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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #jungian
Woman's fear of the female Self, of the experience of the numinous archetypal Feminine, becomes comprehensible when we get a glimpse - or even only a hint – of the profound otherness of female selfhood as contrasted to male selfhood. Precisely that element which, in his fear of the Feminine, the male experiences as the hole, abyss, void, and nothingness turns into something positive for the woman without, however, losing these same characteristics. Here the archetypal Feminine is experienced not as illusion and as maya but rather as unfathomable reality and as life in which above and below, spiritual and physical, are not pitted against each other; reality as eternity is creative and, at the same time, is grounded in primeval nothingness. Hence as daughter the woman experiences herself as belonging to the female spiritual figure Sophia, the highest wisdom, while at the same time she is actualizing her connection with the musty, sultry, bloody depths of swamp-mother Earth. However, in this sort of Self-discovery woman necessarily comes to see herself as different from what presents itself to men -as, for example, spirit and father, but often also as the patriarchal godhead and his ethics. The basic phenomenon - that the human being is born of woman and reared by her during the crucial developmental phases - is expressed in woman as a sense of connectedness with all living things, a sense not yet sufficiently realized, and one that men, and especially the patriarchal male, absolutely lack to the extent women have it. To experience herself as so fundamentally different from the dominant patriarchal values understandably fills the woman with fear until she arrives at that point in her own development where, through experience and love that binds the opposites, she can clearly see the totality of humanity as a unity of masculine and feminine aspects of the Self. ↗
However, the natural symbol, without our being sufficiently conscious of the fact, is identical with the reality of the world that appears to us, for every object in the natural world is at the same time a symbolic reality to us. The psyche certainly does not use an "object" of nature as a "symbol," but rather the experience of an "object" itself is always already symbolic experience. The star or tree in us is no less real and no less symbolic than it is in outward experience. For each possibility of experience either presupposes a spiritually forming, that is to say a symbolic activity, or is identical with this. That is, everything spiritual appears to us first not just in nature but as nature; or we could formulate this just as well the other way around: everything natural, whether outward or inward, appears to us as an image, that is to say as formed spirit. We are surrounded by images, inwardly and outwardly, but at the same time formed and determined in all our experiences by the natural symbol as though by a unitary natural-spiritual reality, for our psychic system only grasps that which appears to us as the real world through the world of natural symbolism. ↗
The capacity for growth depends on one’s ability to internalize and to take personal responsibility. If we forever see our life as a problem caused by others, a problem to be "solved," then no change will occur. ↗
There is no religion and no philosophy that can give us a comprehensive answer to the whole of our problems, and the abandonment and isolation of the individual who is given no answer, or only inadequate answers, to his question lead to a situation in which more and more cheap, obvious solutions and answers are sought and provided. As, everywhere and in all departments of life, there are contradictory schools and parties, and an equal number of contradictory answers, one of the most frequent reactions is that modern man ceases to ask questions and takes refuge in a conception that considers only the most obvious, superficial aspects, and becomes skeptical, nihilistic, and egocentric. Or, alternatively, he tries to solve all his problems by plunging headlong into a collective situation and a collective conviction, and seeks to redeem himself in this way. ↗
...in microphysics the observer interferes with the experiment in a way that can't be measured and that therefore can't be eliminated. No natural laws can be formulated, saying "such-and-such will happen in every case." All the microphysicist can say is "such-and-such is, according to statistical probability, likely to happen." This naturally represents a tremendous problem for our classical physical thinking. It requires a consideration, in a scientific experiment, of the mental outlook of the participant-observer: It could this be said that scientists can no longer hope to describe any aspects or qualities of outer objects in a completely independent, "objective" manner. ↗
#jungian #limitations #man-and-his-symbols #micro-physics #objective
The Earth and the Underworld seen as a descent but also as a process of transformation not only corresponds to the experience of many individuals in the process of individuation, but it can also be demonstrated to be a collective event in modern culture as a whole. The analysis of this state of affairs falls outside the scope of our present consideration and has already been partially accomplished elsewhere. The task that remains for us is to investigate whether and how a change is arrived at in the meaning of the Earth archetype in the individual's experience of depth, and what the implications of this are. Submission to and acceptance of the darkness, the shadow, the negative aspects of the anima and animus, the affective and instinctual side of human nature, and assimilation of the unconscious in the sense of an integration of the personality: these, as you know, are some of the most significant phrases that characterize the decisive beginning of the psychic development of modern man. But even these days the alchemical sentence still stands as a motto over this process of transformation: "visitetis interiara terrae," "visit the inner parts of the earth." We are all still "descenders" if we venture into the unconscious, which for that very reason is also topographically designated "under"-conscious; we set out from the head, from the outer layer of consciousness, and descend into the "deeper" layers of our psyche and of our symbolic body, and in so doing the symbol of depth, still valid today, is derived from the archetype of Earth, gorge and "depths of the abyss." As in religious history, the archetypal inhabitant of these female depths is the snake. Just as in Crete and in Greece and with Nathan of Gaza, so even today we are still met there by the snake of the abyss, the Devil, who is at the same time the snake of Mercurius, the spiritual principle that animates the depths, the "Earth Spirit." Seeing this masculine snake-companion of the Great Mother in a phallic sense as a symbol of sexuality corresponds to one of the infinite possibilities and realities of interpretation. On the highest level we are often obliged to interpret it in this way, but never only as such. Even Hermes, the guide of the soul, who is the same god as the alchemists' Mercurius, has a phallic, snake aspect. But whoever mistakes the snake for the penis and the gorge for the female genitals-and without question it is an issue of the earth's womb-offends against the lower as well as against the higher gods by restricting their field of effectiveness and transformation. ↗
If we are enveloped in images, we are also enveloped in forms, in spirit, which is nature, and in nature, which is spirit. Daily and continually we associate with this unified world of nature and spirit without knowing it. But only the person to whom this association has become clear understands what is meant when we talk of Sophia as a heightened and spiritualized earth. But this formulation is already distorted as well. The earth has not changed at all, it is neither heightened and spiritualized: it remains what is always was. Only the person who experiences this Earth Spirit has transformed himself, he alone is changed by it and has, perhaps, been heightened and spiritualized. However, he too remains what he always was and has only become, along with the earth, more transparent to himself in his own total reality. Here also we must differentiate between the reality of our total existence and the differentiating formulations of our consciousness. Certainly, our consciousness makes the attempt to separate a spiritual from a natural world and to set them in opposition, but this mythical division and opposition of heaven and earth proves more and more impracticable. If, in the process of integration, consciousness allies itself with the contents of the unconscious and the mutual interpenetration of both systems leads to a transformation of the personality, a return to the primordial symbolism of the myth ensues. Above and below, heaven and earth, spirit and nature, are experienced again as coniunctio, and the calabash that contains them is the totality of reality itself. ↗
Uma consideção que podemos fazer é a respeito da palavra "traição". De fato, examinada atentamente, ela se nos revela ambígua, não só etimológica mas também semanticamente. Sabemos que o latim tradere significava somente “entregar”. Sabemos também que os evangelhos, escolhendo esse verbo para designar o ato de Judas de entregar Jesus aos seus inimigos, carregavam-no de conotações éticas, obviamente negativas. Mas, com o tempo, o mal-entendido inicial originou outros mal-entendidos e ambiguidades: o itinerário semântico desse verbo “condenado” levou-o a significados diferentes, distantíssimos entre si e às vezes nas antípodas, literalmente opostos. “Traio” deriva do latino trado, que é composto de dois morfemas, trans e do (=dar). O prefixo trans implica passagem; de fato, todos os significados originais de trado contem a ideia de dar alguma coisa que passa de uma mão a outra. Assim, trado significa o ato de entregar nas mãos de alguém (para guarda, proteção, castigo) o ato de confiar para o governo ou o ensinamento, o dar em esposa, o vender, o confiar com palavras ou o transmitir, o narrar. Na forma reflexiva, tradere, o verbo significa abandonar-se a alguém, dedicar-se a uma atividade. O substantivo correspondente, traditio, significa “entrega”, “ensinamento”, “narração”, “transmissão de narrações”, “tradição”. Note-se que o “nomem agentis” (nome do agente) traditor significa tanto “traidor” como “quem ensina”. É bom lembrar esse duplo sentido porque provavelmente tenha algo a ensinar talvez unicamente aquele que traiu com plena e total consciência. ↗
A natureza observadora e emocionalmente determinada do espírito lunar é designada em alemão pelas palavras pertencentes à raiz Sinn, que significa meditar, ter em mente, ponderar, considerar e ser contemplativo; e também contemplação, inclinação mental, assim, como sentidos e sensual; por último, mas não menos importante, o Eigen-Sinn (vontade própria, obstinação) que os homens em geral atribuem às mulheres. A consciência matriarcal age através da circum-ambulação e da meditação. Falta-lhe o propósito do pensamento dirigido, da conclusão lógica e do juízo. Sua Ação característica é um movimento em torno de um círculo, uma contemplação (Betrachtung, uma vez interpretada por Jung como trachtigmachen, engravidar) . Não tem o objetivo direto da consciência masculina, nem o fio aguçado de sua análise. Interessa-se mais pelo significativo do que por fatos e datas, e é orientada teleologicamente mais ao crescimento orgânico do que à causalidade mecânica ou lógica. Uma vez que o processo de cognição nessa “consciência lunar“ é uma gravidez e seu produto um nascimento, um processo em que toda a personalidade participa, seu “conhecimento “não pode ser partilhado, relatado ou provado. É uma posse interior, realizada e assimilada pela personalidade, mas não facilmente discutida, porque a experiência interna que está por trás dela não se presta a uma exploração verbal adequada, e dificilmente pode ser transmitida a alguém que não tenha passado pela mesma experiência. Por essa razão, uma consciência masculina pura e simples considera o “conhecimento” da consciência matriarcal não verificável, caprichoso e místico por excelência. Esse é, de fato, no sentido positivo, o cerne da questão. É a mesma espécie de conhecimento revelado nos mistérios e no misticismo. Consiste não de verdades partilhadas mas de transformações experimentadas, portanto necessariamente só tem validade para as pessoas que passaram pela mesma experiência. Para estas, o conselho de Goethe ainda vale: Sagt es niemand, nur den Weisen, Weil die Menge gleich verhohnet (Não conte a ninguém, apenas aos sábios, porque a multidão não tarda em zombar) Isto quer dizer que as percepções de consciência matriarcal são condicionadas pela personalidade que as realiza. Não são abstratas nem desemocionalizadas, pois a consciência matriarcal conserva o vínculo com o reino do inconsciente do qual seu conhecimento brota. Suas descobertas interiores, estão, em conseqüência, em oposição direta às da consciência masculina, que consiste idealmente de conteúdos conscientes abstratos, livres de emocionalismo e possuidores de uma validade universal não afetada por fatores pessoais. ↗
