go straciliśmy". Jego serce zatrzymało się, ale zdołali sprowadzić do z powrotem. Według jego subiektywnego doświadczenia wybrał się na spacer i miał to szczególne doświadczenie przechodzenia przez drzwi, o którym na wpół świadomie pomyślał, że jest raczej dziwne.

Jak sama nazwa "depresja" wskazuje, w stanie tym ludzie poddani presji czegoś, co ich zgniata, ściąga w dół, ponieważ część psychologicznej energii libido została wycofana w nieświadomość i musi zostać z niej wydobyta. Prawdziwa energia życiowa dostała się w głębsze warstwy osobowości i można uzyskać do niej dostęp jedynie przez depresję. Stąd też, jeżeli depresja nie niesie w sobie ukrytej psychozy, należy zachęcać ludzi do poddania się temu stanowi i doświadczeniu depresji, a nie do uciekania (...). A jeżeli depresja mówi, że życie nie ma sensu i nie ma w nim żadnej wartości, należy to zaakceptować i powiedzieć: "I co z tego?". Trzeba się w nią wsłuchać, zejść tak głęboko, jak się da, aż się dotknie na nowo energii psychicznej niosącej twórczą ideę, a wtedy nagle, na samym dnie może się pojawić impuls życia i kreatywności, którego się od dawna nie dostrzegało.