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)
“In nothing be anxious; but in every thing by prayer and
supplication ... let your requests be made known unto God.”—_Phil._
iv: 6.
One must give the burdening complex of the soul consciously over to the
Deity; that is to say, associate it with a definite representation
complex which is set up as objectively real, as a person who answers
those questions, for us unanswerable. To this inner demand belongs the
candid avowal of sin and the Christian humility presuming such an
avowal. Both are for the purpose of making it possible for one to
examine one’s self and to know one’s self.[84] One may consider the
mutual avowal of sins as the most powerful support to this work of
education (“Confess, therefore, your sins one to another.”—James v: 16).
These measures aim at a conscious recognition of the conflicts,
thoroughly psychoanalytic, which is also _a conditio sine qua non_ of
the psychoanalytic condition of recovery. Just as psychoanalysis in the
hands of the physician, a secular method, sets up the real object of
transference as the one to take over the conflicts of the oppressed and
to solve them, so the Christian religion sets up the Saviour, considered
as real; “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of sins....” (Eph. i: 7 and Col. i: 14.)[85] He is the deliverer and
redeemer of our guilt, a God who stands above sin, “who did no sin,
neither was guile found in his mouth” (Pet. ii: 22). “Who his own self
bare our sins in his body upon the tree” (Pet. ii: 24). “Therefore
Christ has been sacrificed once to take away the sins of many” (Heb. ix:
28). The God, thus thought of, is distinguished as innocent in himself
and as the self-sacrificer. (These qualities are true also for that
amount of energy—libido—which belongs to the representation complex
designated the Redeemer.) The conscious projection towards which the
Christian education aims, offers, therefore, a double benefit: first,
one is kept conscious of the conflict (sins) of two opposing tendencies
mutually resistant, and through this one prevents a known trouble from
becoming, by means of repressing and forgetting, an unknown and
therefore so much more tormenting sorrow. Secondly, one lightens one’s
burden by surrendering it to him to whom all solutions are known. One
must not forget that the individual psychologic roots of the Deity, set
up as real by the pious, are concealed from him, and that he, although
unaware of this, still bears the burden alone and is still alone with
his conflict. This delusion would lead infallibly to the speedy breaking
up of the system, for Nature cannot indefinitely be deceived, but the
powerful institution of Christianity meets this situation. The command
in the book of James is the best expression of the psychologic
significance of this: “Bear ye one another’s burdens.”[86]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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