8
I. The Personal and the Collective Unconscious
225
PART TWO
INDIVIDUATION
I
THE FUNCTION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS
226
[266] There is a destination, a possible goal, beyond the alternative stages dealt with in our last chapter. That is the way of individuation. Individuation means becoming an âin-dividual,â and, in so far as âindividualityâ embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming oneâs own self. We could therefore translate individuation as âcoming to selfhoodâ or âself-realization.â
227
[267] The possibilities of development discussed in the preceding chapters were, at bottom, alienations of the self, ways of divesting the self of its reality in favour of an external role or in favour of an imagined meaning. In the former case the self retires into the background and gives place to social recognition; in the latter, to the auto-suggestive meaning of a primordial image. In both cases the collective has the upper hand.
227
Self-alienation in favour of the collective corresponds to a social ideal; it even passes for social duty and virtue, although it can also be misused for egotistical purposes. Egoists are called âselfish,â but this, naturally, has nothing to do with the concept of âselfâ as I am using it here. On the other hand, self-realization seems to stand in opposition to self-alienation. This misunderstanding is quite general, because we do not sufficiently distinguish between individualism and individuation. Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some supposed peculiarity rather than to collective considerations and obligations. But individuation means precisely the better and more complete fulfilment of the collective qualities of the human being, since adequate consideration of the peculiarity of the individual is more conducive to a better social performance than when the peculiarity is neglected or suppressed.
227
The idiosyncrasy of an individual is not to be understood as any strangeness in his substance or in his components, but rather as a unique combination, or gradual differentiation, of functions and faculties which in themselves are universal. Every human face has a nose, two eyes, etc., but these universal factors are variable, and it is this variability which makes individual peculiarities possible. Individuation, therefore, can only mean a process of psychological development that fulfils the individual qualities given; in other words, it is a process by which a man becomes the definite, unique being he in fact is. In so doing he does not become âselfishâ in the ordinary sense of the word, but is merely fulfilling the peculiarity of his nature, and this, as we have said, is vastly different from egotism or individualism.
228
[268] Now in so far as the human individual, as a living unit, is composed of purely universal factors, he is wholly collective and therefore in no sense opposed to collectivity. Hence the individualistic emphasis on oneâs own peculiarity is a contradiction of this basic fact of the living being. Individuation, on the other hand, aims at a living co-operation of all factors. But since the universal factors always appear only in individual form, a full consideration of them will also produce an individual effect, and one which cannot be surpassed by anything else, least of all by individualism.
228
[269] The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand, and of the suggestive power of primordial images on the other. From what has been said in the previous chapters it should be sufficiently clear what the persona means psychologically. But when we turn to the other side, namely to the influence of the collective unconscious, we find we are moving in a dark interior world that is vastly more difficult to understand than the psychology of the persona, which is accessible to everyone. Everyone knows what is meant by âputting on official airsâ or âplaying a social role.â Through the persona a man tries to appear as this or that, or he hides behind a mask, or he may even build up a definite persona as a barricade. So the problem of the persona should present no great intellectual difficulties.
229
[270] It is, however, another thing to describe, in a way that can be generally understood, those subtle inner processes which invade the conscious mind with such suggestive force. Perhaps we can best portray these influences with the help of examples of mental illness, creative inspiration, and religious conversion.
229
A most excellent accountâtaken from life, so to speakâof such an inner transformation is to be found in H. G. Wellsâ Christina Albertaâs Father.a Changes of a similar kind are described in LĂ©on Daudetâs eminently readable LâHĂ©rĂ©do. A wide range of material is contained in William Jamesâ Varieties of Religious Experience. Although in many cases of this kind there are certain external factors which either directly condition the change, or at least provide the occasion for it, yet it is not always the case that the external factor offers a sufficient explanation of these changes of personality. We must recognize the fact that they can also arise from subjective inner causes, opinions, convictions, where external stimuli play no part at all, or a very insignificant one.
229
In pathological changes of personality this can even be said to be the rule. The cases of psychosis that present a clear and simple reaction to some overwhelming outside event belong to the exceptions. Hence, for psychiatry, the essential aetiological factor is the inherited or acquired pathological disposition.
229
The same is probably true of most creative intuitions, for we are hardly likely to suppose a purely causal connection between the falling apple and Newtonâs theory of gravitation. Similarly all religious conversions that cannot be traced back directly to suggestion and contagious example rest upon independent interior processes culminating in a change of personality.
229
As a rule these processes have the peculiarity of being subliminal, i.e., unconscious, in the first place and of reaching consciousness only gradually. The moment of irruption can, however, be very sudden, so that consciousness is instantaneously flooded with extremely strange and apparently quite unsuspected contents. That is how it looks to the layman and even to the person concerned, but the experienced observer knows that psychological events are never sudden. In reality the irruption has been preparing for many years, often for half a lifetime, and already in childhood all sorts of remarkable signs could have been detected which, in more or less symbolic fashion, hinted at abnormal future developments.
230
[272] The great question now is: in what do these unconscious processes consist? And how are they constituted? Naturally, so long as they are unconscious, nothing can be said about them. But sometimes they manifest themselves, partly through symptoms, partly through actions, opinions, affects, fantasies, and dreams. Aided by such observational material we can draw indirect conclusions as to the momentary state and constitution of the unconscious processes and their development. We should not, however, labour under the illusion that we have now discovered the real nature of the unconscious processes. We never succeed in getting further than the hypothetical âas if.â
230
the unconscious never rests. It seems to be always at work, for even when asleep we dream.
230
Not a day passes but we make some slip of the tongue, or something slips our memory which at other times we know perfectly well, or we are seized by a mood whose cause we cannot trace, etc. These things are all symptoms of some consistent unconscious activity which becomes directly visible at night in dreams, but only occasionally breaks through the inhibitions imposed by our daytime consciousness.
231
[274] So far as our present experience goes, we can lay it down that the unconscious processes stand in a compensatory relation to the conscious mind. I expressly use the word âcompensatoryâ and not the word âcontraryâ because conscious and unconscious are not necessarily in opposition to one another, but complement one another to form a totality, which is the self. According to this definition the self is a quantity that is supraordinate to the conscious ego. It embraces not only the conscious but also the unconscious psyche, and is therefore, so to speak, a personality which we also are.
231
It is easy enough to think of ourselves as possessing part-souls. Thus we can, for instance, see ourselves as a persona without too much difficulty. But it transcends our powers of imagination to form a clear picture of what we are as a self, for in this operation the part would have to comprehend the whole. There is little hope of our ever being able to reach even approximate consciousness of the self, since however much we may make conscious there will always exist an indeterminate and indeterminable amount of unconscious material which belongs to the totality of the self. Hence the self will always remain a supraordinate quantity.
232
[275] The unconscious processes that compensate the conscious ego contain all those elements that are necessary for the self regulation of the psyche as a whole. On the personal level, these are the not consciously recognized personal motives which appear in dreams, or the meanings of daily situations which we have overlooked, or conclusions we have failed to draw, or affects we have not permitted, or criticisms we have spared ourselves.
232
But the more we become conscious of ourselves through self-knowledge, and act accordingly, the more the layer of the personal unconscious that is superimposed on the collective unconscious will be diminished. In this way there arises a consciousness which is no longer imprisoned in the petty, oversensitive, personal world of the ego, but participates freely in the wider world of objective interests. This widened consciousness is no longer that touchy, egotistical bundle of personal wishes, fears, hopes, and ambitions which always has to be compensated or corrected by unconscious counter-tendencies; instead, it is a function of relationship to the world of objects, bringing the individual into absolute, binding, and indissoluble communion with the world at large. The complications arising at this stage are no longer egotistic wish-conflicts, but difficulties that concern others as much as oneself.
232
At this stage it is fundamentally a question of collective problems, which have activated the collective unconscious because they require collective rather than personal compensation. We can now see that the unconscious produces contents which are valid not only for the person concerned, but for others as well, in fact for a great many people and possibly for all.
233
Even with us the collective dream has a feeling of importance about it that impels communication. It springs from a conflict of relationship and must therefore be built into our conscious relations, because it compensates these and not just some inner personal quirk.
233
[278] The processes of the collective unconscious are concerned not only with the more or less personal relations of an individual to his family or to a wider social group, but with his relations to society and to the human community in general. The more general and impersonal the condition that releases the unconscious reaction, the more significant, bizarre, and overwhelming will be the compensatory manifestation. It impels not just private communication, but drives people to revelations and confessions, and even to a dramatic representation of their fantasies.
235
[282] We all know how apt we are to make fools of ourselves in front of the very people we have unjustly underrated.
237
[285] The universal problem of evil and sin is another aspect of our impersonal relations to the world. Almost more than any other, therefore, this problem produces collective compensations.
237
[286] It is a notorious fact that the compulsion neuroses, by reason of their meticulousness and ceremonial punctilio, not only have the surface appearance of a moral problem but are indeed brimfull of inhuman beastliness and ruthless evil, against the integration of which the very delicately organized personality puts up a desperate struggle. This explains why so many things have to be performed in ceremonially âcorrectâ style, as though to counteract the evil hovering in the background. After this dream the neurosis started, and its essential feature was that the patient had, as he put it, to keep himself in a âprovisionalâ or âuncontaminatedâ state of purity.
Note: conspiracy theorists
237
For this purpose he either severed or made âinvalidâ all contact with the world and with everything that reminded him of the transitoriness of human existence, by means of lunatic formalities, scrupulous cleansing ceremonies, and the anxious observance of innumerable rules and regulations of an unbelievable complexity. Even before the patient had any suspicion of the hellish existence that lay before him, the dream showed him that if he wanted to come down to earth again there would have to be a pact with evil.
238
relativity of good and evil in a way that immediately calls to mind the Taoist symbol of Yin and Yang.
239
[288] We should certainly not conclude from these compensations that, as the conscious mind becomes more deeply engrossed in universal problems, the unconscious will bring forth correspondingly far-reaching compensations. There is what one might call a legitimate and an illegitimate interest in impersonal problems. Excursions of this kind are legitimate only when they arise from the deepest and truest needs of the individual; illegitimate when they are either mere intellectual curiosity or a flight from unpleasant reality.
239
In the latter case the unconscious produces all too human and purely personal compensations, whose manifest aim is to bring the conscious mind back to ordinary reality. People who go illegitimately mooning after the infinite often have absurdly banal dreams which endeavour to damp down their ebullience. Thus, from the nature of the compensation, we can at once draw conclusions as to the seriousness and rightness of the conscious strivings.
240
[289] There are certainly not a few people who are afraid to admit that the unconscious could ever have âbigâ ideas. They will object, âBut do you really believe that the unconscious is capable of offering anything like a constructive criticism of our Western mentality?â Of course, if we take the problem intellectually and impute rational intentions to the unconscious, the thing becomes absurd. But it would never do to foist our conscious psychology upon the unconscious. Its mentality is an instinctive one; it has no differentiated functions, and it does not âthinkâ as we understand âthinking.â It simply creates an image that answers to the conscious situation.
240
This image contains as much thought as feeling, and is anything rather than a product of rationalistic reflection. Such an image would be better described as an artistâs vision. We tend to forget that a problem like the one which underlies the dream last mentioned cannot, even to the conscious mind of the dreamer, be an intellectual problem, but is profoundly emotional.
240
For a moral man the ethical problem is a passionate question which has its roots in the deepest instinctual processes as well as in his most idealistic aspirations. The problem for him is devastatingly real. It is not surprising, therefore, that the answer likewise springs from the depths of his nature. The fact that everyone thinks his psychology is the measure of all things, and, if he also happens to be a fool, will inevitably think that such a problem is beneath his notice, should not trouble the psychologist in the least, for he has to take things objectively, as he finds them, without twisting them to fit his subjective suppositions.
240
The richer and more capacious natures may legitimately be gripped by an impersonal problem, and to the extent that this is so, their unconscious can answer in the same style. And just as the conscious mind can put the question, âWhy is there this frightful conflict between good and evil?,â so the unconscious can reply, âLook closer! Each needs the other. The best, just because it is the best, holds the seed of evil, and there is nothing so bad but good can come of it.â
241
[290] It might then dawn on the dreamer that the apparently insoluble conflict is, perhaps, a prejudice, a frame of mind conditioned by time and place. The seemingly complex dream-image might easily reveal itself as plain, instinctive common sense, as the tiny germ of a rational idea, which a maturer mind could just as well have thought consciously.
241
At all events Chinese philosophy thought of it ages ago. The singularly apt, plastic configuration of thought is the prerogative of that primitive, natural spirit which is alive in all of us and is only obscured by a one-sided conscious development.
241
If we consider the unconscious compensations from this angle, we might justifiably be accused of judging the unconscious too much from the conscious standpoint. And indeed, in pursuing these reflections, I have always started from the view that the unconscious simply reacts to the conscious contents, albeit in a very significant way, but that it lacks initiative.
241
It is, however, far from my intention to give the impression that the unconscious is merely reactive in all cases. On the contrary, there is a host of experiences which seem to prove that the unconscious is not only spontaneous but can actually take the lead. There are innumerable cases of people who lingered on in a pettifogging unconsciousness, only to become neurotic in the end. Thanks to the neurosis contrived by the unconscious, they are shaken out of their apathy, and this in spite of their own laziness and often desperate resistance.
242
[291] Yet it would, in my view, be wrong to suppose that in such cases the unconscious is working to a deliberate and concerted plan and is striving to realize certain definite ends. I have found nothing to support this assumption. The driving force, so far as it is possible for us to grasp it, seems to be in essence only an urge towards self-realization. If it were a matter of some general teleological plan, then all individuals who enjoy a surplus of unconsciousness would necessarily be driven towards higher consciousness by an irresistible urge.
242
That is plainly not the case. There are vast masses of the population who, despite their notorious unconsciousness, never get anywhere near a neurosis. The few who are smitten by such a fate are really persons of the âhigherâ type who, for one reason or another, have remained too long on a primitive level. Their nature does not in the long run tolerate persistence in what is for them an unnatural torpor. As a result of their narrow conscious outlook and their cramped existence they save energy; bit by bit it accumulates in the unconscious and finally explodes in the form of a more or less acute neurosis. This simple mechanism does not necessarily conceal a âplan.â A perfectly understandable urge towards self-realization would provide a quite satisfactory explanation. We could also speak of a retarded maturation of the personality.
243
[292] Since it is highly probable that we are still a long way from the summit of absolute consciousness, presumably everyone is capable of wider consciousness, and we may assume accordingly that the unconscious processes are constantly supplying us with contents which, if consciously recognized, would extend the range of consciousness. Looked at in this way, the unconscious appears as a field of experience of unlimited extent. If it were merely reactive to the conscious mind, we might aptly call it a psychic mirror-world.
243
In that case, the real source of all contents and activities would lie in the conscious mind, and there would be absolutely nothing in the unconscious except the distorted reflections of conscious contents. The creative process would be shut up in the conscious mind, and anything new would be nothing but conscious invention or cleverness. The empirical facts give the lie to this. Every creative man knows that spontaneity is the very essence of creative thought. Because the unconscious is not just a reactive mirror-reflection, but an independent, productive activity, its realm of experience is a self-contained world, having its own reality, of which we can only say that it affects us as we affect itâprecisely what we say about our experience of the outer world. And just as material objects are the constituent elements of this world, so psychic factors constitute the objects of that other world.
244
[293] The idea of psychic objectivity is by no means a new discovery. It is in fact one of the earliest and most universal acquisitions of humanity: it is nothing less than the conviction as to the concrete existence of a spirit-world. The spirit-world was certainly never an invention in the sense that fire-boring was an invention; it was far rather the experience, the conscious acceptance of a reality in no way inferior to that of the material world.
244
I doubt whether primitives exist anywhere who are not acquainted with magical influence or a magical substance. (âMagicalâ is simply another word for âpsychicâ) It would also appear that practically all primitives are aware of the existence of spirits.2 âSpiritâ is a psychic fact. Just as we distinguish our own bodiliness from bodies that are strange to us, so primitivesâif they have any notion of âsoulsâ at allâdistinguish between their own souls and the spirits, which are felt as strange and as ânot belonging.â They are objects of outward perception, whereas their own soul (or one of several souls where a plurality is assumed), though believed to be essentially akin to the spirits, is not usually an object of so-called sensible perception.
244
After death the soul (or one of the plurality of souls) becomes a spirit which survives the dead man, and often it shows a marked deterioration of character that partly contradicts the notion of personal immortality. The Bataks,3 of Sumatra, go so far as to assert that the people who were good in this life turn into malign and dangerous spirits. Nearly everything that the primitives say about the tricks which the spirits play on the living, and the general picture they give of the revenants, corresponds down to the last detail with the phenomena established by spiritualistic experience. And just as the communications from the âBeyondâ can be seen to be the activities of broken-off bits of the psyche, so these primitive spirits are manifestations of unconscious complexes.4
244
The importance that modern psychology attaches to the âparental complexâ is a direct continuation of primitive manâs experience of the dangerous power of the ancestral spirits. Even the error of judgment which leads him unthinkingly to assume that the spirits are realities of the external world is carried on in our assumption (which is only partially correct) that the real parents are responsible for the parental complex. In the old trauma theory of Freudian psychoanalysis, and in other quarters as well, this assumption even passed for a scientific explanation. (It was in order to avoid this confusion that I advocated the term âparental imago.â5)
245
[294] The simple soul is of course quite unaware of the fact that his nearest relations, who exercise immediate influence over him, create in him an image which is only partly a replica of themselves, while its other part is compounded of elements derived from himself. The imago is built up of parental influences plus the specific reactions of the child; it is therefore an image that reflects the object with very considerable qualifications. Naturally, the simple soul believes that his parents are as he sees them. The image is unconsciously projected, and when the parents die, the projected image goes on working as though it were a spirit existing on its own. The primitive then speaks of parental spirits who return by night (revenants), while the modern man calls it a father or mother complex.
246
[295] The more limited a manâs field of consciousness is, the more numerous the psychic contents (imagos) which meet him as quasi-external apparitions, either in the form of spirits, or as magical potencies projected upon living people (magicians, witches, etc.). At a rather higher stage of development, where the idea of the soul already exists, not all the imagos continue to be projected (where this happens, even trees and stones talk), but one or the other complex has come near enough to consciousness to be felt as no longer strange, but as somehow âbelonging.â
246
Nevertheless, the feeling that it âbelongsâ is not at first sufficiently strong for the complex to be sensed as a subjective content of consciousness. It remains in a sort of no manâs land between conscious and unconscious, in the half-shadow, in part belonging or akin to the conscious subject, in part an autonomous being, and meeting consciousness as such. At all events it is not necessarily obedient to the subjectâs intentions, it may even be of a higher order, more often than not a source of inspiration or warning, or of âsupernaturalâ information.
246
Psychologically such a content could be explained as a partly autonomous complex that is not yet fully integrated. The archaic souls, the ba and ka of the Egyptians, are complexes of this kind. At a still higher level, and particularly among the civilized peoples of the West, this complex is invariably of the feminine genderâanima and ÏÏ Îźâa fact for which deeper and cogent reasons are not lacking.
165
II
THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE EGO AND THE UNCONSCIOUS
170
PART ONE
THE EFFECTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS UPON CONSCIOUSNESS
205
III
THE PERSONA AS A SEGMENT OF THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHE
205
in the analysis of the personal unconscious the first things to be added to consciousness are the personal contents, and I suggested that these contents, which have been repressed but are capable of becoming conscious, should be called the personal unconscious. I also showed that to annex the deeper layers of the unconscious, which I have called the collective unconscious, produces an enlargement of the personality leading to the state of inflation. This state is reached by simply continuing the analytical work,
205
By continuing the analysis we add to the personal consciousness certain fundamental, general, and impersonal characteristics of humanity, thereby bringing about the inflation1 I have just described, which might be regarded as one of the unpleasant consequences of becoming fully conscious.
477
1 This phenomenon, which results from the extension of consciousness, is in no sense specific to analytical treatment. It occurs whenever people are overpowered by knowledge or by some new realization. âKnowledge puffeth up,â Paul writes to the Corinthians, for the new knowledge had turned the heads of many, as indeed constantly happens. The inflation has nothing to do with the kind of knowledge, but simply and solely with the fact that any new knowledge can so seize hold of a weak head that he no longer sees and hears anything else. He is hypnotized by it, and instantly believes he has solved the riddle of the universe. But that is equivalent to almighty self-conceit. This process is such a general
205
[244] From this point of view the conscious personality is a more or less arbitrary segment of the collective psyche. It consists in a sum of psychic facts that are felt to be personal. The attribute âpersonalâ means: pertaining exclusively to this particular person.
206
[245] This arbitrary segment of collective psycheâoften fashioned with considerable painsâI have called the persona. The term persona is really a very appropriate expression for this, for originally it meant the mask once worn by actors to indicate the role they played.
206
If we endeavour to draw a precise distinction between what psychic material should be considered personal, and what impersonal, we soon find ourselves in the greatest dilemma, for by definition we have to say of the personaâs contents what we have said of the impersonal unconscious, namely, that it is collective. It is only because the persona represents a more or less arbitrary and fortuitous segment of the collective psyche that we can make the mistake of regarding it in toto as something individual. It is, as its name implies, only a mask of the collective psyche, a mask that feigns individuality, making others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks.
206
[246] When we analyse the persona we strip off the mask, and discover that what seemed to be individual is at bottom collective; in other words, that the persona was only a mask of the collective psyche. Fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be. He takes a name, earns a title, exercises a function, he is this or that. In a certain sense all this is real, yet in relation to the essential individuality of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a compromise formation, in making which others often have a greater share than he. The persona is a semblance, a two-dimensional reality, to give it a nickname.
207
[247] It would be wrong to leave the matter as it stands without at the same time recognizing that there is, after all, something individual in the peculiar choice and delineation of the persona, and that despite the exclusive identity of the ego-consciousness with the persona the unconscious self, oneâs real individuality, is always present and makes itself felt indirectly if not directly. Although the ego-consciousness is at first identical with the personaâthat compromise role in which we parade before the communityâyet the unconscious self can never be repressed to the point of extinction. Its influence is chiefly manifest in the special nature of the contrasting and compensating contents of the unconscious. The purely personal attitude of the conscious mind evokes reactions on the part of the unconscious, and these, together with personal repressions, contain the seeds of individual development in the guise of collective fantasies. Through the analysis of the personal unconscious, the conscious mind becomes suffused with collective material which brings with it the elements of individuality.
213
IV
NEGATIVE ATTEMPTS TO FREE THE INDIVIDUALITY FROM THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHE
9
I
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS
18
PSYCHOANALYSIS
43
III
THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW: THE WILL TO POWER
44
man also has a shadow-side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the monsterâs body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature.
44
A dim premonition tells us that we cannot be whole without this negative side, that we have a body which, like all bodies, casts a shadow, and that if we deny this body we cease to be three-dimensional and become flat and without substance. Yet this body is a beast with a beastâs soul, an organism that gives unquestioning obedience to instinct. To unite oneself with this shadow is to say yes to instinct, to that formidable dynamism lurking in the background.
44
From this the ascetic morality of Christianity wishes to free us, but at the risk of disorganizing manâs animal nature at the deepest level.
45
Has anyone made clear to himself what that meansâa yea-saying to instinct? That was what Nietzsche desired and taught, and he was in deadly earnest. With a rare passion he sacrificed himself, his whole life, to the idea of the Supermanâto the idea of the man who through obedience to instinct transcends himself.
45
And what was the course of that life? It was as Nietzsche himself prophesied in Zarathustra, in that foreboding vision of the fatal fall of the rope-dancer, the man who would not be âsurpassed.â To the dying rope-dancer Zarathustra says: âThy soul will sooner be dead than thy body!â and later the dwarf says to Zarathustra, âO Zarathustra, stone of wisdom! High thou flingest thyself, but every stone that is flung must fall! Condemned to thyself and to thine own stoning: O Zarathustra, far indeed thou flingest the stoneâbut upon thyself will it fall.â And when he cried his âEcce Homoâ over himself, again it was too late, as once before when this saying was uttered, and the crucifixion of the soul began before the body was dead.
47
We forget that this is only one of the possible directions of instinct. There exists not only the instinct for the preservation of the species, but also the instinct of self-preservation.
47
It is of this last instinct, the will to power, that Nietzsche obviously speaks. Whatever else is instinctual only follows, for him, in the train of the will to power.
47
From the standpoint of Freudâs sexual psychology, this is an error of the most glaring kind, a misconception of biology, the bungling of a decadent neurotic. For it is a very simple matter for any adherent of sexual psychology to prove that everything lofty and heroic in Nietzscheâs view of life and the world is nothing but a consequence of the repression and misunderstanding of that other instinct which this psychology regards as fundamental.
48
The case of Nietzsche shows, on the one hand, the consequences of neurotic one-sidedness, and, on the other hand, the dangers that lurk in this leap beyond Christianity. Nietzsche undoubtedly felt the Christian denial of animal nature very deeply indeed, and therefore he sought a higher human wholeness beyond good and evil. But he who seriously criticizes the basic attitudes of Christianity also forfeits the protection which these bestow upon him. He delivers himself up unresistingly to the animal psyche. That is the moment of Dionysian frenzy, the overwhelming manifestation of the âblond beast,â1 which seizes the unsuspecting soul with nameless shudderings. The seizure transforms him into a hero or into a godlike being, a superhuman entity. He rightly feels himself âsix thousand feet beyond good and evil.â
49
The psychological observer knows this state as âidentification with the shadow,â a phenomenon which occurs with great regularity at such moments of collision with the unconscious. The only thing that helps here is cautious self-criticism. Firstly and before all else, it is exceedingly unlikely that one has just discovered a world-shattering truth, for such things happen extremely seldom in the worldâs history. Secondly, one must carefully inquire whether something similar might not have happened elsewhereâfor instance Nietzsche, as a philologist, could have adduced a few obvious classical parallels which would certainly have calmed his mind. Thirdly, one must reflect that a Dionysian experience may well be nothing more than a relapse into a pagan form of religion, so that in reality nothing new is discovered and the same story only repeats itself from the beginning. Fourthly, one cannot avoid foreseeing that this joyful intensification of mood to heroic and godlike heights is dead certain to be followed by an equally deep plunge into the abyss.
49
These considerations would put one in a position of advantage: the whole extravaganza could then be reduced to the proportions of a somewhat exhausting mountaineering expedition, to which succeed the eternal commonplaces of day. Just as every stream seeks the valley and the broad river that hastens towards the flatlands, so life not only flows along in commonplaces, but makes everything else commonplace. The uncommon, if it is not to end in catastrophe, may steal in alongside the commonplace, but not often.
49
If heroism becomes chronic, it ends in a cramp, and the cramp leads to catastrophe or to neurosis or both. Nietzsche got stuck in a state of high tension. But with this ecstasy he could just as well have borne up under Christianity. Not that this answers the question of the animal psyche in the leastâfor an ecstatic animal is a monstrosity. An animal fulfils the law of its own life, neither more nor less. We can call it obedient and âgood.â But the ecstatic by-passes the law of his own life and behaves, from the point of view of nature, improperly.
49
This impropriety is the exclusive prerogative of man, whose consciousness and free will can occasionally loose themselves contra naturam from their roots in animal nature. It is the indispensable foundation of all culture, but also of spiritual sickness if exaggerated. Man can suffer only a certain amount of culture without injury. The endless dilemma of culture and nature is always a question of too much or too little, never of either-or.
50
The case of Nietzsche faces us with the question: What did the collision with the shadow, namely the will to power, reveal to him? Is it to be regarded as something bogus, a symptom of repression? Is the will to power genuine or merely secondary? If the conflict with the shadow had let loose a flood of sexual fantasies, the matter would be perfectly clear; but it happened otherwise. The âKern des Pudelsâ was not Eros but the power of the ego. From this we would have to conclude that what was repressed was not Eros but the will to power. There is in my opinion no ground for the assumption that Eros is genuine and the will to power bogus. The will to power is surely just as mighty a daemon as Eros, and just as old and original.
51
A life like Nietzscheâs, lived to its fatal end with rare consistency in accordance with the underlying instinct for power, cannot simply be explained away as bogus. Otherwise one would make oneself guilty of the same unfair judgment that Nietzsche passed on his polar opposite, Wagner: âEverything about him is false. What is genuine is hidden or decorated. He is an actor, in every good and bad sense of the word.â Why this prejudice? Because Wagner embodies that other elemental urge which Nietzsche overlooked, and upon which Freudâs psychology is built.
51
If we inquire whether Freud knew of that other instinct, the urge to power, we find that he conceived it under the name of âego-instinct.â But these âego-instinctsâ occupy a rather pokey little corner in his psychology compared with the broad, all too broad, development of the sexual factor. In reality human nature bears the burden of a terrible and unending conflict between the principle of the ego and the principle of instinct: the ego all barriers and restraint, instinct limitless, and both principles of equal might. In a certain sense man may count himself happy that he is âconscious only of the single urge,â and therefore it is only prudent to guard against ever knowing the other.
51
But if he does learn to know the other, it is all up with him: he then enters upon the Faustian conflict. In the first part of Faust Goethe has shown us what it means to accept instinct and in the second part what it means to accept the ego and its weird unconscious world. All that is insignificant, paltry, and cowardly in us cowers and shrinks from this acceptanceâand there is an excellent pretext for this: we discover that the âotherâ in us is indeed âanother,â a real man, who actually thinks, does, feels, and desires all the things that are despicable and odious.
51
In this way we can seize hold of the bogey and declare war on him to our satisfaction. Hence those chronic idiosyncrasies of which the history of morals has preserved some fine examples. A particularly transparent example is that already citedââNietzsche contra Wagner, contra Paul,â etc. But daily life abounds in such cases. By this ingenious device a man may save himself from the Faustian catastrophe, before which his courage and his strength might well fail him.
51
A whole man, however, knows that his bitterest foe, or indeed a host of enemies, does not equal that one worst adversary, the âother selfâ who dwells in his bosom. Nietzsche had Wagner in himself, and that is why he envied him Parsifal; but, what was worse, he, Saul, also had Paul in him. Therefore Nietzsche became one stigmatized by the spirit; like Saul he had to experience Christification, when the âotherâ whispered the âEcce Homoâ in his ear. Which of them âbroke down before the crossââWagner or Nietzsche?
52
Fate willed it that one of Freudâs earliest disciples, Alfred Adler, should formulate a view of neurosis2 based exclusively on the power principle. It is of no little interest, indeed singularly fascinating, to see how utterly different the same things look when viewed in a contrary light. To take the main contrast first: with Freud everything follows from antecedent circumstances according to a rigorous causality, with Adler everything is a teleological âarrangement.â Here is a simple example: A young woman begins to have attacks of anxiety. At night she wakes up from a nightmare with a blood-curdling cry, is scarcely able to calm herself, clings to her husband and implores him not to leave her, demanding assurance that he really loves her, etc. Gradually a nervous asthma develops, the attacks also coming on during the day.
90
V
THE PERSONAL AND THE COLLECTIVE (OR TRANSPERSONAL) UNCONSCIOUS
91
âprimordialâ image belonging not to the domain of personal memory but to the secrets of the mental history of mankind.
92
There are present in every individual, besides his personal memories, the great âprimordialâ images, as Jacob Burckhardt once aptly called them, the inherited possibilities of human imagination as it was from time immemorial. The fact of this inheritance explains the truly amazing phenomenon that certain motifs from myths and legends repeat themselves the world over in identical forms. It also explains why it is that our mental patients can reproduce exactly the same images and associations that are known to us from the old texts.
92
a deeper layer of the unconscious where the primordial images common to humanity lie sleeping. I have called these images or motifs âarchetypes,â also âdominantsâ of the unconscious.
92
This discovery means another step forward in our understanding: the recognition, that is, of two layers in the unconscious. We have to distinguish between a personal unconscious and an impersonal or transpersonal unconscious. We speak of the latter also as the collective unconscious,4 because it is detached from anything personal and is common to all men, since its contents can be found everywhere, which is naturally not the case with the personal contents.
92
The personal unconscious contains lost memories, painful ideas that are repressed (i.e., forgotten on purpose), subliminal perceptions, by which are meant sense-perceptions that were not strong enough to reach consciousness, and finally, contents that are not yet ripe for consciousness. It corresponds to the figure of the shadow so frequently met with in dreams.5
93
as can easily be seen in those philosophical or Gnostic systems which rely on perception of the unconscious as the source of knowledge. The idea of angels, archangels, âprincipalities and powersâ in St. Paul, the archons of the Gnostics, the heavenly hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite, all come from the perception of the relative autonomy of the archetypes.
93
[104] The primordial images are the most ancient and the most universal âthought-formsâ of humanity. They are as much feelings as thoughts; indeed, they lead their own independent life rather in the manner of part-souls,6
93
We have now found the object which the libido chooses when it is freed from the personal, infantile form of transference. It follows its own gradient down into the depths of the unconscious, and there activates what has lain slumbering from the beginning. It has discovered the hidden treasure upon which mankind ever and anon has drawn, and from which it has raised up its gods and demons, and all those potent and mighty thoughts without which man ceases to be man.
94
the idea of the conservation of energy. Robert Mayer, the real creator of this idea,
97
I have often been asked where the archetypes or primordial images come from. It seems to me that their origin can only be explained by assuming them to be deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity.
97
One of the commonest and at the same time most impressive experiences is the apparent movement of the sun every day. We certainly cannot discover anything of the kind in the unconscious, so far as the known physical process is concerned. What we do find, on the other hand, is the myth of the sun-hero in all its countless variations. It is this myth, and not the physical process, that forms the sun archetype. The same can be said of the phases of the moon.
97
The archetype is a kind of readiness to produce over and over again the same or similar mythical ideas. Hence it seems as though what is impressed upon the unconscious were exclusively the subjective fantasy-ideas aroused by the physical process. We may therefore assume that the archetypes are recurrent impressions made by subjective reactions.11
97
Naturally this assumption only pushes the problem further back without solving it. There is nothing to prevent us from assuming that certain archetypes exist even in animals, that they are grounded in the peculiarities of the living organism itself and are therefore direct expressions of life whose nature cannot be further explained.
97
Not only are the archetypes, apparently, impressions of ever-repeated typical experiences, but, at the same time, they behave empirically like agents that tend towards the repetition of these same experiences. For when an archetype appears in a dream, in a fantasy, or in life, it always brings with it a certain influence or power by virtue of which it either exercises a numinous or a fascinating effect, or impels to action.
98
The images contain not only all the fine and good things that humanity has ever thought and felt, but the worst infamies and devilries of which men have been capable. Owing to their specific energyâfor they behave like highly charged autonomous centres of powerâthey exert a fascinating and possessive influence upon the conscious mind and can thus produce extensive alterations in the subject. One can see this in religious conversions, in cases of influence by suggestion, and particularly at the onset of certain forms of schizophrenia.12
98
the characteristic effect of the archetype: it seizes hold of the psyche with a kind of primeval force and compels it to transgress the bounds of humanity. It causes exaggeration, a puffed-up attitude (inflation), loss of free will, delusion, and enthusiasm in good and evil alike. This is the reason why men have always needed demons and cannot live without gods,
98
The idea of God is an absolutely necessary psychological function of an irrational nature, which has nothing whatever to do with the question of Godâs existence. The human intellect can never answer this question, still less give any proof of God.
98
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 âbellyâ at least, in St. Paulâs words.
98
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 âenlightenedâ intellect could hatch forth.
98
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. The consensus gentium has been talking of gods for aeons and will still be talking of them aeons hence. No matter how beautiful and perfect man may believe his reason to be, he can always be certain that it is only one of the possible mental functions, and covers only that one side of the phenomenal world which corresponds to it.
98
But the irrational, that which is not agreeable to reason, rings it about on all sides. And the irrational is likewise a psychological functionâin a word, it is the collective unconscious; whereas the rational is essentially tied to the conscious mind.
98
The conscious mind must have reason, firstly to discover some order in the chaos of disorderly individual events occurring in the world, and secondly to create order, at least in human affairs. We are moved by the laudable and useful ambition to extirpate the chaos of the irrational both within and without to the best of our ability. Apparently the process has gone pretty far. As a mental patient once told me: âDoctor, last night I disinfected the whole heavens with bichloride of mercury, but I found no God.â Something of the sort has happened to us as well.
99
Old Heraclitus, who was indeed a very great sage, discovered the most marvellous of all psychological laws: the regulative function of opposites. He called it enantiodromia, a running contrariwise, by which he meant that sooner or later everything runs into its opposite.
99
Thus the rational attitude of culture necessarily runs into its opposite, namely the irrational devastation of culture.13 We should never identify ourselves with reason, for man is not and never will be a creature of reason alone, a fact to be noted by all pedantic culture-mongers. The irrational cannot be and must not be extirpated. The gods cannot and must not die.
99
I said just now that there seems to be something, a kind of superior power, in the human psyche, and that if this is not the idea of God, then it is the âbelly.â I wanted to express the fact that one or other basic instinct, or complex of ideas, will invariably concentrate upon itself the greatest sum of psychic energy and thus force the ego into its service. As a rule the ego is drawn into this focus of energy so powerfully that it identifies with it and thinks it desires and needs nothing further. In this way a craze develops, a monomania or possession, an acute one-sidedness which most seriously imperils the psychic equilibrium.
99
Without doubt the capacity for such one-sidedness is the secret of successâof a sort, for which reason our civilization assiduously strives to foster it. The passion, the piling up of energy in these monomanias, is what the ancients called a âgod,â and in common speech we still do the same. Do we not say, âHe makes a god of this or thatâ? A man thinks that he wills and chooses, and does not notice that he is already possessed, that his interest has become the master, arrogating all power to itself. Such interests are indeed gods of a kind which, once recognized by the many, gradually form a âchurchâ and gather a herd of believers about them. This we then call an âorganization.â It is followed by a disorganizing reaction which aims to drive out the devil with Beelzebub. The enantiodromia that always threatens when a movement attains to undisputed power offers no solution of the problem, for it is just as blind in its disorganization as it was in its organization.
100
The only person who escapes the grim law of enantiodromia is the man who knows how to separate himself from the unconscious, not by repressing itâfor then it simply attacks him from the rearâbut by putting it clearly before him as that which he is not.
101
The patient must learn to differentiate what is ego and what is non-ego, i.e., collective psyche. In this way he finds the material to which he will henceforth have to accommodate himself. His energy, until now laid up in unserviceable and pathological forms, has come into its proper sphere. It is essential, in differentiating the ego from the non-ego, that a man should be firmly rooted in his ego-function; that is, he must fulfil his duty to life, so as to be in every respect a viable member of the community. All that he neglects in this respect falls into the unconscious and reinforces its position, so that he is in danger of being swallowed up by it.
101
But the penalties for this are heavy. As Synesius opined of old, it is just the âinspired soulâ ( ) that becomes god and demon, and as such suffers the divine punishment of being torn asunder like Zagreus. This was what Nietzsche experienced at the onset of his malady. Enantiodromia means being torn asunder into pairs of opposites, which are the attributes of âthe godâ and hence also of the godlike man, who owes his godlikeness to overcoming his gods.
101
As soon as we speak of the collective unconscious we find ourselves in a sphere, and concerned with a problem, which is altogether precluded in the practical analysis of young people or of those who have remained infantile too long. Wherever the father and mother imagos have still to be overcome, wherever there is a little bit of life still to be conquered, which is the natural possession of the average man, then we had better make no mention of the collective unconscious and the problem of opposites.
101
But once the parental transferences and the youthful illusions have been mastered, or are at least ripe for mastery, then we must speak of these things. We are here outside the range of Freudian and Adlerian reductions; we are no longer concerned with how to remove the obstacles to a manâs profession, or to his marriage, or to anything that means a widening of his life, but are confronted with the task of finding a meaning that will enable him to continue living at allâa meaning more than blank resignation and mournful retrospect.
102
Our life is like the course of the sun. In the morning it gains continually in strength until it reaches the zenith-heat of high noon. Then comes the enantiodromia: the steady forward movement no longer denotes an increase, but a decrease, in strength. Thus our task in handling a young person is different from the task of handling an older person. In the former case, it is enough to clear away all the obstacles that hinder expansion and ascent; in the latter, we must nurture everything that assists the descent.
102
An inexperienced youth thinks one can let the old people go, because not much more can happen to them anyway: they have their lives behind them and are no better than petrified pillars of the past. But it is a great mistake to suppose that the meaning of life is exhausted with the period of youth and expansion; that, for example, a woman who has passed the menopause is âfinished.â The afternoon of life is just as full of meaning as the morning; only, its meaning and purpose are different.14
102
Man has two aims: the first is the natural aim, the begetting of children and the business of protecting the brood; to this belongs the acquisition of money and social position. When this aim has been reached a new phase begins: the cultural aim. For the attainment of the former we have the help of nature and, on top of that, education; for the attainment of the latter, little or nothing helps.
102
Often, indeed, a false ambition survives, in that an old man wants to be a youth again, or at least feels he must behave like one, although in his heart he can no longer make believe. This is what makes the transition from the natural to the cultural phase so terribly difficult and bitter for many people; they cling to the illusion of youth or to their children, hoping to salvage in this way a last little scrap of youth.
102
One sees it especially in mothers, who find their sole meaning in their children and imagine they will sink into a bottomless void when they have to give them up. No wonder that many bad neuroses appear at the onset of lifeâs afternoon. It is a sort of second puberty, another âstorm and stressâ period, not infrequently accompanied by tempests of passionâthe âdangerous age.â
102
But the problems that crop up at this age are no longer to be solved by the old recipes: the hand of this clock cannot be put back. What youth found and must find outside, the man of lifeâs afternoon must find within himself. Here we face new problems which often cause the doctor no light headache.
103
The transition from morning to afternoon means a revaluation of the earlier values. There comes the urgent need to appreciate the value of the opposite of our former ideals, to perceive the error in our former convictions, to recognize the untruth in our former truth, and to feel how much antagonism and even hatred lay in what, until now, had passed for love.
103
Not a few of those who are drawn into the conflict of opposites jettison everything that had previously seemed to them good and worth striving for; they try to live in complete opposition to their former ego. Changes of profession, divorces, religious convulsions, apostasies of every description, are the symptoms of this swing over to the opposite. The snag about a radical conversion into oneâs opposite is that oneâs former life suffers repression and thus produces just as unbalanced a state as existed before, when the counterparts of the conscious virtues and values were still repressed and unconscious. Just as before, perhaps, neurotic disorders arose because the opposing fantasies were unconscious, so now other disorders arise through the repression of former idols.
103
It is of course a fundamental mistake to imagine that when we see the non-value in a value or the untruth in a truth, the value or the truth ceases to exist. It has only become relative. Everything human is relative, because everything rests on an inner polarity; for everything is a phenomenon of energy. Energy necessarily depends on a pre-existing polarity, without which there could be no energy. There must always be high and low, hot and cold, etc., so that the equilibrating processâwhich is energyâcan take place.
103
Therefore the tendency to deny all previous values in favour of their opposites is just as much of an exaggeration as the earlier one-sidedness. And in so far as it is a question of rejecting universally accepted and indubitable values, the result is a fatal loss. One who acts in this way empties himself out with his values, as Nietzsche has already said.
104
The point is not conversion into the opposite but conservation of previous values together with recognition of their opposites. Naturally this means conflict and self-division. It is understandable enough that one should shrink from it, philosophically as well as morally; hence the alternative sought, more often than conversion into the opposite, is a convulsive stiffening of the previous attitude. It must be admitted that, in the case of elderly men, this is a phenomenon of no little merit, however disagreeable it may be: at least they do not become renegades, they remain upright, they do not fall into muddle-headedness nor yet into the mud; they are no defaulters, but are merely dead wood or, to put it more politely, pillars of the past.
104
But the accompanying symptoms, the rigidity, the narrow-mindedness, the stand-offishness of these laudatores temporis acti are unpleasant, not to say harmful; for their method of espousing a truth or any other value is so inflexible and violent that their unmannerliness repels more than the truth attracts, so that the result is the opposite of the intended good.
104
The fundamental cause of their rigidity is fear of the problem of opposites: they have a foreboding and secret dread of the âsinister brother of Medardus.â Therefore there must be only one truth and one guiding principle of action, and that must be absolute; otherwise it affords no protection against the impending disaster, which is sensed everywhere save in themselves.
104
But actually the most dangerous revolutionary is within ourselves, and all must realize this who wish to pass over safely into the second half of life. Certainly this means exchanging the apparent security we have so far enjoyed for a condition of insecurity, of internal division, of contradictory convictions. The worst feature of all is that there appears to be no way out of this condition. Tertium non datur, says logicâthere is no middle way.
105
The practical necessities of treatment have therefore forced us to look for ways and means that might lead out of this intolerable situation. Whenever a man is confronted by an apparently insurmountable obstacle, he draws back: he makes what is technically called a regression. He goes back to the times when he found himself in similar situations, and he tries to apply again the means that helped him then. But what helped in youth is of no use in age. What good did it do that American business man to return to his former position? It simply wouldnât work. So the regression continues right back into childhood (hence the childishness of many elderly neurotics) and ends up in the time before childhood. That may sound strange, but in point of fact it is not only logical but altogether possible.
106
We mentioned earlier that the unconscious contains, as it were, two layers: the personal and the collective. The personal layer ends at the earliest memories of infancy, but the collective layer comprises the pre-infantile period, that is, the residues of ancestral life. Whereas the memory-images of the personal unconscious are, as it were, filled out, because they are images personally experienced by the individual, the archetypes of the collective unconscious are not filled out because they are forms not personally experienced. When, on the other hand, psychic energy regresses, going beyond even the period of early infancy, and breaks into the legacy of ancestral life, the mythological images are awakened: these are the archetypes.15
106
An interior spiritual world whose existence we never suspected opens out and displays contents which seem to stand in sharpest contrast to all our former ideas. These images are so intense that it is quite understandable why millions of cultivated persons should be taken in by theosophy and anthroposophy. This happens simply because such modern gnostic systems meet the need for expressing and formulating the wordless occurrences going on within ourselves better than any of the existing forms of Christianity, not excepting Catholicism. The latter is certainly able to express, far more comprehensively than Protestantism, the facts in question through its dogma and ritual symbolism.
106
But neither in the past nor in the present has even Catholicism attained anything like the richness of the old pagan symbolism, which is why this symbolism persisted far into Christianity and then gradually went underground, forming currents that, from the early Middle Ages to modern times, have never quite lost their vitality. To a large extent they vanished from the surface; but, changing their form, they come back again to compensate the one-sidedness of our conscious mind with its modern orientation.16
106
Our consciousness is so saturated with Christianity, so utterly moulded by it, that the unconscious counter-position can discover no foothold there, for the simple reason that it seems too much the antithesis of our ruling ideas. The more one-sidedly, rigidly, and absolutely the one position is held, the more aggressive, hostile, and incompatible will the other become, so that at first sight there would seem to be little prospect of reconciling the two.
106
But once the conscious mind admits at least the relative validity of all human opinion, then the opposition loses something of its irreconcilable character. In the meantime the conflict casts round for appropriate expression in, for instance, the oriental religionsâBuddhism, Hinduism, Taoism. The syncretism of theosophy goes a long way towards meeting this need, and that explains its numerous successes.
107
Through these periphrastic interpretations the authentic experience is replaced by images and words borrowed from a foreign source, and by views, ideas, and forms that have not grown on our soil and have no ties with our hearts, but only with our heads. Indeed, not even our thought can clearly grasp them, because it never invented them. It is a case of stolen goods that bring no prosperity. Such substitutes make men shadowy and unreal; they put empty words in the place of living realities, and slip out of the painful tension of opposites into a wan, two-dimensional, phantasmal world where everything vital and creative withers and dies.
108
The wordless occurrences which are called forth by regression to the pre-infantile period need no substitutes; they demand to be individually shaped in and by each manâs life and work. They are images sprung from the life, the joys and sorrows, of our ancestors; and to life they seek to return, not in experience only, but in deed. Because of their opposition to the conscious mind they cannot be translated straight into our world; hence a way must be found that can mediate between conscious and unconscious reality.
8
II. Anima and Animus
III. The Technique of Differentiation between the Ego and the Figures of the Unconscious
109
VI
THE SYNTHETIC OR CONSTRUCTIVE METHOD
109
The process of coming to terms with the unconscious is a true labour, a work which involves both action and suffering. It has been named the âtranscendent functionâ1 because it represents a function based on real and âimaginary,â or rational and irrational, data, thus bridging the yawning gulf between conscious and unconscious. It is a natural process, a manifestation of the energy that springs from the tension of opposites, and it consists in a series of fantasy-occurrences which appear spontaneously in dreams and visions.
298
four functions
109
The natural process by which the opposites are united came to serve me as the model and basis for a method consisting essentially in this: everything that happens at the behest of nature, unconsciously and spontaneously, is deliberately summoned forth and integrated into the conscious mind and its outlook. Failure in many cases is due precisely to the fact that they lack the mental and spiritual equipment to master the events taking place in them. Here medical help must intervene in the form of a special method of treatment.
110
As we have seen, the theories discussed at the beginning of this book rest on an exclusively causal and reductive procedure which resolves the dream (or fantasy) into its memory components and the underlying instinctual processes. I have indicated above the justification as well as the limitation of this procedure. It breaks down at the point where the dream symbols can no longer be reduced to personal reminiscences or aspirations, that is, when the images of the collective unconscious begin to appear.
247
II
ANIMA AND ANIMUS
253
a compensatory relationship exists between persona and anima.
254
[305] The persona is a complicated system of relations between the individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual. That the latter function is superfluous could be maintained only by one who is so identified with his persona that he no longer knows himself; and that the former is unnecessary could only occur to one who is quite unconscious of the true nature of his fellows. Society expects, and indeed must expect, every individual to play the part assigned to him as perfectly as possible, so that a man who is a parson must not only carry out his official functions objectively, but must at all times and in all circumstances play the role of parson in a flawless manner.
254
To present an unequivocal face to the world is a matter of practical importance: the average manâthe only kind society knows anything aboutâmust keep his nose to one thing in order to achieve anything worth while, two would be too much. Our society is undoubtedly set on such an ideal. It is therefore not surprising that everyone who wants to get on must take these expectations into account. Obviously no one could completely submerge his individuality in these expectations; hence the construction of an artificial personality becomes an unavoidable necessity. The demands of propriety and good manners are an added inducement to assume a becoming mask. What goes on behind the mask is then called âprivate life.â This painfully familiar division of consciousness into two figures, often preposterously different, is an incisive psychological operation that is bound to have repercussions on the unconscious.
255
[306] The construction of a collectively suitable persona means a formidable concession to the external world, a genuine self-sacrifice which drives the ego straight into identification with the persona, so that people really do exist who believe they are what they pretend to be. The âsoullessnessâ of such an attitude is, however, only apparent, for under no circumstances will the unconscious tolerate this shifting of the centre of gravity. When we examine such cases critically, we find that the excellence of the mask is compensated by the âprivate lifeâ going on behind it.
256
[307] These identifications with a social role are a very fruitful source of neuroses. A man cannot get rid of himself in favour of an artificial personality without punishment. Even the attempt to do so brings on, in all ordinary cases, unconscious reactions in the form of bad moods, affects, phobias, obsessive ideas, backslidings, vices, etc. The social âstrong manâ is in his private life often a mere child where his own states of feeling are concerned; his discipline in public (which he demands quite particularly of others) goes miserably to pieces in private. His âhappiness in his workâ assumes a woeful countenance at home; his âspotlessâ public morality looks strange indeed behind the maskâwe will not mention deeds, but only fantasies, and the wives of such men would have a pretty tale to tell. As to his selfless altruism, his children have decided views about that.
256
[308] To the degree that the world invites the individual to identify with the mask, he is delivered over to influences from within. âHigh rests on low,â says Lao-tzu. An opposite forces its way up from inside; it is exactly as though the unconscious suppressed the ego with the very same power which drew the ego into the persona. The absence of resistance outwardly against the lure of the persona means a similar weakness inwardly against the influence of the unconscious. Outwardly an effective and powerful role is played, while inwardly an effeminate weakness develops in face of every influence coming from the unconscious. Moods, vagaries, timidity, even a limp sexuality (culminating in impotence) gradually gain the upper hand.
258
[310] Just as, for the purpose of individuation, or self-realization, it is essential for a man to distinguish between what he is and how he appears to himself and to others,
390
[505] The persona is always identical with a typical attitude dominated by a single psychological function, for example, by thinking, feeling, or intuition. This one-sidedness necessarily results in the relative repression of the other functions. In consequence, the persona is an obstacle to the individualâs development. The dissolution of the persona is therefore an indispensable condition for individuation. It is, however, impossible to achieve individuation by conscious intention, because conscious intention invariably leads to a typical attitude that excludes whatever does not fit in with it. The assimilation of unconscious contents leads, on the contrary, to a condition in which conscious intention is excluded and is supplanted by a process of development that seems to us irrational. This process alone signifies individuation, and its product is individuality as we have just defined it: particular and universal at once. So long as the persona persists, individuality is repressed, and hardly betrays its existence except in the choice of its personal accessoriesâby its actorâs wardrobe, one might say. Only when the unconscious is assimilated does the individuality emerge more clearly, together with the psychological phenomenon which links the ego with the non-ego and is designated by the word attitude. But this time it is no longer a typical attitude but an individual one.