Notes from The Essential Jung (Anthony Storr, Editor).

Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 1983.
Dreams. Jung referred to the dream as a text. Every interpretation is a hypothesis, an
attempt to read an unknown text. A relative degree of certainty is reached only in the
interpretation of a series of dreams, where the later dreams correct the mistakes we
have made in handling those that went before. I urge my patients to keep a careful
record of their dreams and of the interpretations given. At a later stage I get them to
work out the interpretations as well. In this way the patient learns how to deal correctly
with the unconscious without the doctors help. [T]he moment the patient begins to
assimilate contents that were previously unconscious, its danger diminishes. The
psyche is a self-regulating system that maintains its equilibrium just as the body does.
We can take the theory of compensation as a basic law of psychic behavior. [T]he
relation between the conscious and unconscious is compensatory. When we set out to
interpret a dream, it is always helpful to ask, What conscious attitude does the dream
compensate? (Jung, The practical use of dream-analysis, CW 16; cited in TEJ, pp.
1789, 181).
The development of personality. The achievement of personality means nothing less than
the optimum development of the whole individual human being. The development
of personalityalso means fidelity to the law of ones own being. True personality is
always a vocation. [V]ocation acts like a Law of God from which there is no
escape. Anyone with a vocation hears the voice of the inner man; he is called.
[P]ersonality can never develop unless the individual chooses his own way, consciously
and with moral deliberation (Jung, The development of personality, CW 17; cited in
TEJ, pp. 195, 197, 198).
The doctor must not have too firm an aim, but must let the patient develop his or
her own creative possibilities. The shoe that fits one pinches another; there is no
universal recipe for living (The aims of psychotherapy, CW 16; cited in TEJ, p. 211).
The ego and the unconscious. The ego does not express the totality of the psyche. There is
another, vaster center of consciousness (Jung, Conscious, unconscious, individuation,
CW 9 i; cited in TEJ, p. 213). The unconscious anticipates the future (p. 216). The
relations between the ego and the unconscious occurs through symbolism, the uniting
symbol. In symbols the union of conscious and unconscious contents is
consummated. This union of opposites is the transcendent function. This rounding out
of the personality into a whole may well be the goal of any psychotherapy that claims to
be more than a mere cure of symptoms (pp. 22526)
Individuation and the Self. Anthony Storr writes, Individuation. is a spiritual journey;
and the person embarking upon it . . . was. . . pursuing a religious quest. [H]e
acknowledges that he is guided by an integrating factor which is not of his own
making. This integrating factor, expressed by the emergence of quaternity or mandala
symbols, is named the Self; an archetype which not only signifies union between the
opposites within the psyche, but (as Jung put it) is a God-image, or at least cannot be
distinguished from one (TEJ, p. 229).
The mandala. The mandala is the centre. It is the path to the centre, to
individuation. There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the

self (Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, cited in TEJ, p. 234). As psychological

phenomena, mandalas appear spontaneously in dreams, in certain states of conflict,
and in cases of schizophrenia. Very frequently they contain a quaternity or a multiple of
four, in the form of a cross, a star, a square, an octagon, etc. (Jung, Mandalas, CW 9,
cited in TEJ, p. 235).
The mandala is the archetype of wholeness. Most are characterized by the circle
and the quaternity, often divided into a light and a dark half. A modern mandala is an
involuntary confession of a peculiar mental condition. There is no deity in the mandala.
The place of the deity seems to be taken by the wholeness of man (Jung, Psychology and
religion, CW 11, cited in TEJ, p. 241.)
Psychology and religion. Jung criticizes the development of a science of psychology that
makes the absurd proposition that the intellect, which is but a part and a function of
the psyche, is sufficient to comprehend a much greater whole (Jung, Psychology and
religion, CW 11, cited in TEJ, p. 243). The unconscious possesses a creative autonomy.
The great figures of history have realized, more or less clearly, the archetype of the
heros life with its characteristic changes of fortune. . . . Since the life of Christ is
archetypal to a high degree it represents just to that degree the life of the archetype. But
since the archetype is the unconscious precondition of every human life, its life, when
revealed, also reveals the hidden, unconscious ground-life of every individual. That is
to say, what happens in the life of Christ happens always and everywhere. But where
shall we find the risen Christ? Gods death, or his disappearance, is by no means only
a Christian symbol. [Such a process occurs universally.] This is a typical experience that
has been repeated many times, and its expression therefore occupies a central place in
the Christian mystery. The death or loss must always repeat itself: Christ always dies,
and always he is born. The present is a time of Gods death and disappearance (pp.
2489). Jung is saying that we relive the myths, the archetypes, in our own lives.
Religious and psychological problems of alchemy. For many patients, The outward
termination of work with the doctor is far from denoting the end of the analytical
process. The dialectical discussion with the unconscious still continues (p. 254). The
right way to wholeness is a long road, not straight but snakelike, a path that unites the
opposites in the manner of the guiding caduceus (p. 256). The demand made by the
imitatio Christithat we should follow the ideal and seek to become like itought
logically to have the result of developing and exalting the inner man. In actual fact,
however, the ideal has been turned by superficial and formalistically-minded believers
into an external object of worship, and it is precisely this veneration for the object that
prevents it from reaching down into the depths of the psyche. Accordingly the divine
mediator stands outside as an image, while man remains fragmentary and untouched in
the deepest part of him. Christ can indeed be imitated even to the point of
stigmatization without the imitator coming anywhere near the ideal or its meaning. For
it is not a question of mere imitation that leaves a man unchanged and makes him into a
mere artifact, but of realizing the ideal on ones own accountin ones own individual
life (p. 257). It would be blasphemy to assert that God can manifest himself
everywhere save only in the human soul. [There is an intimacy between God and the
soul, an affinity;] but the soul must contain in itself the faculty of relationship to God,
i.e., a correspondence, otherwise a connection could never come about. T h i s
correspondence is, in psychological terms, the archetype of the God-image (p. 260). Christian
civilization has proven hollow to a terrifying degree; it is all veneer, but the inner man

has remained untouched and therefore unchanged. Too few people have experienced
the divine image as the innermost possession of their own soul. Christ only meets them
from without, never from within the soul. (p. 261). [T]he soul possesses by nature a
religious function, and it is the prime task of all education (of adults) to convey the
archetype of the God-image, or its emanations and effects (p. 262). God is an
archetype. (p. 263). We should allow the unconscious of the individual that free play
which is the basic condition for the production of archetypes. It is precisely the
spontaneity of archetypal contents that convinces (Essential Jung, p. 266). The term
self refers neither to Christ nor to the Buddha but to the totality of figures that are its
equivalent, and each of these figures is a symbol of the self (p. 267). The Christ symbol
is of the greatest importance for psychology. The self is indefinite but also includes
the quality of definiteness and even of uniqueness (p. 268). The self combines
uniqueness with eternity and the individual with the universal. The self is a union of
opposites par excellence, and this is where it differs essentially from the Christsymbol. Once the exploration of the unconscious has led the conscious mind to an
experience of the archetype, the individual is confronted with the abysmal
contradictions of human nature, and this confrontation in turn leads to the possibility of
a direct experience of light and darkness, of Christ and the devil. Without the
experience of the opposites there is no experience of wholeness and hence no inner
approach to the sacred figures (p. 269). Although insight into the problem of
opposites is imperative, there are very few people who can stand it in practice. In the
self good and evil are indeed closer than identical twins! The reality of evil and its
incompatibility with good cleave the opposites asunder and lead inexorably to the
crucifixion and suspension of everything that lives. (p. 270). the truth about the
selfthe unfathomable union of good and evil (p. 271). In the archetype of the self,
opposites are unified; the two are one. Jung notes the importance of alchemy in the
history of philosophy and religion. In alchemy, even numbers signify the feminine
principle, in contrast with Christian odd numbers, especially the Trinity. The famous
alchemical maxim states and the third becomes a fourth. The feminine principle is
often symbolized as serpens mercurii, the dragon that creates and destroys itself and
represents the prima materia. This fundamental idea of alchemy points back to Tiamat
with her dragon attribute and thus the primordial matriarchal world, which was
overthrown by the masculine world of the father. The unconscious does not simply
act contrary to the conscious mind but modifies it more in the manner of an opponent or
partner (p. 273). In nature the opposites seek one another. Alchemy is preeminently concerned with the seed of unity that lies hidden in the chaos of Tiamat.
The seed of unity has a trinitarian character in Christian alchemy and a triadic character
in pagan alchemy. According to other authorities it corresponds to the unity of the four
elements and is therefore a quaternity. The number three is not a natural expression of
wholeness. There is always a vacillation between three and four [in alchemy]. The
least differentiated or inferior function is so much contaminated with the collective
unconscious that, on becoming conscious, it brings up among others the archetype of
the self as well. Four signifies the feminine, motherly, physical; three the masculine,
fatherly, spiritual. Thus the uncertainty as to three or four amounts to a wavering
between the spiritual and the physical. Human wholeness [is] the goal to which the
psychotherapeutic process ultimately leads. The analysis of [the patients] situation will
therefore lead sooner or later to a clarification of his general spiritual background.
This phase of the process is marked by the production of symbols of unity, the so-called
mandalas, often as the most obvious compensation of the contradictions and conflicts

of the conscious situation (p. 276). The patient must be alone if he is to find out what it
is that supports him when he can no longer support himself. Only this experience can
give him an indestructible foundation (p. 277). The way is not straight but appears to
go round in circles. Dream motifs define a centre, rotating or circumambulating round
the centre, The process of development proves on closer inspection to be cyclic or
spiral. The plant motif (tree, flower) frequently recurs in dreams and fantasies and
is also spontaneously drawn or painted., In alchemy the tree is the symbol of Hermetic
philosophy. (p. 278). Jung examines a series of dreams which contain numerous
symbols of the centre or goal. The development of these symbols is almost equivalent of
a healing process. The centre or goal thus signifies salvation. (p. 278).
Jung emphasizes the encounter with the dark half of the personality or
shadowfacing the evil and immorality in ourselves (p. 281) The problem of
opposites called up by the shadowleads in the ultimate phase of the work to the
union of opposites in the archetypal form of the hierosgamos or chymical wedding.
Here the supreme opposites, male and female are melted into a unity purified of all
opposition and therefore incorruptible (p. 286).