Mana Keepers: April 2016

Carl Gustav Jung's hand print

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and contemporary to Sigmund Freud. He founded the school of analytical psychology. He theorized and developed the concepts of the extroverted and introverted personality, archetypes, and the collective unconscious. Carl Jung used his personal experiences to inspire much of his research. It is said that for many years Jung felt as if he had two separate personalities. One personality was introverted and other was extroverted. This awareness and introspection resulted in his study of integration and wholeness. His work has been influential not only in psychology, but in religion, art, metaphysics and literature as well.

Jung was born on July 26, 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland and attend the University of Basel from 1895-1900. Jung studied biology, zoology, paleontology, and archaeology, before deciding to pursue medicine. He also explored philosophy, mythology, early Christian literature as well as religion at length. Jung became an assistant physician at Burgholzli Psychiatric clinic under Eugen Bleuler. In 1902 he obtained his M.D. from the University of Zurich. His dissertation was entitled "On the Psychology and Pathology of So -Called Occult Phenomena".

Later Jung published "Psychology and the Unconscious" which argued against some of Freud's ideas. In 1912 "Symbols and Transformations of the Libido" was published. Jung wanted to understand the symbolic meaning of the contents of the unconscious. In order to distinguish between individual psychology and psychoanalysis Jung gave his discipline the name "analytical psychology."

In the book "Psychological Types", Jung shared his interest in the study of mythological and religious symbolism. His studies took him all over the world where he had the opportunity to observe many different cultures. He was interested in tracing the analogies between the contents of the unconscious in Western man and the myths, cults, and rituals of primitive peoples. Jungian therapy deals with dreams and fantasies. (A discussion is set up between the conscious and the contents of the unconscious.) Jung's total amount of work is very large. It is estimated that he authored 200 papers. An edition of his Collected Works in English was completed in 1972 by the Bollingen Foundation in New York and Routledge and Kegan Paul in London.

Jung inspired and continues to inspire introspection on a personal as well as global level. His work is as relevant today as it was when he originally published. Here I share some of his better known quotes. I hope you'll find one that inspires you.

"We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything more."

"For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the aging person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself."

"Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity."

"The man who promises everything is sure to fulfill nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition."

"Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off."

"The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results."

"Inferno It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves."

"Just as we might take Darwin as an example of the normal extraverted thinking type, the normal introverted thinking type could be represented by Kant. The one speaks with facts, the other relies on the subjective factor. Darwin ranges over the wide field of objective reality, Kant restricts himself to a critique of knowledge."

"The Christian missionary may preach the gospel to the poor naked heathen, but the spiritual heathen who populate Europe have as yet heard nothing of Christianity."

"All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination."

"Origin Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose."

"A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life's morning."

The Jung Page http://www.cgjungpage.org

Thank you for visiting. Wishing you Peace today and everyday.