Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of ThoughtJung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Philosophy
Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Libido (Psychology); Mother and child; Psychoanalysis; Subconsciousness; Symbolism (Psychology)
Man as an individual is a suspicious phenomenon, the right of whose
existence from a natural biological standpoint could be seriously
contested, because, from this point of view, the individual is only a
race atom, and has a significance only as a mass constituent. The
ethical standpoint, however, gives to the human being an individual
tendency separating him from the mass, which, in the course of
centuries, led to the development of personality, hand in hand with
which developed the hero cult, and has led to the modern individualistic
cult of personages. The attempts of rationalistic theology to keep hold
of the personal Jesus as the last and most precious remnant of the
divinity which has vanished beyond the power of the imagination
corresponds to this tendency. In this respect the Roman Catholic Church
was more practical, because she met the general need of the visible, or
at least historically believed hero, through the fact that she placed
upon the throne of worship a small but clearly perceptible god of the
world, namely, the Roman Pope, the Pater patrum, and at the same time
the Pontifex Maximus of the invisible upper or inner God. The sensuous
demonstrability of God naturally supports the religious process of
introversion, because the human figure essentially facilitates the
transference, for it is not easy to imagine something lovable or
venerable in a spiritual being. This tendency, everywhere present, has
been secretly preserved in the rationalistic theology with its Jesus
historically insisted upon. This does not mean that men loved the
visible God; they love him, not as he is, for he is merely a man, and
when the pious wished to love humanity they could go to their neighbors
and their enemies to love them. Mankind wishes to love in God only their
ideas, that is to say, the ideas which they project into God. By that
they wish to love their unconscious, that is, that remnant of ancient
humanity and the centuries-old past in all people, namely, the common
property left behind from all development which is given to all men,
like the sunshine and the air. But in loving this inheritance they love
that which is common to all. Thus they turn back to the mother of
humanity, that is to say, to the spirit of the race, and regain in this
way something of that connection and of that mysterious and irresistible
power which is imparted by the feeling of belonging to the herd. It is
the problem of Antæus, who preserves his gigantic strength only through
contact with mother earth. This temporary withdrawal into one’s self,
which, as we have already seen, signifies a regression to the childish
bond to the parent, seems to act favorably, within certain limits, in
its effect upon the psychologic condition of the individual. It is in
general to be expected that the two fundamental mechanisms of the
psychoses, transference and introversion, are to a wide extent extremely
appropriate methods of normal reaction against complexes; transference
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