Modern Man in Search of a Soul

by C.G. Jung

ideas which, being closest to nature and to the living being, deserve to be called the truest. But what is truth?

For the purposes of psychology, I think it best to abandon the notion that we are today in anything like a position to make statements about the nature of the psyche that are “true” or “correct.” The best that we can achieve is true expression. By true expression I mean an open avowal and a detailed presentation of everything that is subjectively noted. One person will stress the forms into which this material can be worked, and will therefore believe that he has created what he...

receptivity and a reasonable adequacy of expression. The psychology we at present possess is the testimony of a few individuals here and there regarding what they have found within themselves.

The form in which they have cast it is sometimes adequate and sometimes not. Since each individual

conforms more or less to a type, his testimony can be accepted as a fairly valid description of a large number of people. And since those who conform to other types belong none the l...

He has devoted his life and his strength to the construction of a psychology which is a formulation of his own being.

rate, philosophical criticism has helped me to see that every psychology—my own included—has the character of a subjective confession.

And yet I must prevent my critical powers from destroying my creativeness. I know well enough that every word I utter carries with it something of myself—of my special and unique self with its particular history and its own particular world. Even when I deal with empirical data, I am necessarily speaking about myself. But it is only by accepting this as inevitable that I can serve the cause of man’s knowledge of man—the cause which Freud also wished to serve, and which, in spite of everything, he has served. Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

spirit? I am far from knowing what spirit is in itself, and equally far from knowing what instincts are. The one is as mysterious to me as the other, yet I am unable to dismiss the one by explaining it in terms of the other. That would be to treat it as a mere misunderstanding. The fact that the earth has only one moon is not a misunderstanding. There are no misunderstandings in nature; they are only to be found in the realms that man calls “understanding.” Certainly instinct and spirit are beyond my understanding. They are terms that we allow to stand for powerful forces whose nature

we do not know.

as an attempt to draw knowledge of the cosmos from within.

In my picture of the world there is a vast outer realm and an equally vast inner realm; between these two stands man, facing now one and now the other, and, according to his mood or disposition, taking the one for the absolute truth by denying or sacrificing the other.

heuristically

consensus gentium.

It is being caught in the old resentments against parents and relations and in the boring emotional tangles of the family situation which most often brings about the damming-up of the energies of life. And it is this stoppage which shows itself unfailingly in that kind of sexuality which is called “infantile.” It is really not sexuality proper, but an unnatural discharge of tensions that belong to quite another province of life. This being so, what is the use

paddling about in this flooded country? Surely, straight thinking will grant that it is more important to open up drainage canals. We should try to find, in a change of attitude or in new ways of life, that difference of potential which the pent-up energy requires.

For thousands of years, rites of initiation have been teaching spiritual rebirth; yet, strangely enough, man forgets again and again the meaning of divine procreation. This is surely no evidence of a strong life of the spirit; and yet the penalty of misunderstanding is heavy, for it is nothing less than neurotic decay, embitterment, atrophy and sterility.

drive the spirit out of the door, but when we have done so the salt of life grows flat—it loses its savour. Fortunately, we have proof that the spirit always renews its strength in the fact that the central teaching of the ancient initiations is handed on from generation to generation. Ever and again human beings arise who understand what is meant by the fact that God is our father. The equal balance of the flesh and the spirit is not lost to the world.

cosmos worthy of rational consciousness—that latest and greatest achievement of man. We are now surrounded by a world that is obedient to rational laws.

deus ex machina.

He writes on every letter Insha-allah, “If it please God”, for only then will the letter arrive. In spite of our reluctance to admit chance, and in spite of the

but under primitive conditions of life such an omen inclines one at least to be cautious. When I am not in full control of myself, my bodily movements may be under a certain constraint; my attention is easily distracted; I am somewhat absent-minded. As a result I knock against

something, stumble, let something fall or forget something. Under civilized conditions these are mere trifles, but in the primeval forest they mean mortal danger. It is fatal to make a false step upon the rain-soaked trunk of a tree that serves as a bridge high over a river teeming with crocodiles. Suppose I lose my compass in

the deep grass, or forget to load my rifle and blunder into a rhinoceros trail in the jungle. If I am preoccupied with my thou...

At nightfall I forget to put on my mosquito-boots in time, and eleven days later I die from an onset of tropical malaria. To forg...

suffices to bring on a fatal attack of dysentery. For us a distracted state of mind is the natural cause of such accidents. For primitive man they are ...

The day is unfavourable”—and

is mana—endowed with magic power. What we would call the powers of imagination and suggestion seem to him invisible forces which act upon him from without. His

What we combat in him is usually our own inferior side.

He believes that the world is lighted by the sun, and not by the human eye.

What is the meaning of the Elgonyi ceremony just cited? Clearly it is an offering to the sun which for these natives is mungu—that is, mana, or divine—only at the moment of rising. If they have spittle on their hands, this is the

substance which, according to primitive belief, contains the personal mana, the force that cures, conjures and sustains life. If they breathe upon their hands, breath is wind and spirit—it is roho, in Arabic ruch, in Hebrew ruach, and in Greek pneuma. The action means: I offer my living spirit to God. It is a wordless, acted prayer, which could equally well be spoken: “Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Does this merely happen so, or was this thought already incubated and purposed before man existed? I must leave this question unanswered.

deisidaemonia.

The Latin words animus, spirit, and anima, soul, are the same as the Greek anemos, wind. The other Greek word for wind, pneuma, means also spirit.

He alone is modem who is fully conscious of the present.

ignoble

In coming to a close after so many bold assertions, I would like to return to the promise made at the outset to be mindful of the need for moderation and caution. Indeed, I do not forget that my voice is but one voice, my experience a mere drop in the sea, my knowledge no greater than the visual field in a microscope, my mind’s eye a mirror that reflects a small corner of the world, and my ideas—a subjective confession.

The man who uses modern psychology to look behind the scenes not only of his patients’ lives but more especially of his own—and the modern psychotherapist must do this if he is not to be merely an unconscious fraud—will admit that to accept himself in all his wretchedness is the hardest of tasks, and one which it is almost impossible to fulfill.

The very thought can make us livid with fear. We therefore do not hesitate, but lightheartedly choose the complicated course of remaining in ignorance about ourselves while busying ourselves with other people and their troubles and sins. This activity lends us an air of virtue, and we thus deceive ourselves and those around us.

impunity,

Neurosis is an inner cleavage—the state of being at war with oneself. Everything that accentuates this cleavage makes the patient worse, and everything that mitigates it tends to heal the patient. What drives people to war with themselves is the intuition or the knowledge that they consist of two persons in opposition to one another. The conflict may be between the sensual and the spiritual man, or between the ego and the shadow. It is what Faust means when he says “Two souls, alas, dwell in my breast apart.” A neurosis is a dissociation

of

person...

we cannot help seeing it as a courageous enterprise and giving it some measure of sympathy. It is no reckless adventure, but an effort inspired by deep spiritual distress to bring meaning once more into life on the basis of fresh and unprejudiced experience. Caution has its place, no doubt, but we cannot refuse our support to a serious venture which calls the whole of the personality into the field of action. If we oppose it, we are trying to suppress what is best in man—his daring and his aspiration. And should we succeed, we should only have stood in the way of that invaluable experience which might have given a meaning to life. What would have happened if Paul had allowed himself to be talked out of his journey to Damascus?

Man is never helped in

his suffering by what he thinks for himself, but only by revelations of a wisdom greater than his own. It is this which lifts him out of his distress.