Quotes by C.G. Jung from the Collected Works
(published by Bollingen Press)
About Art……
“Non-objective art draws its contents essentially from “inside.” This “inside” cannot correspond to consciousness, since consciousness contains images of objects as they are generally seen, and whose appearance must therefore necessarily conform to general expectations…. Behind consciousness there lies not the absolute void but the unconscious psyche, which affects consciousness from behind and from inside, just as much as the outer world affects it from in front and from outside.” (CW15 § 206)
“As this “inside” is invisible and cannot be imagined, even though it can affect consciousness in the most pronounced manner, I induce those of my patients who suffer mainly from the effects of this “inside” to set them down in pictorial form as best they can. The aim of this method of expression is to make the unconscious contents accessible and so bring them closer to the patient’s understanding. The therapeutic effect of this is to prevent a dangerous splitting-off of the unconscious processes from consciousness. In contrast to objective or “conscious” representations, all pictorial representations of processes and effects in the psychic background are symbolic. They point, in a rough and approximate way, to a meaning that for the time being is unknown. “ (CW15 § 207)
“Although my patients occasionally produce artistically beautiful things that might very well be shown in modern “art” exhibitions, I nevertheless treat them as completely worthless when judged by the canons of real art. As a matter of fact, it is essential that they should be considered worthless, otherwise my patients might imagine themselves to be artists, and the whole point of the exercise would be missed. It is not a question of art at all-or rather, it should not be a question of art – but of something more and other than mere art, namely the living effect upon the patient himself. The meaning of individual life, whose importance from the social standpoint is negligible, stands here at its highest, and for its sake the patient struggles to give form, however crude and childish, to the inexpressible.” (CW16, § 104)
About the Unconscious….
” The unconscious is not a demoniacal monster, but a natural entity which, as far as moral sense, aesthetic taste, and intellectual judgment go, is completely neutral. it only becomes dangerous when our conscious attitude to it is hopelessly wrong. To the degree that we repress it, its danger increases. But the moment the patient begins to assimilate contents that were previously unconscious, its danger diminishes. The dissociation of the personality, the anxious division of the day-time and night-time sides of the psyche, cease with progressive assimilation.” (CW16, § 329)
“Freud’s original idea of the unconscious was that it was a sort of receptacle or storehouse for repressed material, infantile wishes, and the like. But the unconscious is far more than that: it is the basis and precondition of all consciousness. It represents the unconscious functioning of the psyche in general. It is psychic life before, during, and after consciousness. And inasmuch as the newborn child is presented with a ready-made, highly developed brain which owes its differentiation to the accretions of untold centuries of ancestral life, the unconscious psyche must consist of inherited instincts, functions, and forms that are peculiar to the ancestral psyche. This collective heritage is by no means made up of inherited ideas, but rather of the possibilities of such ideas-in other words, of a priori categories of possible functioning. Such an inheritance could be called instinct, using the word in its original sense. But it is not quite so simple. On the contrary, it is a most intricate web of what I have called archetypal conditions. This implies the probability that a man will behave much as his ancestors behaved, right back to Methuselah. Thus the unconscious is seen as the collective predisposition to extreme conservatism, a guarantee, almost, that nothing new wi1l ever happen.” (CW16, § 61)
About the Collective Unconscious….
“Whether primitive or not, mankind always stands on the brink of actions it performs itself but does not control. The whole world wants peace and the whole world prepares for war, to take but one example. Mankind is powerless against mankind, and the gods, as ever, show it the ways of fate. Today we call the gods “factors,” which comes from facere, ‘to make: The makers stand behind the wings of the world-theatre. It is so in great things as in small. In the realm of consciousness we are our own masters; we seem to be the “factors” themselves. But if we step through the door of the shadow we discover with terror that we are the objects of unseen factors. To know this is decidedly unpleasant, for nothing is more disillusioning than the discovery of our own inadequacy. It can even give rise to primitive panic, because, instead of being believed in, the anxiously guarded supremacy of consciousness which is in truth one of the secrets of human success-is questioned in the most dangerous way. But since ignorance is no guarantee of security, and in fact only makes our insecurity still worse, it is probably better despite our fear to know where the danger lies. To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem. At any rate we then know that the greatest danger threatening us comes from the unpredictability of the psyche’s reactions. Discerning persons have realized for some time that external historical conditions, of whatever kind, are only occasions, jumping-off grounds, for the real dangers that threaten our lives. These are the present politico-social delusional systems. We should not regard them causally, as necessary consequences of external conditions, but as decisions precipitated by the collective unconscious.” (CW9i, §49)
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