People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
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Book
Psychology and Alchemy
Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 12: Psychology and Alchemy (Collected Works of C.G. Jung #12) [ COLLECTED WORKS OF C.G. JUNG, VOLUME 12: PSYCHOLOGY AND ALCHEMY (COLLECTED WORKS OF C.G. JUNG #12) ] By Jung, Carl Gustav ( Author )Oct-01-1980 Paperback
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The real mystery does not behave mysteriously or secretively; it speaks a secret language, it adumbrates itself by a variety of images which all indicate its true nature. It is known only through vague hints but essentially unknown.
Although there were four elements (earth, water, fire, and air) and four qualities (hot, cold, dry, and moist), there were only three colours: black, white, and red. Since the process never led to the desired goal and since the individual parts of it were never carried out in any standardized manner…
The resistance of the conscious mind to the unconscious and the depreciation of the latter were historical necessities in the development of the human psyche, for otherwise the conscious mind would never have been able to differentiate itself at all. But modern man’s consciousness has strayed rather…
The forms which the experience takes in each individual may be infinite in their variations, but they are all variants of certain central types, and these occur universally. They are the primordial images.
Experience, not books, is what leads to understanding.
I do not call the man who admits his ignorance an obscurantist; I think it is much rather the man whose consciousness is not sufficiently developed for him to be aware of his ignorance.
No doubts can exist in the herd; the bigger the crowd the better the truth— and the greater the catastrophe.
Paradoxically enough, an egocentric (inflated) consciousness is a regression of consciousness into unconsciousness.
An egocentric mind is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.
Nietzsche overreached himself by identifying his ego with the superman Zarathustra, the part of the personality that was struggling into consciousness. But can we speak of Zarathustra as a part of the personality? Was he not rather something superhuman— something which man is not, though he has his…
Every archetype is capable of endless development and differentiation.