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Carl Gustav Jung Books

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“Just as man, as a social being, cannot in the long run exist without a tie to the community, so the individual will never find the real justification for his existence, and his own spiritual and moral autonomy, anywhere except in an extramundane principle capable of relativizing the overpowering influence of external factors. The individual who is not anchored in God can offer no resistance on his own resources to the physical and moral blandishments of the world. For this he needs the evidence of inner, transcendent experience which alone can protect him from the otherwise inevitable submersion in the mass.”

“As understanding deepens, the further removed it becomes from knowledge. An ideal understanding would ultimately result in each party’s unthinkingly going along with the other’s experience – a state of uncritical passivity coupled with the most complete subjectivity and lack of social responsibility. Understanding carried to such lengths is in any case impossible, for it would require the virtual identification of two different individuals. Sooner or later the relationship reaches a point where one partner feels he is being forced to sacrifice his own individuality so that it may be assimilated by that of the other. This inevitable consequence breaks the understanding, for understanding presupposes the integral preservation of the individuality of both partners”

“Wenn ein innerer Tatbestand nicht bewußtgemacht wird, dann ereignet er sich als Schicksal außen, das heißt, wenn der Einzelne einheitlich bleibt und sich seines inneren Gegensatzes nicht bewußt wird, so muß wohl die Welt den Konflikt darstellen und in zwei Hälften zerteilt werden.”

“Man möge das gegenwärtige Weltgeschehen, welches die ganze Menschheit,wie nie je zuvor, in zwei anscheinend unvereinbare Hälften zerreißt, im Lichte unserer oben angedeuteten psychologischen Regel betrachten: wenn ein innerer Tatbestand nicht bewußtgemacht wird, dann ereignet er sich als Schicksal außen, das heißt, wenn der Einzelne einheitlich bleibt und sich seines inneren Gegensatzes nicht bewußt wird, so muß wohl die Welt den Konflikt darstellen und in zwei Hälften zerteilt werden.”

“A tudományos megismerés fejlődésével világunk egyre embertelenebbé válik. Az ember magányosnak érzi magát a világban, mivel kívül rekedt a természeten, és elveszítette a természet jelenségeivel való érzelmi "tudattalan azonosságát". A természeti jelenségek lassan elveszítették szimbolikus jelenségüket. A mennydörgés többé már nem a haragvó isten hangja, a villámlás sem az ő bosszúálló nyila. A folyóban nincs többé szellem, a fa már nem az ember életforrása, a kígyó nem a bölcsesség megtestesítője, a hegyi barlangban már nem laknak a hatalmas démonok. Nem szólnak az emberhez a kövek, növények és állatok, és az ember sem szól hozzájuk abban a hitben, hogy azok majd megértik őt. A természettel való kapcsolatát elveszítette, és ezzel együtt elveszett a szimbolikus kapcsolatból fakadó rejtett érzelmi energia is. Ezért a hatalmas veszteségért álmaink szimbólumai kárpótolnak. Felszínre hozzák eredeti természetünket - ösztöneinket és sajátságos gondolkodásunkat. Azonban álmaink, sajnálatos módon, a természet nyelvén fejezik ki közlendőiket, amely idegen és felfoghatatlan számunkra. Így mindez azzal a feladattal állít szembe benünket, hogy a modern beszéd racionális szavaira és fogalmaira fordítsuk le a természet nyelvét, olyan modern nyelvre, amely mentes a primitív kötöttségektől , nevezetesen az álomban megjelenő dolgokkal való participációtól.”

“The world is full of people suffering from the effects of their own unlived life. They become bitter, critical, or rigid, not because the world is cruel to them, but because they have betrayed their own inner possibilities. The artist who never makes art becomes cynical about those who do. The lover who never risks loving mocks romance. The thinker who never commits to a philosophy sneers at belief itself. And yet, all of them suffer, because deep down they know: the life they mock is the life they were meant to live.”

“Knowledge of processes in the background early shaped my relationship to the world. Basically, that relationship was the same in my childhood as it is to this day. As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know. Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible. The loneliness began with the experiences of my early dreams, and reached its climax at the time I was working on the unconscious. If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely. But loneliness is not necessarily inimical to companionship, for no one is more sensitive to companionship than the lonely man, and companionship thrives only when each individual remembers his individuality and does not identify himself with others.” – (Memories Dreams and Reflections, Page 356)”

“The shadow exerts a dangerous fascination which can be countered only by another fascinosum. It cannot be got at by reason, even in the most rational person, but only by illumination, of a degree and kind that are equal to the darkness but are the exact opposite of “enlightenment.” For what we call “rational” is everything that seems “fitting” to the man in the street, and the question then arises whether this “fitness” may not in the end prove to be “irrational” in the bad sense of the word. Sometimes, even with the best intentions this dilemma cannot be solved. This is the moment when the primitive trusts himself to a higher authority and to a decision beyond his comprehension. The civilized man in his closed-in environment functions in a fitting and appropriate manner, that is, rationally. But if, because of some apparently insoluble dilemma, he gets outside the confines of civilization, he becomes a primitive again; then he has irrational ideas and acts on hunches; then he no longer thinks but “it” thinks in him; then he needs “magical” practices in order to gain a feeling of security; then the latent autonomy of the unconscious becomes active and begins to manifest itself as it has always done in the past.”

“The unconscious is the psyche that reaches down from the daylight of mentally and morally lucid consciousness into the nervous system that for ages has been known as the "sympathetic." This does not govern perception and muscular activity like the cerebrospinal system, and thus control the environment; but, though functioning without sense-organs, it maintains the balance of life and, through the mysterious paths of sympathetic excitation, not only gives us knowledge of the innermost life of other beings but also has an inner effect upon them.”

“C'è qualcosa di terribile nello scoprire che l'uomo ha anche un lato oscuro, una parte in ombra che non consiste soltanto in piccole debolezze e in piccoli difetti, ma è dotata di una dinamica addirittura demoniaca. L'individuo singolo di solito lo ignora perché, in quanto uomo singolo, guarda con incredulità all'ipotesi di dovere in qualche modo o in qualche circostanza riflettere con distacco su sé stesso. Ma basta che questi esseri innocui formino una massa ed ecco nascerne, in certi momenti, un mostro delirante, un corpo smisurato in cui l'individuo non è più che una piccola cellula la quale, volente o no, è costretta a condividere l'ebbrezza sanguinaria della bestia e addirittura a rinfocolarla quanto può.”

“L'uomo ha due tipi di fini: il primo è il fine naturale, la procreazione e i vari compiti di protezione della prole, che implicano il procacciarsi un guadagno e la posizione sociale. Quando questo scopo è stato raggiunto comincia un'altra fase: il fine culturale. Per raggiungere il primo scopo interviene la natura e l'educazione, che sono invece di scarso o nessun aiuto per attuare il secondo. Eppure predomina spesso un'ambizione sbagliata, secondo la quale i vecchi dovrebbero essere come i giovani, o per lo meno cercare di imitarli, anche se sono intimamente persuasi della vanità della cosa. Per molte persone il passaggio dalla fase "naturale" alla fase "culturale" è quindi estremamente difficile e amaro. Si aggrappano all'illusione della giovinezza o ai figli, nel tentativo di salvare ancora un brandello di gioventù.”

“Christians often ask why God does not speak to them, as he is believed to have done in former days. When I hear such questions, it always makes me think of the rabbi who asked how it could be that God often showed himself to people in the olden days whereas nowadays nobody ever sees him. The rabbi replied: "Nowadays there is no longer anybody who can bow low enough." This answer hits the nail on the head. We are so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousness that we have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions. The Buddhist discards the world of unconscious fantasies as useless illusions; the Christian puts his Church and his Bible between himself and his unconscious; and the rational intellectual does not yet know that his consciousness is not his total psyche.”

“Эволюция человеческого сознания далека от завершения: ведь до сих пор значительные участки разума погружены во тьму. И то, что мы называем психикой, ни в коей мере не идентично сознанию. Миф о богочеловеке создал вовсе не некий реально живший Иисус. Миф был создан за века до его рождения. Его самого захватил этот образ; эта идея и вырвала его из обыденной плотницкой рутины в Назарете, свидетельствует Святой Марк.”

“I felt a downright fear of the mathematics class. The teacher pretended that algebra was a perfectly natural affair, to be taken for granted, whereas I didn’t even know what numbers really were. They were not flowers, not animals, not fossils; they were nothing that could be imagined, mere quantities that resulted from counting. To my confusion these quantities were now represented by letters, which signified sounds, so that it became possible to hear them, so to speak. Oddly enough, my classmates could handle these things and found them self-evident. No one could tell me what numbers were, and I was unable even to formulate the question.”