Self-knowledge

Notes and quotes from Chapter 6 of Jung's "The Undiscovered Self" Self-knowledge

The unconscious is our only accessible source of religious experience.The 'God' experienced is an "anthropomorphic idea whose dynamism and symbolism are filtered through the medium of the unconscious psyche." It is doubtful that this is the same God spoken of in metaphysics and theology.

"The unconscious, if not regarded outright as a sort of refuse bin underneath the conscious mind is at any rate supposed to be of "merely animal nature." In reality, however, and by definition it is of uncertain extent and constitution, so that overvaluation or undervaluation of it is groundless and can be dismissed as mere prejudice." (page 64)

"Self-knowledge, as well as being highly unpopular, seems to be an unpleasantly idealistic goal, reeks of morality, and is preoccupied with the psychological shadow, which is normally denied whenever possible or at least not spoken of." (page 66)

"Nature, as we know, is not so lavish with her boons that she joins to a high intelligence the gifts of the heart also. As a rule, where one is present the other is lacking and where one capacity is present in perfection it is generally at the cost of all the others." (page 66)

Man is capable of terrible acts but we do not see the evil in ourselves, it's always other people that do these things. Each of us has a share of human nature and therefore has the capacity and inclination to do evil things. Our human nature means that we are always potential criminals. Projection of evil onto another strengthens the other because the fear we feel for our own evil is also projected. What we call evil is lodged in human nature as the equal and opposite to 'good'. Denial of evil in ourselves leads to further unconscious dissociation in man.

The unconscious communicates with us through spontaneous ideas, intuition and hunches.

"fear of the evil which one does not see in one's own bosom but always in somebody else's checks reason every time." (page 71)

The individual is a constituent part of society and organisations which are the sum of their parts. They too always see the evil in the opposite group.

Attempts are made to level out social contrasts by applying idealism and ignoring the individual and group shadow. To be ideal is impossible - it goes beyond human capacity. We need to acknowledge imperfection in our human relationships to create real cohesion and a strong society.

"Insight that dawns slowly seems to me to have more lasting effects than a fitful idealism, which is unlikely to hold out for long." (page 74)